As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the third and final section of its climate science review, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the report revealed “a litany of unfulfilled climate promises” by governments. that foster global warming failure to reduce emissions.
And while British Columbia has touted its own climate plan as one of the best in the world, climate experts and environmentalists point out that the province’s emissions continue to rise – in part due to continued investment in fossil fuels. .
e.g. climate design – the CleanBC Roadmap to 2030 released last October – target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 40% below 2007 levels by 2030, in part by raising carbon emissions, accelerating targets for zero-emission vehicle use and requiring industry to draw up plans for achieving regulated emission targets.
“Many climate experts say this is the top climate plan in North America. I will do my best to ensure we stay top of the world, Canada,” George Heyman told CBC News on Monday. , Minister of Environment and Climate Change of BC. following the publication of the IPCC report.
However, the province’s emissions have been increasing every year since 2015 for which data are available and have remained higher than 2007 levels.
Experts say the lack of a detailed plan for how BC will reduce its oil and gas emissions – and continued subsidies and investment in liquefied natural gas projects in the northern part of the province – undermine progress elsewhere and jeopardize to set outside the climatic targets of the province I reach.
The inhabitants of BC have experienced some of these predicted catastrophic weather events much earlier than expected, from catastrophic fires and floods to last summer’s deadly heat dome. (Jonathan Hayward / The Canadian Press)
George Hoberg, a professor at the UBC School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, said that while the plan may be more extensive than in some other provinces, it does not provide a detailed record of how the most polluting industries can realistically reduce emissions. their. quickly.
“It’s a fair statement about the content of the policy and the ambitions embedded in those policies – but not about the direction of our show or the guts of the politicians themselves,” Hoberg said of the “world-leading” claim. of Heyman.
“For example, we have promised to reduce oil and gas emissions in the province, but we have no plans to do so yet.”
Hoberg said the increase in BC emissions is, in part, a reflection of its growing population. And the province has outperformed some areas of its plan, using hydroelectric power to make the grid virtually carbon-free and exceeding its targets to increase the number of electric vehicles on the road.
“These things are very admirable – but this gas beast is out there and needs to be tackled, especially after 2030, so that BC can commit to global climate action,” he said.
Once completed, the $ 40 billion LNG Canada project will see a pipeline carrying gas from Dawson Creek to northeastern BC. to a new shore processing plant in Kitimat.
Heyman said the Phase 1 emissions from the LNG plant in Canada are calculated on the models defined by the CleanBC plan. The province said details of the program to reduce emissions from industries, including oil and gas, will be made public in 2023.
“We have made it clear in our roadmap for 2030 that we are committed to a 33 to 38 percent reduction in upstream and downstream emissions in the oil and gas sector. “This is part of our road map and we will judge this,” the minister said.
But Sierra Club BC, which is suing the province for failing to provide a detailed plan for achieving the broadcast targets, says full emissions from the LNG Canada terminal at Kitimat would make it almost impossible to reach the provincial targets.
“We had some good years reducing emissions 10 years ago, but then our efforts slowed down,” said Jens Wieting, an environmental activist.
“The NDP has restarted the carbon tax process, but both the previous Liberal government and the NDP government have supported more fracking and the construction of more LNG terminals, and that is a key part of the problem.”
The NDP’s CleanBC project is the latest iteration of a climate change strategy issued by successive Liberal and NDP governments since 2007 – neither of which has met their emissions targets.
In 2007, the Liberal government of the time set targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a third by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050. The province did not come close to achieving the first of these targets and when it became clear that BC. was not going to achieve its 2020 target, the NDP government barred it from provincial climate change legislation.
The authors of the IPCC report warn that global emissions must be reduced by 45 percent this decade to avoid rising temperatures of 2.4 to 3.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century – a level that would cause serious Climate impact for much of the world’s population.
Many inhabitants of BC. have already experienced some of the predicted catastrophic weather much earlier than expected – from catastrophic fires and floods to last summer’s deadly heat dome.
“It gives us a very scary challenge,” Hoberg said. “Given science, very few governments do enough compared to where we need to be.”
