British Columbia’s modest climate gains are at risk after a wave of policy clawbacks this past year. 

According to the province’s recent accountability report — which reflects B.C.’s climate data on a two-year lag — carbon pollution declined by four per cent in 2023, meaning emissions are now nine per cent below the 2007 baseline. 

The province has also nearly halved methane emissions in the oil and gas sector from 2014, meeting this year’s target two years early. 

However, many climate measures that are just beginning to bear fruit, or will soon — such as the consumer carbon tax, electric vehicle (EV) rebates and sales mandates and net-zero requirements for liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects — have been pruned back or chopped entirely in 2025. What’s more, the province scrapped the promised oil and gas sector emissions cap and never delivered a clean transportation plan, although fossil fuel vehicles continue to account for 41 per cent of B.C.’s carbon pollution. 

As a result, the accountability report looks back at progress resulting from policies that now no longer exist, said Jens Wieting, senior policy and science advisor at Sierra Club BC. Yet the province doesn’t detail how it plans to drive down carbon pollution and its impacts on people’s health and pocketbooks, as climate disasters including record wildfires and floods, which recently devastated farmers in Abbotsford for the second time in five years, continue to occur, he said. 

Last year’s accountability report already indicated B.C. wasn’t on track to meet its 2030 carbon pollution target — a reduction of 40 per cent — yet the province has still slashed climate policies. 

“It’s irresponsible to leave people in the dark about what actions will be taken to get us closer to the 2030 targets, because climate change is a life and death issue, and that’s not reflected in this report,” Wieting said.

A “shocking” detail in the report was the amount of carbon pollution being generated by the increasingly severe wildfires fuelled by drought, he said. 

Wildfire emissions in 2023, the worst season on record, were six times higher than B.C.’s total carbon pollution for the year. The province tracks wildfire emissions but they aren’t included in provincial carbon pollution totals because B.C., like other national and international jurisdictions, considers wildfires to be natural rather than human caused — a policy that is heavily criticized by climate experts. 

“[Wildfire] carbon emissions in 2023 added up to over 400 million tonnes, which is almost incomprehensible,” Wieting said, adding the figures underscore the urgency of delivering carbon pollution reductions that limit global warming below catastrophic levels. 

The province highlights its work to reduce carbon pollution in the forestry sector with measures such as using waste wood more efficiently, or tree planting, but it fails to mention any steps or climate benefits tied to protecting old-growth forests that trap large amounts of carbon while protecting biodiversity, he added. 

“There isn’t any reference to protecting forests as part of climate action and that’s a huge concern,” Wieting said. 

“It would be one of the most effective, most immediate benefits for the climate to keep those enormous carbon pools protected in standing old-growth forests.” 

Consumers pay for scrapped policies

Aside from limiting efforts to reduce carbon pollution, B.C.’s climate rollbacks have additional drawbacks, said Tom Green, senior climate policy adviser at the David Suzuki Foundation. 

Nixing the consumer carbon tax and the associated rebate means there’s less incentive for households and businesses to make the switch to EVs and heat pumps, or invest in cleaner fuels or technology instead of burning dirty fossil fuels, he said. 

Weakening B.C.’s EV standards to match pending national policies also doesn’t make sense given the province’s former rebates and sales mandate drove one of the fastest uptakes of clean cars in the country, Green said, noting nearly 200,000 EVs are in use on B.C. roads. 

“We’re ahead of the curve; we don’t want to try and match northern Saskatchewan,” he said. 

The modest emissions reductions in the accountability report don’t demonstrate climate policies don’t work, but rather that they do and the province needs to truly double down, Green said. 

“I think the message is when we put in place good climate policy and we don’t sabotage it, change it and weaken it due to industry pressure, then we get results,” he said. 

The province’s push to develop LNG export projects while backtracking on carbon pollution rules will also wipe out any climate gains, and move the province in the wrong direction from both a climate and economic standpoint, Green said. 

“We’re trying to bring down carbon emissions across the economy but we’re growing this massive LNG export industry, which is going to blow any ability to meet climate targets out of the water and lock us into long-term fossil fuel infrastructure,” he said. 

Previously, proposed LNG projects like Cedar LNG, now under construction, or the massive Ksi Lisims LNG proposal awaiting a final investment decision, were required to have net-zero emissions by 2030 to get provincial approvals. 

But in March, Energy and Climate Solutions Minister Adrian Dix rolled back the pollution rules, stating LNG proponents only have to “provide a credible plan” to reach net-zero if they can’t plug into B.C.’s electrical grid by that date. In a related move to clean up carbon pollution by electrifying LNG production and export projects along with mining sites, the province is fast-tracking the $6-billion North Coast Transmission Line.

But LNG projects will demand a substantial amount of energy and potentially divert resources from the electrification efforts that truly curb global warming, Green said. 

“Any progress we’re making is largely because we’re electrifying the economy by adopting heat pumps and EVs or making homes more energy efficient,” he said. 

“But, if we don’t have electricity for all that because we’re giving it to LNG, we’re going to face challenges.” 

Political pressure on NDP government

Jeremy Valeriote, BC Green Party MLA for West Vancouver-Sea to Sky, said the province needs to show more political courage and vision to address climate change effectively.  

The boom in renewable technologies such as solar panels, which are increasingly affordable, as well as the uptake of EVs worldwide, is disrupting the myth that shifting to a clean economy is unaffordable. 

“Conservative operators might continue to try and use [that narrative] but it’s going to be much more difficult,” Valeriote said.

The province needs to do more to demonstrate the savings and advantages tied to the long-term life cycle costs of EVs or heat pumps over gas-burning cars and furnaces, which appear cheaper due to their initial cost, he added. 

In addition to continuing their fight against LNG and the proposed Alberta oil pipeline, the Greens will be pushing the NDP to start accounting for the long-term social and economic costs associated with carbon pollution and new oil and gas projects, including rising insurance, food, health-care, housing and infrastructure expenses, he said.

“Liabilities associated with some of our fossil fuels are going to come back to bite us,” Valeriote said. 

“People talk about fiscal responsibility, and I really think it’s important to remember that the best fiscal responsibility is avoiding some of these catastrophes.” 

Green agreed. The government’s decision to weaken climate policies despite the economic benefits of climate action is disappointing, he said. 

“One thing I don’t think the government is taking to heart anymore is that climate action is good for affordability. It’s good for jobs, good for quality of life,” he said. “It’s discouraging that despite all these good reasons to continue the course, we have a government that’s lost interest.”

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Knowledge Keeper and hunter Robin Louie is worried.

Worried his people’s food security, Traditional Knowledge and culture will suffer yet another hit with the dreaded arrival of chronic wasting disease in their territory in the southern Kootenays.

“It’s a serious issue,” said Louie, an executive with the Ktunaxa Nation Council, which includes four First Nations.

“Our nations generally eat a lot of wild game.”

On Tuesday, B.C. launched its first set of new rules to try to stem the spread of chronic wasting disease, also dubbed the zombie deer disease, after recently confirming two deer south of Cranbrook tested positive.

The fatal neurological disease has no cure and affects cervids like moose, deer, elk and caribou and is almost impossible to eliminate once it’s established in wild populations.

Caused by abnormal proteins, or prions, that collect in the brain, spine and lymph nodes, the disease in its late stages leaves animals extremely skinny and exhibiting strange behaviour like stumbling, drooling and increased drinking and urination.

The province has tracked the disease’s advance from the west and south of the U.S. border with increasing alarm — particularly after it was found in animal populations within 50 kilometres of the B.C. border with Alberta and Montana in recent years.

The disease has far-reaching social, economic and conservation impacts — especially for Indigenous populations that rely on hunting for traditional foods, the province’s 2023 chronic wasting disease response plan states.

U.S. research indicates the disease has caused deer and elk declines in some locations when disease within a population reaches 20 per cent and 13 per cent of the animals, respectively.

Threatened caribou populations are vulnerable to the disease and would likely make their recovery even more difficult, the response plan said.

The three most southern herds of endangered southern caribou in Ktunaxa territory are already extinct as a result of impacts to habitat from human activity.

Moose in the region are also increasingly under pressure from similar threats, like logging, road building, climate change, wildfires and recreational hunters who have drawn moose tags, noted Louie.

“We haven’t hunted a moose in six years because of the low numbers,” said Louie, also a councillor for the Yaqan Nuʔkiy (Lower Kootenay Band).

In his youth, he harvested three or four moose a year, Louie said. So, any potential threat to the deer and elk populations the band depends on is a concern, he stressed.

“We’re always worried that the elk and the deer are going to follow suit one day.”

Access to traditional food is essentially food security, Louie said, adding the Yaqan Nuʔkiy rely heavily on wild game.

“Usually the community eats about 30 elks and 60 deer a year and we’re a small community with a little over 100 people living on reserve,” he said.

“That’s a substantial amount of food.”

Harvesting game is also foundational to his nation and family’s culture, tradition and identity, said Louie, who takes his children, other youth and non-Indigenous people hunting. He also shares the preparation, rituals and spiritual relationship the Yaqan Nuʔkiy have with animals and their land.

“My job now is as a knowledge keeper, passing on what I got from Elders and my older family members,” Louie said.

“Our cultural knowledge has everything to do with the animals.”

Youth learn how to skin and process the meat and hides, sinew, bones and antlers for other uses and tools.

Meat is also medicine in the community, he said.

People who are sick will request specific parts of the animal, like fresh hearts, kidneys and livers, depending on their illness.

In honour of a successful hunt, youth are offered a portion of the fresh game as part of a traditional ceremony.

“When we kill our animals, we still hold up the kidney and heart to our kids, say our words and they choose to be a hunter or warrior or both,” Louie said.

“If our traditional practices cannot be passed on, our culture starts disappearing, and it’s already been impacted severely over the years.”

The heavy reliance of Indigenous people on wild game may also mean they face higher potential health risks from eating infected deer, elk, moose and caribou meat.

There is no evidence to date that chronic wasting disease has made the jump from animals to humans with fatal consequences like mad cow (Creutzfeldt-Jakob) disease did — another type of prion degenerative brain disease — after surfacing in British cattle in the mid-1980s.

Because of the unknown risk to humans, Canadian public health authorities warn that infected animals should not be handled or eaten.

Since some animals may not show symptoms, hunters in areas where chronic wasting disease occurs should get meat tested before anything is used or consumed, federal authorities state.

B.C.’s preliminary defence to chronic wasting disease is centred on the area where the first confirmed cases were found, working to confirm details and minimize transmission.

On Tuesday, the province ordered that any roadkill of moose, deer, elk and caribou in that immediate radius get mandatory testing. There are also restrictions on the transport or disposal of carcasses.

The disease’s hot zone includes south of Highway 3, south of Cranbook to the U.S. border, west to the Moyie Range and east to the Mcdonald Range.

Submitting deer heads for chronic wasting disease testing has been mandatory for licensed hunters in high-risk areas along the borders in the southeast Kootenays since 2019. However, harvesters with Treaty Rights in their territory weren’t necessarily subject to all the same requirements as licensed hunters.

Louie said the next step is to have information sessions and discussions with Ktunaxa members about the arrival of chronic wasting disease in their territory.

“We’ll look at submitting heads more often,” he said.

But waiting for test results will be a burden.

The community hunts when they require food and can’t necessarily store meat or wait for test results before eating it, he added.

“We really hope the government focuses on developing some sort of rapid test because nobody harvests more elk or deer than us.”

However, Louie is confident in Yaqan Nuʔkiy’s ability to track animal populations for outbreaks, gather vital information on transmission and partner with conservation authorities to tackle the problem.

Regular licensed hunters typically only have eyes on animals during the hunting season, but their community is on the land interacting and harvesting animals year-round, he said.

The strong relationship with deer and elk populations means the nation has a solid understanding of their behaviour and range patterns, Louie said.

“We monitor the animals so much that we know where they come from, what their schedule looks like, and the paths they travel,” he said.

“If they are in areas they shouldn’t be or start acting irrational, we’ll have a good heads up.”

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