headwaters forest photo by Greg King
Pacific Gas & Electric (PCG), one of the nation’s largest utilities, will calculate its California customers’ individual greenhouse gas emissions based on their energy usage, giving homes and businesses the option to go carbon neutral by paying a small surcharge on their monthly bill that corresponds to how many pounds of carbon dioxide they acutally emit. PG&E will then use that money to finance environmental projects that reduce greenhouse gases by an equivalent amount. The ClimateSmart program – the first of its kind – differs markedly from other "green guilt" programs that allow people to pay extra to support a utility’s purchase of renewable energy. In this case, PG&E customers are paying for real-world reductions in their actual contributions to global warming, according to the utility. PG&E will initially invest in California forestry projects. That’s because trees act as carbon sinks, absorbing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. PG&E spokesman Keely Wachs said the utility will preserve forests in danger of being logged as well as pay for new tree planting. "Not only are these projects great ways of reducing CO2 emissions but there are many great environmental co-benefits associated with them," he told Green Wombat. "If we preserve an old-growth forest area with a stream running through it, we also can preserve salmon and other wildlife."
He said ClimateSmart will launch in mid-2007 and PG&E will soon begin taking bids from landowners, non-profits and others for forest preservation projects. While tree-planting and forest conservation can prove effective in cutting greenhouse gases – just how effective is a subject of scientific debate – the benefit disappears if fire or disease destroy the woodlands. And of course the full impact on global warming from planting 
new trees will be years off. Still, PG&E expects ClimateSmart will take at least 2 million tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere in its first three years, which would be like removing 350,000 cars from the road for 12 months. If the program is successful PG&E will expand ClimateSmart to include other carbon neutral projects, though Wachs
wouldn’t specify what those might entail.
Leading the green charge in a brown industry, PG&E itself will commit $1 million to the
program and expects to raise at least $20 million from customers in its first three
years. The non-profit California Climate Action Registry and independent auditors will
certify that ClimateSmart results in actual reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, the utility said. The ClimateSmart surcharge will average about $4.31 a month and participating customers’ utility bills will show their monthly greenhouse gas emissions. "It educates our customers and the broader public about the impact of their energy usage," says Wachs.
Green Wombat 
How about taxing PG&E on its CO2 emissions and using those tax dollars to combat global warming? I’m not a fan of the govt doing just about anything but they would be better than a violator like PG&E. That’s like having Exxon run a program to eliminate the use of gasoline. Tax the heck out of the utilities and force them to come up with new ways of delivering energy cheaply & cleanly. Build wind farms instead of trees or at least do the calculation.
In response to Gamley:
Actually this CliamteSmart program is in addition to consiredable requirements already on PG&E. THese include the carbon cap requirements of A.B. 32 passed last year by the State Legislature, plus the requirement that PG&E and other CA utilities achieve 20% renewable energy by 2010 (the RPS Renewable Portfolia Standards), and major Energy Efficiency targets that the big CA utilities all have to comply with. If only the Federal level put such requirements on ALL utilities.
Most people don’t know it, but if you check the CA Energy Commn “Content Label,” you will see that PG&E’s electric mix is over 50% non carbon-emitting already — it is one of the cleanest of any major utility in the country, and getting cleaner every year as more and more renewables come on line under RPS requirements. The Climate Smart program is in addition to all those requirements — like icing on the cake to let customers invest in doing even more. It doesn’t replace mandatory climate change efforts, which PG&E was the only CA utility and only one of a few major corporations to support (AB 32), while the CA Chamber of Commerce actively opposed it.
So I have to disagree with your assertion that PG&E is a “violator.” It is in compliance with all these other requirements. And it has been a leader for mandatory regulations on carbon emissions – requirements which, in CA, really has to address all sectors because electric utilities’ emissions are only 20% of the CA carbon emissions “pie” — the biggest sector is transportation at 42% making clean fleets, a major area for improvement despite the automakers and oil companies’ resistance.
It would be a whole lot easier to make meaningful progress on necessary climate change regulations if other utilities and companies in other sectors of the economy were a behaving lot *more* like PG&E.