Thanks for a well-written…

Thanks for a well-written document that seeks input into the policy direction for Ontario. In my view, I realized that some additional information would have been helpful in deciding the appropriate policy. Information such as:

1) the additional costs to industry of implementing Option 1. Will this be prohibitive?

2) Any sense of how much carbon can be sequestered under each policy option?

3) Do we know if any country/jurisdiction has successfully implemented an offset trading system? and if so what were the success factors?

These 3 questions seek to understand the feasibility of the two options.

Beyond that, it seems to me that other mitigation actions, such as long-term storage of carbon in buildings are not adequately addressed by either policy option. Maybe there needs to be a third policy option related to consumer actions that include long-term storage, use of biomass, etc., that are not part of options 1&2.

Having said all that, I strongly believe that Option 1 holds more promise in terms of certainty and ease of implementation than Option 2. A major drawback of Option 2 is the difficulty of ensuring that sequestered carbon is permanent and not released prematurely. The risk of forest fires is just so high that investors will be almost scared to imagine all their carbon credits go up in smoke. They can buy insurance, but then, it further increases the cost of the program.

[Original Comment ID: 207752]