Saturday, January 28, 2017

Cap And Trade: Alaska, California, Forests, Coal -- January 28, 2017

I may have this wrong, but this is how I read this story from Penn Energy:

Alaska Aleut, Eskimo, and Indian shareholders
  • Chugach Alaska Corporation
  • Alaskan's Prince William Sound
  • natives rely on commercial fisheries and a subsistence lifestyle
  • want to protect 115,000 acres of its forested land from development and coal acreage from development
Meanwhile, California has strict "cap and trade" laws
  • California CO2 emitters will "buy" ("protect") that Native American forested land from developement
  • CO2 emitters will purchase "credits" from the Chugach Alaska Corporation
  • terms are confidential 
  • the agreement will also buy/sell coal rights on 62,000 acres on behalf of New Forests, a sustainable forestry investment firm; forests to Nature Conservancy and Native Conservancy land trust; coal will not be developed
  • of the land being protected, the forest and the coal field overlap on 11,000 acres
Precedent / Future
  • for forests, this is not an unusual move
    • other states protecting forests: Michigan, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, Wisconsin, Arizona
    • other Alaska Native corporations pursuing similar projects
  • the "coal" angle is setting a new precedent

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