Washington state officials have issued a correction after they were caught exaggerating the benefits of state spending to curb climate change.
Proceeds from the state’s quarterly auctions of carbon dioxide permits are keeping far less pollution out of the air than officials have been claiming.
Since the first auction in February 2023, major polluters in Washington have paid $5 billion for the right to keep heating the planet under the state’s cap-and-invest program. …
In November, a report from the Washington Department of Ecology said the first two years of auction proceeds would keep more than 8.6 million metric tons of pollution out of the air.
“That’s the equivalent of taking 40% of all gas and diesel vehicles in Washington off the road for a whole year,” an Ecology press release stated.
Yet that claimed carbon benefit was 28 times higher than the reality. …
“Those errors overwhelmingly inflate the program’s apparent success,” Washington Policy Center Vice President Todd Myers said in a press release. “When a handful of dubious projects account for the vast majority of claimed emissions reductions, basic credibility collapses.” …
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