Commentary on Sections Part 1 - Emissions Targets Section 11: Crediting and debiting of carbon units
This section enables the Department to set out in regulations the circumstances in which carbon units may or may not be credited to, or debited from, the Northern Ireland net emissions account and the Northern Ireland net emissions account for carbon dioxide. Section 59 of this Act defines what a carbon unit is.
Subsection (2) provides that the regulations must ensure that, where carbon units are used to reduce the net Northern Ireland emissions account, they are not also used to offset other emissions elsewhere. This could otherwise lead to “double-counting”.
Subsection (3) requires that any regulations made under subsection (1) set out a limit on the net amount of carbon units by which the net Northern Ireland emissions account for a period may be reduced through the debiting and crediting of carbon units. The subsection further restricts this limit to a maximum of 25% of emissions for a period.
Subsection (4) enables the Department to specify that carbon units of a certain description do not count towards any of the limits set. Subsections (5) to (8) deal with the crediting and debiting of carbon units to the Northern Ireland net emissions account for carbon dioxide and how any purchased carbon units will be apportioned to this account.
Advice will be sought from the Committee on Climate Change on these issues and what might be appropriate before the Department brings forward any regulations under the powers within this section.