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Program Design and Implementation

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:

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:

Today, California, QuébecNova Scotia 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 North America.