WCI, Inc.’s mission is to support its Participating Jurisdictions in their development and collaborative implementation of greenhouse gas emissions trading programs.
Program Design
In 2007, a group of Western U.S. states and Canadian provinces, known as the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) partnership shared ideas on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trading systems. These ideas helped inform the development of economy-wide emissions trading programs in California and Québec.
This collaborative effort to identify, evaluate and implement emissions trading policies to tackle climate change at a regional level resulted in:
- 2008 Design Recommendations for the WCI Regional Cap and Trade Program.
- 2010 Design for the WCI Regional Program, which provides a roadmap to inform the WCI Partner jurisdictions as they implement the emissions trading program in their jurisdictions.
- 2010 Offset System Essential Elements Final Recommendations Paper.
- 2012 Final Recommendations Offset System Process.
Implementation to Date
In October 2011, WCI, Inc., the
non-profit corporation, was created to provide administrative and technical
support to state and provincial governments implementing emission trading
programs to reduce GHG emissions. Since then, WCI, Inc. has steadily evolved to
develop the capabilities and secure, reliable, and robust services that have been supporting the:
- Implementation and continuous improvement of our centralized market registry and the auction and reserve sale application.
- Execution
of allowance auctions, including the
first stand-alone auctions for California, in November 2012, for Québec,
in December 2013, for Ontario, in March 2017, for Nova Scotia, in June 2020, for Washington, in February 2023, as
well as the First California-Québec Joint Auction, in November 2014, and the first of two California-Ontario-Québec
Joint Auction in
February 2018.
- Completion of three Compliance Periods for California (2013-2014, 2015-2017, 2018-2020) and for Québec (2013-2014, 2015-2017 and 2018-2020), as well as one Compliance Period for Nova Scotia (2020-2022), where regulated entities surrendered the necessary allowances to cover their greenhouse gas emissions.
- Other activities which enabled the onboarding of new jurisdictions, the linking of California and Québec programs in 2014, and the offboarding of Ontario and Nova Scotia in 2018 and 2024, respectively.
Today, California, Québec, and Washington are continuing to develop and implement their emissions trading
programs. California and Québec have linked their separately managed economy-wide
emissions trading programs, which has created the largest carbon market in
the Americas.
