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In many countries and in specific carbon tax regimes in Canada, carbon offsets or carbon credits can be purchased from projects that capture or reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions. Shell says it’s hopeful that a more widespread regulatory regime and market for carbon offsets will be developed in Canada.
The company is confident that Canadians will choose to participate in the program and pay an additional 2 cents per litre for their gasoline in addition to the carbon tax they currently pay, which amounts to roughly 7 cents per litre for gasoline in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick this year. In B.C., drivers pay a carbon tax of roughly 9 cents per litre for gasoline.
Crothers said the program will allow consumers that can’t afford to buy an electric vehicle to offset their emissions. The offsets will initially come from the Darkwoods Forest Carbon Project, which is a Nature Conservancy of Canada project to protect 630 square kilometres of inland rainforests and old-growth forests.
Shell Canada’s Hague-based parent company Royal Dutch Shell Plc began rolling out the program in the Netherlands in 2018 that allowed customers to opt-in to an extra charge of one euro cent per litre of gasoline they purchased, which would be used to purchase carbon offsets. The program then expanded to the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Denmark.
Crothers said roughly 10 per cent to 12 per cent of customers in Europe opted into the program when it was initially rolled out but participation rate has increased over time to roughly 20 per cent, which he described as “phenomenal.”
