Dear Will and Kate,

Welcome to beautiful British Columbia!

You are getting a pretty epic tour this week — from Victoria and Vancouver to Bella Bella (sorry about the rain) and Haida Gwaii. All of us watching the photo-ops are pretty jelly to be honest.

Here’s the thing though: I’ve noticed you’re hearing plenty of platitudes about “protecting the environment” from our good-looking leaders, B.C. Premier Christy Clark and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

I know you’re smart people, so I don’t want you to be fooled by their looks — or their words.

Don’t get me wrong: B.C. truly is a glorious place — the type of place you can fly over in a seaplane and easily think the wilderness will never end.

But it’s also one of the world’s last frontiers and the race is on to cut down our old-growth forests, to send more oil tankers into our ports, to build natural gas plants in our salmon estuaries and to flood our rivers for megadams.

Here are a few things I thought you ought to know about B.C. (and which I’m doubtful you’ll hear from Justin or Christy).

1) Despite all the photo ops about adding the Great Bear Rainforest to the Queen's Commonwealth Canopy, I’m sure you’d like to know that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is dragging his heels on banning oil tankers from the Great Bear Rainforest.

Prince William, I heard your speech in Bella Bella and I couldn’t agree more with what you had to say about nature being “fundamental to the health of our societies.”

Prince William and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, visit the Great Bear Rainforest which was dedicated to the Queen's Commonwealth conservation program during the royal visit. Photo: Province of B.C.

That’s why it’s so ridiculous that First Nations are still fighting Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline proposal, which would introduce hundreds of oil tankers a year loaded with oilsands bitumen to the Great Bear Rainforest.

Not only are the oilsands incredibly polluting to begin with, but a bitumen spill in the ocean would be virtually impossible to clean up.

This year, Enbridge Northern Gateway’s approval was overturned in court due to the federal government’s lack of consultation with First Nations.

Plus, during the election, Trudeau made an explicit promise to ban oil tankers in the Great Bear Rainforest. Not only has he not done that, but he’s also expected to approve the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain oilsands pipeline to Vancouver by the end of the year, despite being opposed by local municipalities and First Nations.

Now that you’ve seen what’s at risk, seems worth writing home to Granny about, doesn’t it?

2) Canada (and the Crown) is breaking its promise to First Nations.

Kate, I saw that smile on your face while you watched the dancers in Bella Bella. First Nations have been living off the bounty of this coast since time immemorial.

And when the English and the French came along, many First Nations agreed to share their lands in an act of good faith.

During the treaty-making process, First Nations entered a relationship with the crown on an equal footing.

The Royals in Bella Bella, B.C. Photo: Province of B.C.

But that agreement has since “been tainted and soured” Assembly of First Nations national chief Perry Bellegarde told The Guardian.

“We didn’t basically share all the land and resource wealth in Canada to perpetuate poverty and colonisation and genocide,” Bellegarde said.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, made headlines around the world this week for refusing to attend a ceremony with you at Government House on Monday night, calling it a “public charade.”

Your itinerary is pretty insane, so I doubt you had time to read about why he wasn’t there, so let me bring you up to speed.

What Prince William & Kate Really Need to Know About B.C. https://t.co/8Vsk6RtkOE #FirstNations #PNWLNG #Enbridge #SiteC #bcpoli #cdnpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) September 28, 2016

Phillip and the chiefs of the 115 First Nations his organization represents decided it would not be appropriate “to feed into that public illusion that everything is okay.”

He noted the crushing poverty faced by indigenous communities, missing and murdered women and the number of children in government care, as just a few examples of how everything is very not okay.

Phillip was to hand a symbolic ring of reconciliation to you, Prince William, and invite you to affix it on a special ceremonial staff, called the Black Rod.

“These events are tightly scripted. There is no speaking,” Phillip told the Victoria Times Colonist. “Had I been accorded the opportunity to speak to [the royal family] and express a different view things might be different. But that wouldn’t serve the illusion of peace and harmony.”

May we suggest you take the time to give the Grand Chief an ole ring-a-ding once you get home?

Prince William and Kate visit the Great Bear Rainforest. Photo: Province of B.C.

3) As you tour our province’s gorgeous environment with your tagalong Premier Clark, we thought you’d like to know that at this very moment the Peace River valley in northern B.C. is being destroyed for a megadam authorized by the provincial and federal governments.

The Site C dam — still being challenged in court by First Nations — would flood more than 100 kilometres of river valley, including farmland and First Nations hunting and fishing areas. Worse, the chair of the government’s own panel says it isn’t needed.

So why is Clark pushing ahead with its construction? Inertia basically. She has a story and she’s sticking to it. And jobs, right? Jobs funded with our own taxpayer dollars (to the tune of $9 billion), but jobs nonetheless.

4) Speaking of people who’ve been sharing your photo ops, your new buddy Justin Trudeau just approved a giant natural gas export terminal in critical salmon habitat on Tuesday.

If it gets built, it could be the single largest emitter of greenhouse gases in Canada. And it makes meeting our climate targets virtually impossible. We don’t think Prince Charles would be too pleased about that.

While Trudeau has been talking a good talk on the global stage, he’s yet to walk the walk at home.

British Columbia is already facing intense wild fire seasons and our forests have been ravaged by pine beetles because our winters don’t get cold enough any more.

So for all the beautiful photo ops, please know the truth is much more complicated.

You, like millions of visitors a year, come here to see what B.C. is known for: untarnished nature, wild beaches, free-flowing rivers, intact indigenous cultures. Let’s keep it that way.  

Image: Province of B.C. via Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The federal government has issued an approval for the $36-billion Pacific Northwest liquified natural gas (LNG) export terminal on Lelu Island on the B.C. coast, undermining its commitments to take action on climate change.

Tuesday’s decision — announced an hour behind schedule in Richmond, B.C., by a trio of ministers including Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna — means it will be virtually impossible for B.C. to meet its climate targets.

The announcement was seen as the litmus test on whether the Liberals would live up to its climate promises.

“With today’s decision on the Pacific NorthWest LNG project, Minister McKenna made it much more difficult for Canada to meet its climate targets and signaled that it’s OK for provinces to miss their own emissions targets," said Matt Horne of the Pembina Institute.

"If built, Pacific NorthWest LNG will be one of the largest carbon polluters in the country and a serious obstacle to Canada living up to its climate commitments."

Pacific Northwest LNG — wholly owned by the Malaysian government and boasting a questionable human rights record — lobbied the federal government 22 times between February 1 and April 21 this year, including meetings with McKenna and her chief of staff Marlo Raynolds.

The project will involve scaling up fracking in northeastern B.C., building a pipeline to the West Coast and constructing an export terminal on Lelu Island, near a crucial area for juvenile salmon.

The Pacific Northwest LNG project is expected to emit 9.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent annually — equal to 1.9 million cars.

By 2050, the entire province of B.C. is supposed to emit 13 million tonnes of carbon pollution. With this approval, meeting the climate target becomes an impossibility.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark had already torpedoed any credibility she had on climate change when she announced her widely criticized “climate action plan” this summer.

On Tuesday she trotted out her go-to myth that exporting LNG will reduce emissions in other parts of the world — which was quickly shot down. 

“Despite claims to the contrary, the production and export of LNG from B.C. has not been demonstrated to help reduce global emissions. Stronger climate policies — not increased fossil fuel production — are what we need to position the British Columbian and Canadian economies to thrive in a low-carbon future," Horne said.

Honeymoon Over for Liberals

The federal Liberals were riding on the coattails of their election promises and climate commitments made in Paris

Now the honeymoon is over.

“For British Columbians and all Canadians concerned about salmon habitat, climate change and reconciliation with First Nations, today’s decision is profoundly troubling,” said Christina Smethurst of Dogwood, B.C.’s largest citizen group. 

“It does not restore public trust in the federal environmental review process.”

The announcement comes on the heels of the Liberals pledging to repair relations between Canada and First Nations, but then approving permits for the Site C Dam against their wishes (the dam has been pushed by Clark in part to power the fracking fields in northeastern B.C. that will feed the Pacific Northwest LNG export terminal).

Adding to the heap of broken promises, the Liberals are also expected to approve the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline to Vancouver sometime before Christmas.

“Nation-to-nation” rhetoric is awfully convenient until you have to live up to it.

It’s also one thing to care about climate change as a concept and quite another to have the guts to turn down a project when you’re being barraged by lobbyists.

A refusal of Pacific Northwest LNG would have proven the federal government is one willing to make tough decisions to live up to its promises  — one that would refuse a project if it put climate targets out of reach. One that would invest in renewables, energy efficiency and public transit infrastructure.

Perhaps, one day, we’ll see some real change.

On the bright side, there are doubts Pacific NorthWest LNG will even be built.

“As the cost of renewable energy continues to fall, it is increasingly uncertain that LNG exports can compete in Asian markets,” Merran Smith of Clean Energy Canada said.

A new world is coming. Question is: will Canada compete in it?

Photo: Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr, Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna, Premier Christy Clark and Fisheries Minister Dominic Leblanc. Photo by Province of British Columbia.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The federal Liberals are under fire on a number of environment fronts, most notably over the Site C dam and the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline.

And rightfully so.

But sometime in the next few weeks, the federal Liberals will announce their verdict on whether the massive Pacific Northwest LNG export terminal can go ahead or not.

(In fact, given that the environment assessment has been wrapped up and submitted by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, cabinet may already have met and made their decision.)

And this verdict will be a very real window into how seriously the federal government is going to take climate change, its 2030 greenhouse gas emissions targets and Paris Agreement obligations. It’s a very big deal.

Here are a few things you need to know about liquified natural gas and the proposed Pacific Northwest LNG export terminal to give the announcement some context.

What the heck is LNG?

So you happen to have a bunch of natural gas. As the name suggests, it’s fairly gaseous and thus difficult to transport.

To get around that problem, you “liquify” it by removing pollutants, water and mercury, and cool it to a chilly -160°C. That reduces the volume of the gas by over 600 times. It’s then “regasified” on the other end.

The whole process is very complex and energy-intensive, consuming the equivalent of about 20 per cent of the gas along the way.

What You Need To Know About the Impending Pacific Northwest LNG Decision https://t.co/EnQleM63qF #bcpoli #Skeena #PNWLNG via @james_m_wilt

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) September 23, 2016

What are the economics of LNG?

David Hughes — a geoscientist and expert on unconventional fuels — estimates the liquefaction, shipping, storage and regasification process costs between $5 and $6 per thousand cubic feet of natural gas (also known as Mcf).

Actual production of the shale gas from northeast British Columbia costs between $3 and $4 per Mcf.

But there’s a global oversupply of natural gas given the massive scale-up of shale gas production in the United States, Russia and Australia over the past few years. The price of LNG in China is now in the neighbourhood of $8 per Mcf, meaning Canadian exporters would be taking a loss of around $2 per Mcf.

As a result, not a single LNG company has made a final investment decision in B.C. AltaGas permanently shelved its project. LNG Canada has put its project on hold. Chevron’s Kitimat LNG project has been repeatedly pushed back.

How has the government responded?

Despite that, since 2013 B.C. Premier Christy Clark has repeatedly pledged to facilitate the construction of a massive LNG export sector, mythically leading to 100,000 jobs and a $100 billion prosperity fund.

Prices and demand have continued to plummet since then.

To help the shoddy investment climate, the government created a controversial 25-year deal in the summer of 2015 that locked in low tax rates, carbon tax and the legislation controlling LNG-related emissions; if the province broke that agreement it would have to compensate affected companies.

This legislation followed a 2012 decision to omit LNG facilities and associated emissions from the province’s Clean Energy Act’s energy requirements, and federal tax breaks announced by Stephen Harper in early 2015.  

A pledge was also made in the province’s recently released Climate Leadership Plan to help subsidize the electrification of upstream natural gas facilities, presumably to help reduce emissions from increased LNG exports.

Where would the gas come from?

Largely from fracking in the Montney and Horn River shale gas plays of northeast British Columbia, with the other 15 or so per cent coming from conventional sources.

Why care about Pacific Northwest LNG specifically?

Good question.

After all, Woodfibre LNG received a federal approval in March, and the proposed LNG Canada facility near Kitimat is fully permitted. Another 17 export terminals of various sizes are currently proposed.

Ultimately, the $36-billion project matters because of its potential climate impacts and catastrophic impacts on wild salmon populations in the watershed of the Skeena River.

It’s such a hot-button issue that the federal government delayed a decision for three months in order to obtain more info.

Plus, due to Pacific Northwest LNG being owned by Petronas — which itself is wholly owned by the government of Malaysia and has a questionable human rights record  — the actual motivations may be slightly different, possibly pertaining to energy security and diversifying supplies as well as potential profit.

This could mean that Pacific Northwest LNG has a greater chance of being built than privately owned companies, like LNG Canada (a joint venture led by Shell).

What would be the climate impacts of Pacific Northwest LNG?

Just enormous. As in one of the largest single sources of emissions in the country.

If built, Pacific Northwest would account for between 75 and 80 per cent of total allowable emissions under B.C.’s 2050 climate target of reducing emissions 80 per cent below 2007 levels.

In late May, dozens of climate scientists signed an open letter to the federal government petitioning for the rejection of the project.

“We have to conclude that if built, PNW LNG will make it essentially impossible for B.C. to achieve its climate targets and that there’s an inherent disconnect between trying to build this project and being sincere about achieving our climate targets,” Pembina Institute analyst Maximilian Kniewasser said in a recent webinar on the subject.

The export terminal alone would emit about 4.9 million tonnes of emissions due to using natural gas for every operation (including liquefaction, processors, lighting and computers).

In contrast, Woodfibre would use electricity to run the plant and liquefy the gas, while the proposed LNG Canada project would use gas for liquefaction and renewable electricity for all other auxiliary demands.

The province’s Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act set an emissions intensity of 0.16 tonnes of carbon dioxide per tonne of LNG produced. Both Woodfibre LNG and LNG Canada fall below the benchmark due to the aforementioned plans (0.05 and 0.15, respectively).

But Pacific Northwest LNG would feature an emissions intensity of 0.26 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of LNG, well above the benchmark (Kniewasser acknowledged that Woodfibre-like intensities would be difficult given the location and timeframe of Pacific Northwest LNG, but that significant reductions could certainly be made).

And that doesn’t even include related upstream pollution, which will account for around 60 per cent of new emissions — between 6.5 and 8.7 megatonnes per year — due to vented methane and the burning of natural gas to run compressors to move gas through the system (which, as mentioned, the province tried to sneakily address in the new climate plan).

All up, Pacific Northwest LNG would annually emit between 11.5 and 14 megatonnes, requiring every other sector in British Columbia — transportation, electricity, buildings — to emit no more than three megatonnes a year by 2050 to meet the emissions target.

In other words, a complete impossibility.

And that doesn’t even factor in the likelihood that methane leakages are likely being underestimated: while the U.S. EPA assumes a rate of 1.33 per cent, B.C. assumes between 0.24 and 0.27 per cent. Pembina has calculated that this fact alone could almost double annual emissions from 11.5 to 21.3 megatonnes.

But wouldn’t LNG exports help other jurisdictions get off coal?

That’s certainly a popular talking point from the B.C. government; developing an LNG export industry was described in its 2014 throne speech as “the greatest single step we can take to fight climate change.”

That notion was forwarded again by a recent C.D. Howe report that suggested emissions could be reduced in China and India by displacing generation by older coal plants.

It’s a proposal that Matt Horne, Pembina’s associate regional director for British Columbia, doesn’t outright reject; he notes that if the methane is properly managed and terminals use electric drives rather than gas, total emissions could be less than coal-fired power plants.

But he emphasizes the government is incorrectly propagating the premise that any LNG exports will replace coal.

“We know that’s not the case,” he says.

“You can look at many cases where it’s competing with other gas supplies, in which case you’re sort of looking at a wash. You can also look at examples where it’s competing with renewables and in those cases you’ve got an increase in emissions. It’s that overall mix that’s going to be more important than one example of a competing fuel supply.”

David Hughes has also noted that given the rise of ultra-supercritical coal plants in China, burning LNG would actually produce 27 per cent more emissions over a 20-year period and only seven per cent fewer over the course of a century (his estimation is that LNG would likely be used in addition to coal, rather than replacing it).

So, yes. There may be some instances which allow for jurisdictions to replace coal-fired power plants. But the question is if that chance is worth British Columbia plowing through its climate targets, undermining the development of renewables and energy efficiency measures and locking in LNG use for another half-century.

So what can the federal government do?

Reject the project. Or approve with strict conditions of heavily reduced emissions. It’s clear at this point that an unconditional approval would undermine any and all promises the Liberals have made about taking climate change seriously, as well as commitments to repair the country’s broken environmental assessment processes.

Photo: Province of British Columbia via Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.