Nov 30 - CCAR Announces Commitment to Developing Recycling Protocols

The California Climate Action Registry publicly announced yesterday that they will begin to move forward on the development of a recycling /waste diversion protocol. This could provide a significant monetary incentive for diverting materials from landfills, and CAW applauds CCAR’s commitment to addressing this challenging issue.

The registry also adopted the Landfill Gas Capture Protocol (more information on this protocol can be found in our previous blog entries). Despite generally approving of the landfill protocol substantively, CAW was not able to fully support it due to removal of language that would have caused the protocol to sunset by 2013 if CCAR had not by then adopted a recycling protocol. CAW has consistently had concerns about the unintended consequences of a landfill protocol absent recycling protocols that would serve to balance the Landfill Protocol by putting recycling on a level playing field with landfilling.



Also, the ARB held the first public meeting to discuss the AB 32 Scoping Plan, which will outline how the ARB will achieve the GHG reductions under AB 32. Today’s meeting focused on the broad structure of the Scoping Plan, not on specific elements. CAW has advocated that waste reduction and recycling play a major role in achieving the AB 32 goals, and we will continue to do so throughout this process.

This is the timeline for the Scoping Plan (from the ARB website):

  • On December 14, 2007, ARB will hold a Sector-Based Workshop. Staff will provide an overview of the sectors responsible for the largest percentage of greenhouse gas emissions, and provide an overview of the staff's current thinking about potential emission reduction measures for the Scoping Plan. This workshop will be held at the Cal/EPA Headquarters Building in Sacramento and will be webcast.
  • January 16, 2008, ARB will hold a workshop on Alternative Mechanisms discuss the various mechanisms that are available to achieve the 2020 emission reduction targets, including direct regulations, markets, voluntary actions, and incentives. This workshop will be held in the Bay Area.
  • March 24, 2008, ARB will hold a Scenario Workshop to explore different emission reduction strategies. The staff will present different combinations of potential emission reduction measures and discuss preliminary analyses of the scenarios. This workshop will be held at the Cal/EPA Headquarters Building in Sacramento and will be webcast.
  • July 2008, ARB plans to hold a workshop on Draft Scoping Plan.
  • In November 2008, the ARB is scheduled to consider the Scoping Plan.
Lanh Nguyen