BC’s climate review says ‘build on what works’ — but LNG still blows a hole in the plan

A review of BC’s climate action plan released Wednesday zeroed in on what’s working rather than what isn’t — while acknowledging the province’s LNG ambitions remain a major stumbling block for climate action. 

Led by independent climate policy experts Dan Woynillowicz and Merran Smith, the CleanBC review focused on “renewal rather than retreat” and “practical and actionable advice” that scales up progress made by BC’s methane regulations, electric vehicle and electric fuel pump policies and increasing supply of biofuels. 

The province has increased gas production since 2014 by 60 per cent, but dropped methane emissions by close to the same amount, Smith said. More electric heat pumps, which heat and cool homes while reducing emissions, were installed in 2023 than gas furnaces. BC’s former electric vehicle rebates and sales mandates, currently under review, drove successful EV adoption rates, Smith added. 

The key theme is to “build on what’s working,” said Smith, founder of Clean Energy Canada, while those surveyed for the review highlighted the need for clarity and leadership from the province.

“We don’t need to have big promises of some new climate plan,” Smith said. 

“We need to actually just do what we’re doing right now and make it more effective as outlined, and to move forward with speed and purpose.” 

The review’s top recommendation is to speed the electrification of the province to reduce carbon pollution but also guarantee long-term competitiveness, Woynillowicz said. 

Businesses recognize future market demand will be for lower carbon products, he said. Aside from the US, Canada’s top 10 trading partners all have net-zero commitments and climate policies including carbon pricing, Woynillowicz added, with some countries and jurisdictions like the EU looking to impose tariffs against “polluting products.” 

CleanBC should also be geared to protect affordability, set ambitious but achievable targets and embrace innovation and new technology while recognizing regional differences, the climate experts said.

This might mean scaling back the pace of boosting energy efficiency in buildings (through BC’s Zero Carbon Step Code) in colder northern parts of the province, Smith said. 

“We want to focus on some of the actions that we can take that not only are going to reduce emissions, but they’re going to actually make life better for citizens, they’re going to create jobs here in British Columbia, or they’re going to attract investments.” 

There’s also a shift away from focusing on emissions targets which “weren’t meaningful to the public,” towards more understandable measures such as the number of heat pumps being installed, the number of EV chargers built or the number of green jobs created, Smith said.

“These are the kinds of indicators that make sense to people, rather than just talking about targets each year and [greenhouse gas] emissions,” she said. 

It was difficult to “square the circle” of expanding LNG and climate progress, the report notes, adding while making progress to reduce emissions.  

Rising emissions in the sector could outpace the gains made elsewhere, the experts said. 

“The math of emissions associated with new LNG is inescapable,” Woynillowicz said. 

There is economic uncertainty about the global LNG market in the decades ahead, and no evidence it will displace emissions from coal in other countries. Focusing on LNG expansion will come “with opportunity costs” that may draw resources and clean energy away from other sectors, such as mining for critical minerals necessary for transition to a low-carbon economy, Woynillowicz said.

Thomas Green, senior climate policy adviser with the David Suzuki Foundation, agreed with the report recommendations, including putting technical climate experts on the province’s Climate Solutions Council. 

The review was valuable in underscoring, if not addressing, the drawbacks of LNG expansion, Green said. 

“The incoherence that this independent review points out is a real problem,” he said.

“It’s a crazy economic strategy to be so focused on one sector, and it’s having an outsized impact on our emissions. It’s such a huge, huge economic risk,” he said. 

“I think this is a moment for British Columbians to push their government to start taking climate action seriously again.” 

Response to the review included praise and pushback. 

The BC Green Party stressed the review follows the NDP government’s elimination of the carbon tax, scrapping EV rebates and accelerating LNG production “all while the climate crisis becomes more expensive, disruptive and dangerous.” 

Jeremy Valeriote, MLA for West Vancouver-Sea to Sky, said the province, formerly seen as a climate leader, is now a “climate laggard.”

The review notes LNG expansion is incompatible with climate progress, but doesn’t offer direct recommendations to tackle “the elephant in the room,” he said. 

“The review didn’t go as far as we would have liked. The reviewers are trying to thread a needle here to figure out what’s politically possible.” 

The party was “dismayed” at recommendations to nix sectoral targets, the oil and gas emissions cap and 2030 emissions targets, while focusing on a yet-to-be realized domestic renewable natural gas supply as a means to reduce emissions in the province’s gas utilities sector.

Valeriote highlighted positive recommendations: funneling carbon tax revenue into pollution cuts, encouraging BC to reinstate its EV rebates, strengthening industrial carbon prices and methane rules, creating a youth climate corps and developing CleanBC’s goals with First Nations and alignment with the UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples.

The party will push for action on key measures when crafting its new cooperation agreement with the NDP government in the next couple of months, he said, adding the deal will likely be released in January. 

West Coast Environmental Law slammed the review as an “excuse for the BC government to lower its climate ambition” and said it downplayed the province’s inaction and failure to meet its targets.

“CleanBC’s targets were not unrealistic; they were just not taken seriously by the BC government,” said Andrew Gage, WCEL staff lawyer. 

BC could have met 2025 targets and be on track to meet 2030 thresholds, if the government had met the CleanBC pledge to ensure LNG development took place within climate targets and delivered promised climate programs in a timely manner, he said. 

The review’s recommendations, if implemented, will help reduce BC’s greenhouse gas emissions, WCEL acknowledged. 

However, BC’s track record of failing to implement climate plans raise fears that future action “will fall short of what is required” to protect British Columbians from climate change, Gage said. 

Rochelle Baker / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer