The twisty logic of carbon credits

Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has agreed to sell clean energy credits to Microsoft, which has made promises to clean up its energy profile and make its operations carbon neutral by 2030.

This all sounds very laudable, but as far as I can tell, the OPG credits should not be considered carbon credits at all. Microsoft is paying OPG money to make its annual report look better, but OPG is not doing anything new to justify the credits. Yes, Ontario's energy production is reasonably green (if you count a significant proportion of nuclear energy, which may be carbon neutral, but is far from environmentally sound in other respects). But the money Microsoft is paying for the credits does not require OPG to do anything new, just to carry on doing what it was doing before. This is not my understanding of how carbon credits are supposed to work.

Another part of this same Globe article adds a new twist. The City of Ottawa, which buys its electricity from OPG like everyone else in Ontario, is officially objecting to OPG selling its clean energy credits outside the province to coal-burning jurisdictions seeking to improve their energy profile.

Once again, you might think this was a good thing: these other states and provinces obtain electricity with less carbon output, substituting some of their own dirty electricity with clean Ontario energy. However, Ottawa is arguing that "this is removing the environmental attributes from the electricity our community consumes". As an Environmental Defence lawyer puts it, "It's as if Ontario is back to burning coal, by giving other people an excuse to do so".

Now, hold on, does that make any logical sense? If a coal-burning state or province buys in some of Ontario's cleaner power, they have to generate less of their own dirty power. It works as an environmentally beneficial substitution, surely. It neither reflects badly on Ontario, nor on anyone else who buys Ontario's power. Nevertheless, Environmental Defence, which in other respects I would trust, are calling on Ontario Energy Board (OEB) to investigate OPG's practice of selling to coal-burning outsiders. This makes no sense to me.

This is just another aspect of the twisty pretzel logic that seems to operate wherever carbon credits are involved.