Author: WM

The Reporting Regulation (the Regulation) is a new regulation under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Cap and Trade) Act that has come into force on January 1, 2010. The Regulation requires facilities in British Columbia that emit over 10,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases (GHGs) annually to report their emissions.

The Regulation has been designed to allow for a single reporting window with Environment Canada, which aims to create administrative simplicity for industry stakeholders. The Regulation sets out requirements for facilities with GHG emissions from a number of activities within B.C. to report GHG emissions to the Ministry of Environment (MOE).

One of the key objectives of the Regulation is to facilitate an accurate and transparent reporting mechanism, which will support properly functioning cap-and-trade system. As such, the Regulation specifies among other criteria:

· GHGs subject to reporting;

· level of emissions requiring reporting;

· facilities required to report;

· quantification methods to be used in reporting;

· requirements and procedures for annual reporting;

· verification mechanisms; and

· compliance obligations.

Below is an overview of the reporting specifics:

· all six main GHGs included;

· 10,000 tonne carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) reporting threshold;

· 25,000 tonne CO2e verification threshold;

· upstream oil and gas; (ii) natural gas transmission and distribution; (iii) electricity transmission and distribution; and, (iv) oil pipeline transportation emissions are aggregated into “linear facilities” to determine whether the 10,000 tonne reporting and 25,000 verification thresholds are exceeded;

· carbon dioxide from wood biomass, or the wood biomass component of mixed fuels, is not included in the determination of thresholds;

· first requirements (data collection and management) for reporting operations start on January 1, 2010;

· not applicable to public sector organizations, except for BC Hydro and BC Transmission Corporation electricity generation or electricity transmission;

· not applicable to emissions of landfill gas as defined under the Landfill Gas Management Regulation;

· registration to occur by April 1, 2010;

· annual emissions reports, beginning with the 2010 calendar year, required by March 31 of the following year;

· facilities with emissions greater than 20,000 tonnes of CO2e in any year between 2006 and 2009 must report these emissions along with the 2010 emissions report submitted in 2011;

· a facility may calculate emissions using alternative methodologies for the lower of 3% of the facilities total emissions, or 20,000 tonnes;

· for the 2010 calendar year, a facility may measure a specific parameter using alternative methods inconsistent with those prescribed in the regulation (approval is required for this after March 31, 2010);

· MOE may publish emissions data from major source categories;

· a facility may request that certain data remain confidential; and

· Western Climate Initiative quantification methods are required to be used (where these do not exist, required methods are specified by the MOE).

Below is an overview of verification specifics:

· verification to a reasonable level of assurance;

· 5% materiality threshold applies;

· verification statements to be submitted by September 1 of the following year for 2010 and 2011 reports (thereafter the verification deadline is the same as the reporting deadline, April 1);

· verification to be completed by an independent third party verification body, accredited by the Standards Council of Canada or the American National Standards Institute in accordance with ISO 14065;

· for verifications completed before Dec. 31, 2012, verifiers can be accredited by the California Air Resources Board; and

· conflict of interest requirements for verifiers apply.

Activities covered include:

· General Stationary Combustion

· Mobile Equipment Fuel Combustion (except for linear facilities; generally on-site, off-road equipment)

· Aluminium or Alumina Production

· Ammonia Production

· Carbon Dioxide Transportation (linear facility)

· Cement Production

· Coal Mining from Underground Mines

· Coal Storage at Facilities that Combust Coal

· Copper or Nickel Smelting or Refining

· Electricity Generation

· Electricity Transmission (linear facility)

· Electronics Manufacturing

· Ferroalloy Production

· Glass Manufacturing

· Hydrogen Production

· Industrial Wastewater Processing

· Lead Production

· Lime Manufacturing

· Magnesium Production

· Natural Gas Transmission, Natural Gas Distribution or Natural Gas Storage (linear facility)

· Nitric Acid Manufacturing

· Oil and Gas Extraction and Processing Activities (linear facility)

· Oil Transmission (linear facility)

· Petrochemical Production

· Petroleum Refining

· Phosphoric Acid Production

· Pulp and Paper Production

· Refinery Fuel Gas Combustion

· Zinc Production