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As the trio of B.C. political party leaders arrived at CBC’s Vancouver offices last week for the only televised debate during the 2024 provincial election campaign, they were met by dozens of climate activists carrying red and white signs.

“Frack Free B.C. Protect our climate,” some banners read.

“Stop PRGT,” read another banner, referring to the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline that would carry natural gas from B.C.’s northeast to a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility on the coast. “No new fracked gas pipeline.”

For much of the fall campaign, environment and climate action policies have taken a back seat to promises to address affordability, health care and public safety. 

But as the conflict over the Prince Rupert pipeline heats up, with an on-going blockade on Gitanyow territory aimed at stopping the first phase of construction and a major government decision about the pipeline looming, the continued development of LNG in B.C. has stepped into the spotlight as a key environmental issue in the campaign. 

When it comes to the future of energy in B.C., all three major political parties — the BC NDP, the BC Conservatives and the BC Greens — are pitching a vision that includes plentiful, cheap electricity with an emphasis on clean power sources. But their views and policies about how to achieve that vision — and what exactly clean power means — vary widely.

With television and radio leadership debates over, the party platforms (mostly) published and voting day fast approaching on Oct. 19, here’s what you need to know about where the parties stand on key energy issues. 

Will the B.C. election mean the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline gets the green light to forego another environmental assessment? 

As government, the BC NDP green-lighted an LNG export industry, claiming stringent emission standards will allow the province to reap economic benefits while still meeting its carbon emission reduction targets, a position critics say is impossible to achieve.

BC NDP Leader David Eby once agreed with those critics, stating B.C. could not “continue to expand fossil-fuel infrastructure and hit our climate goals” during his 2022 campaign to succeed former premier John Horgan. Shortly after becoming premier, Eby reversed his position on the future of LNG in B.C.

The NDP maintains natural gas will displace more carbon-intensive coal-fired electricity in countries on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, a view the BC Conservatives have also enthusiastically embraced.

“We see it as a way to try to transition the global emission profiles of heavy emitters in other parts of the world, to help them with their energy needs,” Peter Milobar, a former BC United MLA who is running for the Conservatives in Kamloops Centre, said during a recent online candidates debate hosted by Organizing for Change, a coalition of non-profit groups focusing on environmental issues.

The claim that LNG is a crucial transition fuel for the world is widely disputed by critics, who point out that countries like China, often cited for its reliance on coal for energy production, are outpacing most nations in developing renewable energy projects. The benefits of LNG are also disputed in a new peer-reviewed study, which found exported gas has a larger carbon footprint than coal.

The Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline would ship natural gas from northeast B.C. to Ksi Lisims, a proposed floating liquefaction and export facility on the northwest coast — one of seven LNG projects proposed, approved or under construction in the province. 

The new provincial government will have to make a major decision about the pipeline. It will consider work done on the pipeline until Nov. 25 in its decision about whether to lock in the project’s original environmental assessment certificate indefinitely — by granting what’s called a “substantially started” designation — or to require a new environmental assessment.

Only the Greens are promising to restrict LNG development in B.C., pledging to phase out fracking operations, reject new LNG projects and direct the environmental assessment office to let PRGT’s environmental assessment expire. Following the leaders’ television debate, the party won plaudits from actor Mark Ruffalo for its anti-LNG stance. 

LNG: boost it, ban it or keep the status quo after the B.C. election?

During the leaders’ debate, BC Greens Leader Sonia Furstenau highlighted the similarities between the NDP and Conservative positions on LNG.

“They’re aligned on subsidizing fossil fuels, they’re aligned on building more LNG infrastructure in B.C. They’re aligned on continuing to drag us back to a fossil fuel age when the rest of the world is moving forward,” Furstenau said.

“Under the NDP, we’ve gone from zero LNG facilities to a potential of seven. We have a government that is all in on a fuel that is now proven to be worse than coal, that the International Energy Agency has said will leave B.C. behind because the demand will be gone,” Furstenau added, referencing a 2021 analysis that the world can reach net-zero by 2050 without further investment in fossil fuel sources.

If the Conservatives form government, the party promises to double the province’s LNG production. B.C.-based LNG export production won’t begin until next year when LNG Canada plans to start shipping liquefied gas overseas. The LNG Canada facility, in Kitimat, B.C., will be capable of producing up to 14 million tonnes of LNG per year.

Under Eby’s leadership, the government approved Cedar LNG — a Haisla Nation-led liquefaction and export facility that will receive gas from Coastal GasLink. Additionally, the BC NDP government issued construction permits for Woodfibre LNG, a liquefaction project in Squamish, B.C., that is majority owned by Indonesian billionaire Sukanto Tanoto’s Pacific Energy Company. Combined, the two facilities will produce about five million tonnes per year once operational.

Four other LNG projects are undergoing environmental assessments, including the Ksi Lisims LNG project. If approved, they could produce another 30 million tonnes of LNG per year, mainly from fracked gas.

The NDP’s election platform only mentions LNG once, saying some of the revenue raised from LNG projects will be directed into a “clean economy transition fund” to help “attract even more global investment in renewable fuels, clean tech, manufacturing and critical mineral mines.”

Asked twice during an Oct. 9 press conference whether his party would approve more LNG projects if re-elected, Eby avoided a direct answer.

“LNG or any other project, it needs to fit within our commitments around carbon pollution and for our energy action framework that means a realistic plan to be net zero by 2030, lifting up communities and creating opportunities for British Columbians,” Eby said in response to questions from The Narwhal.

The BC NDP’s energy action framework — unveiled the same day Eby announced his government’s approval of Cedar LNG — included a promise to implement a cap on emissions from the oil and gas sector in B.C. by 2026.

Electrification: Clean power is key to B.C.’s future — but what does clean mean to the NDP, Greens and Conservatives?

If there’s one policy area where all three parties are making similar promises, it’s electrification and the need for more energy generation. 

The Conservatives are pledging to “seize the opportunity to make our province a leader in clean, affordable and reliable energy” — including repealing B.C.’s ban on nuclear power generation. The NDP would make B.C. a “clean energy superpower,” while the Greens are calling for investments to “expand renewable energy while protecting our natural environment and our communities.”

Voters will need to read between the lines to understand some stark differences in what the parties are offering.

A Conservative government would consider “all power sources that could keep B.C.’s energy mix independent, low cost and green,” including nuclear, hydrogen, wind, solar and hydroelectricity. Electricity demand in the province is expected to double by 2050 — with the LNG industry consuming vast amounts of electricity — and the Conservatives claim the NDP has “no plan” to meet the increased demand.

The Conservatives have also promised to increase local power production in northwest B.C. by promoting the use of waste wood products sourced from local forestry operations and natural gas. Rustad described the northern transmission line — a project still in the planning stage that would extend a new transmission line across northern B.C. to help electrify industrial operations in the northwest — as “another boondoggle project” backed by the NDP, which wants federal taxpayers to pay half the $3-billion price tag.

If the transmission line isn’t built, it’s unlikely that future LNG projects will have access to the clean electricity needed to meet the current emission-intensity limits implemented by the NDP (although Rustad has promised to do away with those as well).

Neither of the Conservatives’ two power-related policy announcements mention climate action.

The NDP platform promises to double the province’s electricity generation by 2050 and upgrade transmission capacity to address demand. It took a step toward that when, in January, BC Hydro issued a call for clean and renewable energy project proposals, aiming to boost electricity generation by 3,000 gigawatt hours — enough to power about 270,000 homes or one million electric vehicles — per year by 2028. The invitation resulted in 21 proposals that could produce more than 9,000 gigawatt hours per year. Seventy per cent were wind projects. BC Hydro plans to issue subsequent calls for proposals every two years.

Eby also announced a big funding boost to BC Hydro’s 10-year capital plan to upgrade and expand power transmission capacity across the province.

The Greens’ platform also emphasizes local power generation — but only from renewable sources — along with improving energy storage capacity and energy efficiency policies. Solar power would get a boost, with $20 million dedicated to small-scale solar projects, with the goal of solar producing 15 per cent of the province’s energy by 2035.

The party would also invest in exploring the potential of geothermal power in B.C., including whether it would be feasible to repurpose technology currently being used in the oil and gas industry to produce geothermal energy. A $20-million investment would help train the skilled workforce needed to support the renewable energy sector, including offering retraining to people currently working in the oil and gas sector, according to the Greens.

What will the B.C. election results mean for net-zero goals?

For the past six years, the guiding light of B.C.’s climate policy has been the Clean BC plan, rolled out by the NDP government in 2018 in partnership with the Green caucus at the time. 

Clean BC includes legislated targets to reduce B.C.’s greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent below 2007 levels by 2030. By 2050, B.C.’s goal is to cut emissions by 80 per cent through policies aimed at boosting the use of electric vehicles and reducing emissions from industry, buildings and transportation. 

However, as Milobar, with the BC Conservatives, pointed out, B.C. is lagging on its emission reduction goals.

“We are five years away from 2030 and nowhere near that 40 per cent,” he said during the on-line environmental issues candidates’ debate. “I think it’s time, frankly, that we acknowledge we’re not going to hit that goalpost. It does not mean that we don’t still try to reduce emissions in British Columbia and also do our part globally, but to say that we are going to somehow magically go from essentially a higher [emissions] profile than we had in 2007 in the next five years, and find a 40 per cent reduction is simply not honest with people in British Columbia.”

BC Conservatives Leader John Rustad has said the party would eliminate Clean BC if elected, framing it as a costly reaction to an overblown issue.

“Our changing climate is not the most pressing issue facing us in B.C. or around the world,” a BC Conservatives statement read. “The Conservative Party of BC will not go down the rabbit hole of over-taxation, hype, scare tactics and false promises.”

During a leaders’ debate hosted by the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade on Oct. 2, Rustad said he would look at axing Clean BC to reduce government spending and avoid spending cuts to public services as the Conservatives attempt to reduce B.C.’s growing deficit.

While Clean BC barely features in the NDP platform, the party is promising to pursue policies aimed at reducing emissions, including the forthcoming emissions cap for the oil and gas industry, bulk-buying heat pumps and electrifying B.C. school buses.

The Green platform mentions carbon emissions 32 times — compared to nine references in the NDP platform — and the party is promising to develop a new climate action plan to cut down on emissions. The Greens would also ban the use of natural gas in all new buildings. The Conservatives would “reverse the NDP’s radical plans to ban natural gas heating,” although that’s not an accurate description of the former government’s proposal.

The NDP government did conduct a consultation on a proposal to introduce new energy efficiency standards for home and water heating appliances earlier this year. If implemented, the proposal would ban the sale of stand-alone heating systems that use oil or gas but allow dual fuel systems, including gas heating systems integrated with a heat pump.

What could change for electric vehicles after the B.C. election?

Another NDP policy a Conservative government would axe is the Zero Emission Vehicles Act. Passed in 2019 and amended last year, the law would ban the sale of new internal combustion engine light-duty vehicles — meaning cars, trucks, vans and SUVs but not heavier transport vehicles — by 2035, in line with federal targets. The law covers fully electric vehicles as well as plug-in hybrids.

By the end of this year, zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) are expected to account for 16 per cent of new vehicle registrations in Canada. In B.C. — home to nearly one-quarter of zero emission vehicles — more than 21 per cent of new vehicles registered in the first half of 2024 were considered to be zero emission.

The popularity of zero-emission vehicles in B.C. is partly due to provincial rebates for both personal and commercial vehicles, as well as investments in charging infrastructure. 

The NDP is promising to double the number of public electric vehicle chargers in B.C. by 2030. The Greens would also expand public charging infrastructure, offer incentives to people who want to convert their gas or diesel-powered vehicles to electric and set sales targets for medium and heavy-duty electric vehicles, similar to those currently in place.

The Conservatives have called the NDP’s plan to ban the sale of new internal combustion vehicles “radical” and are promising to repeal the Zero Emission Vehicle Act if the party wins the election.

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.

In the wake of a precedent-setting Indigenous Rights case in June 2021, B.C.’s ministry of energy did something rather unprecedented: it immediately cancelled summer auctions for new oil and gas tenures.

This sudden closure of oil and gas opportunities in response to the Blueberry decision — a B.C. Supreme Court ruling, which determined the province violated the Treaty Rights of Blueberry River First Nations by permitting and encouraging damaging industrial development — sent a shudder through the industry that continues to reverberate across the country today.

Documents released to The Narwhal through freedom of information legislation show petroleum and natural gas (PNG) lobbyists told public servants that B.C. could lose more than $90 million in annual revenue and up to 10,000 jobs as a result of the Blueberry decision. These stark warnings were then passed on to senior B.C. government officials, including Fazil Mihlar, deputy minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation.

Mihlar declined The Narwhal’s interview request.

“The ministry continues to receive information from PNG operators highlighting the impacts,” reads an Aug. 16, 2021 briefing note, which was heavily censored prior to being released to The Narwhal.

The internal document reveals the extent of influence major oil and gas industry executives have over information and advice that reaches the highest levels of the B.C. government.

In fact, the briefing note confirms the advice sent to Deputy Minister Milhar was largely based on “feedback” from two of the country’s most influential oil and gas industry lobby groups, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada.

This feedback included warnings that the court ruling was “significantly” affecting company cash flow and would make it difficult for companies to honour contracts as the province faced a “flight” of investments to other jurisdictions with “greater regulatory certainty.” It also warned that this would ultimately affect government revenues, social programs as well as indirect jobs related to industry.

A footnote in the document explained that the estimate of the risk of up to 10,000 job losses was based on an “extrapolation” of calculations done by Alberta-based oilsands giant, Canadian Natural Resources Limited.

When asked whether anyone in government analyzed or verified the claims and estimates prior to sharing them with the deputy minister, the ministry told The Narwhal in a statement that it “uses a number of best available information sources to derive an estimate of the potential economic impact” of the Blueberry decision.

It declined to identify any of those sources of information.

It’s unclear whether public servants provided any additional context to the government about how industrial activity was affecting Indigenous Rights or contributing to the climate crisis.

Experts say this paints a skewed picture of what would happen if B.C. reworked how fossil fuel projects are considered, reviewed and approved in light of Indigenous Rights and territorial claims, and also if the province shifted its focus to cleaner and less controversial forms of energy.

Document raises questions about advice provided to government officials in B.C.

Nancy Olewiler, an economist who previously served as a director of provincial organizations such as BC Hydro and Translink, explained that public servants are expected to provide complete advice to government, based on evidence, and be held accountable when they do not.

“Evidence-based research and analysis should be a core foundation for policy,” she told The Narwhal. “I don’t see how any decision-making process can go forward without aligning Indigenous Rights and Title and climate objectives.”

Former Vancouver city councillor Andrea Reimer said that the one-sided nature of the briefing note highlights a flaw in the structure of most governments. Reimer, who was a councillor at Vancouver City Hall from 2008 to 2018, said this level of influence can translate into stalled progress when it comes to policy.

“Governments are designed — at least in the colonial era… — to solve yesterday’s problems tomorrow,” said Reimer, now an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia’s school of public policy and global affairs.

She added that the briefing note’s portrayal of the oil and gas industry’s views reflects a “government that was designed to exist in a stable climate, a stable political environment [and] a stable social world where white people were dominant and other people were not,” she said.

“We need a mindset willing to accept that we need new tools — we can’t keep using the same old tools and get different outcomes.”

As Blueberry decision stalls activity in gas-rich Montney region, oil and gas lobbyists warn of investment ‘flight’

In its June decision, the B.C. Supreme Court concluded that decades of overlapping industrial development “significantly diminished the ability of Blueberry members to exercise their rights to hunt, fish and trap in their territory as part of their way of life.” 

B.C.’s northeast is home to the Montney shale gas formation, one of the largest natural gas deposits in the world and home to the province’s natural gas fracking boom. It’s also home to extensive forestry operations and sprawling hydroelectric developments, all of which cumulatively degrade the landscape. 

It’s these cumulative impacts which were at the heart of the Blueberry court case, meaning new projects in the area can’t be considered according to their localized impacts, but must be assessed for how they contribute to an already heavily industrialized landscape. 

The province of B.C. elected to not appeal the court’s ruling.

The internal briefing note provided a critical analysis of the government’s response to the court decision, explaining that the move by provincial officials to suspend permits and authorizations had “created economic risk and is impacting oil and gas activities in B.C.”

The revenue figures included in the note were based on an assessment of members conducted by the two oil and gas industry lobby groups. This assessment was “limited to priority projects and applications as reported by their members and represents approximately 40 per cent of [petroleum and natural gas] production in the province,” the briefing note stated.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers declined to respond to The Narwhal’s questions about whether it believed the advice sent to government was providing a complete picture of the regional economic situation.

But industry officials maintain that the impacts of the court ruling were stark and continue to reverberate as the government maintains a suspension on new oil and gas projects in the northeast part of the province.

Brad Herald, vice-president of Western Canada operations for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, told The Narwhal in an email that the industry was encouraging the province “to reach a long-term solution with the First Nations impacted by the court decision as soon as practical so producers with operations in the area can plan their activities and budgets for 2022 and beyond.”

Olewiler said there are a range of issues for the government to consider when responding to the Blueberry ruling. These could include addressing local needs such as protecting regions that are at risk of losing jobs to prevent any dramatic shifts.

“One memo should not be indicative of overarching government policy,” she said. “I think they’re genuinely trying to balance the different interests — every [minister’s] mandate letter has climate change in it and every mandate letter has Indigenous relations in it.” 

“How do you keep the economy afloat at the same time as meeting all these objectives?”

Maegen Giltrow, legal counsel for the Blueberry River First Nations, is working with the community on securing the details of a final agreement with the province. She said the current impacts of the ruling in the northeast are minimal.

“I’m not aware of there being job impacts or even financial impacts to date,” she said. “We had interim measures protecting core areas from forestry already. There’s still pre-approved forestry and drilling happening because they weren’t the subject of the court order.” 

“What companies are uneasy about is their ability to plan for the future.”

B.C. energy ministry estimates on job losses include those outside oil and gas industry: economist

While industry prepares for the worst, experts say the potential lost revenue flagged by lobbyists does not pose a threat to the province’s economy.

“The lid is now put on any expansion on new projects — that means there will be for the foreseeable future, no new drilling,” Werner Antweiler, energy economist and associate professor and chair of the University of British Columbia’s strategy and business economics division, told The Narwhal. “That’s not necessarily a big problem for the province overall.” 

He explained the sector has “a relatively small share” in B.C.’s economy, noting the service industry represents around 76 per cent of the province’s gross domestic product as compared to the oil and gas sector, which represents 1.2 per cent. 

“This is not really what the province depends on in terms of tax revenue.”

As for the 10,000 job losses, Antweiler said the estimate lacks context and noted it likely includes indirect or ancillary jobs linked to industry workers in the region, such as teachers and hairdressers. 

“It’s just the spillover effect. Some of that multiplier … is local employment because the services are often provided by local people.”

B.C.’s oil and gas sector only directly employed 4,700 people in 2021, according to the province’s labour market statistics database. The dataset noted the sector generated an additional 7,000 jobs in “support activities,” but that figure also includes data relating to the mining sector.

Antweiler added jobs associated with the oil and gas industry are rarely long-term.

“Once the wells are drilled, they’re drilled, right? And then they keep on producing and they require very little labour. The only significant labour impact is during the startup phases.”

“The impact, one shouldn’t overestimate, because a lot of that work is simply quite temporary and not long-term,” he said. “Ultimately, it’s not really helping to build a resilient and diversified economy in the northeast of the province.”

Yet the impacts of the court ruling aren’t limited to the northeast.

The briefing document also noted the court ruling could directly impact supply demands of B.C.’s biggest gas project, LNG Canada, a joint venture of multinational energy companies Shell, Petronas, Mistsubishi Corporation and Korea Gas Corporation.

The liquefaction and export facility, currently under construction in Kitimat and slated to commence operations in 2025, would receive 2.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas from northeast B.C. daily via the Coastal GasLink pipeline, a project led by TC Energy.

A spokesperson for LNG Canada did not directly answer a question about whether the decision would impact its supply needs but told The Narwhal the project recently passed the 50 per cent completion mark.

“We’re moving swiftly and safely towards commissioning and start-up, and to fulfilling our promise of delivering a world-class LNG facility in Kitimat,” the spokesperson wrote in an email, adding the project has already contributed $3.6 billion in contracts to B.C. businesses, including more than $2.8 billion to local and First Nations-owned businesses.

Alberta’s energy regulator compiled a 14-page document on the impacts of the ruling in response to a freedom of information request, but redacted all 14 pages on the basis they contained “legal advice and analyses that are subject to legal privilege.” 

Natural Resources Canada told The Narwhal the court decision provided clarity on the connection between industrial development, provincial decision-making and Indigenous Rights.

“The Government of Canada recognizes the importance of addressing potential cumulative impacts of natural resource projects, including their potential impacts to Indigenous Rights,” the federal agency wrote in an email. 

“With respect to economic significance, the B.C. Montney region — which overlaps with [Blueberry River First Nations] territory — is an important natural gas producing region,” the agency added, noting the oil and gas sector employs 178,500 workers directly and 415,000 indirectly across the country. A majority of those jobs — both direct and indirect — are based in Alberta but the federal agency said B.C. accounts for around 15 per cent, or 62,000, indirect jobs. 

“The decision reinforces the importance of ensuring resource development happens in a way that respects Indigenous Rights so it remains an important source of revenue for affected Indigenous groups and Canada more broadly.”

‘We know this is the way forward for true and lasting reconciliation’: B.C. minister

B.C. Minister of Energy and Mines Bruce Ralston declined an interview request, but his ministry sent a written response to questions from The Narwhal.

“The B.C. Supreme Court decision was unprecedented, requiring significant changes to how resource activities are administered and approved in the territory,” the statement said. “We recognize the social and economic implications of the court’s decision, and the uncertainty it has raised for communities and industry, but we know this is the way forward for true and lasting reconciliation.”

In October, the province signed an initial agreement with the Blueberry River First Nations, allowing 195 forestry and oil and gas projects to proceed on the grounds they were approved prior to the ruling, a provision granted by the court. The agreement included a provincial commitment to provide $65 million to support habitat restoration and cultural initiatives on the First Nations’ territory.  

“We anticipate a new agreement in the near future that will enable us to begin moving forward with a permitting framework that respects Treaty 8 Rights while balancing the economy, local jobs and the environment,” the ministry said.

Giltrow, legal counsel for the Blueberry River First Nations, was cautiously optimistic.

“They’re not authorizing further development right now,” she told The Narwhal in an interview. “That’s amazing, that’s enormous. That is, ‘show me, don’t tell me.’ But in terms of what the ultimate solution looks like, until we get to an agreement, I can’t say for sure.” 

“It’s big and complicated and multifaceted,” she continued. “However, we’re helped by having the power of the court order behind us. Nothing lights a fire under everybody’s behinds like an injunction that doesn’t allow any further permitting.”

While the Energy Ministry’s briefing note warns of economic trouble ahead, the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy told The Narwhal its CleanBC initiative includes plans to attract and secure new investments in clean technology and said it aims to meet emissions reductions targets without adversely impacting the economy. 

“Addressing climate change in a cost-effective manner is a priority for our government and is increasingly becoming a requirement for international business and economic opportunities that support people in communities across British Columbia,” the ministry wrote in an emailed statement.

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.

Even before B.C. Premier John Horgan and the minister responsible for crafting the province’s climate change strategy, George Heyman, had finished answering media questions about the NDP government’s new “Roadmap to 2030,” reaction from environmental groups was pouring in.

For three years, the keen climate observers had been waiting to see how the B.C. government planned to close the gap in emissions reductions left by its 2018 CleanBC climate plan to meet its 2030 target.

On Monday, they got their answer — or at least part of it.

The new roadmap promises a higher carbon tax, more ambitious targets for zero-emission vehicles, higher cuts to methane emissions and requirements that all new large industrial projects have a plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

While environmental organizations credited the plan for stronger measures to tackle emissions from transportation and other sectors, they also raised alarm bells about what it lacks: a detailed plan to cut emissions from the oil and gas industry.

“B.C.’s updated climate plan’s bold policies threatened by gas production growth,” read the headline to a statement from the David Suzuki Foundation.

Meanwhile, Wilderness Committee warned that “three years after CleanBC, Horgan still can’t square the circle on LNG” and Ecojustice’s climate program director Alan Andrews said “too much of it reads like a plan to make a plan.” 

The province is targeting a 33 to 38 per cent reduction in emissions from the oil and gas sector relative to 2007, but a plan for exactly how that target will be met is only expected in 2023.

The “one glaring gap is the fact that this plan still allows for the development of natural gas,” said Karen Tam Wu, the B.C. regional director at the Pembina Institute and a member of the climate solutions council, which provided expert advice to the government as it developed the roadmap.

Despite some concerns, Tam Wu said it’s significant that the plan charts a path to meeting B.C.’s 2030 target but warns “it does not leave any wiggle room.”

George Hoberg, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s school of public policy, said he’s “quite impressed” with the plan, noting in particular the strengthening of the low carbon fuel standard and the emissions cap on natural gas utilities.

As for concerns about a lack of details about emissions reductions from the oil and gas industry, Hoberg said “that’s absolutely true and it’s also perfectly understandable — that’s how policy works.”

“It’s also how politics works, environmental groups are supposed to continue to demand more ambition from government,” he said. 

And while the government hasn’t yet specified how it plans to meet its oil and gas emissions reduction targets, Hoberg said the government has sent “an important signal” to both the industry and the public by committing to releasing those details in 2023.

As we await more information about some of the government’s emissions reductions measures, here’s what you need to know about what’s in its Roadmap to 2030.

B.C.’s new roadmap lays out measures to hit 2030 climate target

B.C. has a legislated target to cut emissions to 40 per cent below 2007 levels by 2030 — an interim goal as it works to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, meaning that any carbon released into the atmosphere will be offset through measures such as tree planting or through carbon capture and storage technology.

The CleanBC plan released in 2018 outlined measures that were initially expected to account for about 75 per cent of the emissions cuts the province needed to meet its 2030 target. But updated modelling shows those measures announced three years ago are now only expected to achieve 32 to 48 per cent of the needed reductions.

In its roadmap, the government attributes the shortfall to lower-than-expected emissions reductions from industrial electrification and higher emissions from transportation and pulp and paper.

With the new and strengthened measures outlined in the new roadmap the B.C. government expects to exceed its 2030 target by 0.4 million tonnes — roughly the emissions from 86,992 cars driven for a year.

But on the same day that it released its new plan, the province also published B.C.’s 2019 greenhouse gas inventory — data that shows emissions from industry, transportation, buildings and leaked emissions from oil and natural gas crept up by another one per cent in the year after CleanBC was announced.

“We always knew they wouldn’t go down in year one,” Heyman said Monday. 

Moving forward, the minister said he expects emissions to plateau in the next year before beginning to decline.

“We’ve had early successes, but we know that much more needs to be done,” he said. “That’s why we’ve developed this roadmap to reach 100 per cent of our 2030 targets and set the foundation for future years and future targets.”

Hansi Singh, a professor in the University of Victoria’s school of earth and ocean sciences, said that she would have liked to see more aggressive measures to cut emissions beyond B.C.’s existing 2030 target.

“Some places have more of a responsibility than others,” she said, noting that Canada has benefited from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, which are driving the climate crisis.

Excess greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have already raised global temperatures by 1.2 degrees Celsius with significant consequences, she said, noting that the deadly heatwave that hit B.C. this summer wouldn’t have happened without climate change.

Singh’s call for more ambitious measures from B.C. echo a warning from the United Nations Environment Programme Tuesday that the current emissions reduction pledges fall far short of what’s needed to keep warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid the worst effects of climate change.

The UN’s latest emissions gap report found that the updated commitments from countries around the world would only reduce emissions by 7.5 per cent from projected 2030 emissions — when 55 per cent reductions are needed to keep warming to 1.5 degrees.

A higher carbon tax and more clean electricity 

Among the measures announced in its roadmap the B.C. government said its $45 carbon price will either match or exceed the federal price, which is expected to rise to $170 per tonne by 2030, with annual increases of $15 starting in 2023.

To address concerns about the impact of the tax on low-income families and the competitiveness of some B.C. industries, the province says it will “explore other approaches to help make low-carbon options more affordable for low- and middle-income people in British Columbia” and “work with the federal government to explore ideas such as carbon border adjustments — ensuring that goods from places without strong climate policies face similar costs to those produced domestically.”

At the same time, the government announced additional steps to expand low carbon energy.

While 98 per cent of B.C.’s electricity comes from hydro and other renewable sources, the province still relies on fossil fuels for almost 70 per cent of its energy use.

The province plans to expand the low carbon fuel standard, which requires producers to reduce the carbon intensity of their fuels by incorporating biofuels for instance, to cover marine and aviation fuels beginning in 2023. 

The government also plans to introduce an emissions cap for natural gas utilities, meaning they will have to find ways to lower the emissions from the natural gas used to heat buildings across B.C.

Finally, the province is also moving to adopt a 100 per cent clean electricity standard, to ensure that the last two per cent of electricity produced in B.C. from fossil fuels will be generated from renewable sources instead.

More walking, biking, transit and zero-emission vehicles

Among the early successes Heyman mentioned Monday is B.C.’s adoption of zero-emission vehicles.

“British Columbians had the largest uptake of electric vehicles per capita on this continent,” he said.

While this is a positive sign, transportation still accounts for 40 per cent of the province’s emissions and remains a crucial component of B.C.’s climate plan.

In 2023, the province plans to release a Clean Transportation Action Plan detailing the next steps to reduce emissions by 27 to 32 per cent by 2030.

In the meantime, the government has laid out goals to reduce the distance people travel in their cars and trucks to 25 per cent below 2020 levels by 2030, by getting more people walking, biking or taking public transit.

The province is also ratcheting up its zero-emission vehicles targets. In 2020, zero emission cars and trucks accounted for 9.4 per cent of all new light duty vehicle sales. By 2026 the government is aiming to hit 26 per cent and by 2035, 100 per cent of new vehicles sold in B.C. will be zero emissions, according to the plan.

While promoting zero emission vehicles, the province is promising to bring in “right-to-charge” legislation to ensure more people can install charging stations in condo and apartment buildings, while also continuing to build out public charging infrastructure.

The government is also looking at ways to make commercial transportation more efficient, and more details are expected in the 2023 strategy.

Carbon pollution standard to be added to B.C. building code

Buildings account for about 10 per cent of B.C.’s greenhouse gas emissions, with natural gas still relied on heavily for heat.

To help reduce emissions in the building sector, the government is planning to add a carbon pollution standard to the B.C. Building Code with the goal of having all new buildings be zero-carbon by 2030.

Regulations will also be updated to ensure that incentives aimed at increasing energy efficiency target electrification and other measures such as new insulation and windows, rather than new furnaces or boilers that may be more efficient but still rely on natural gas.

The province is also promising to bring in new energy efficiency ratings for houses being sold and to develop a low carbon building materials strategy by 2023.

B.C. aims to eliminate industrial methane emissions by 2035

Alongside the transportation and building sectors, B.C. is targeting deep emissions cuts from industry, though the details of that plan may only be released in 2023 as part of a new industrial climate program.

In the meantime, the government says in its roadmap that it is planning to drive methane emissions from industry to “as close to zero as possible” by 2035.

New research released in July and supported by the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission found the province’s oil and gas facilities are producing 1.6 to 2.2 times more methane pollution than current federal estimates, potentially undermining government efforts to meet climate targets.

“Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, with more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide during its first 20 years in the atmosphere,” the roadmap notes.

The government also plans to incorporate its emissions reduction goals into its revamp of the oil and gas royalty system and to support the development and deployment of technologies to capture and store carbon and remove it from the atmosphere as way to reduce emissions from heavy polluting industries such as oil and gas, cement and pulp and paper.

But some observers raised concerns Monday that the plan still allows for an expansion of natural gas production.

“I think either it risks not meeting our targets, and/or it would misdirect opportunities for investment into clean energy that would support our net zero by 2050 targets as opposed to prolonging the life of the gas sector,” Tam Wu said.

While Horgan emphasized the role of natural gas as a transition fuel that could help replace diesel and marine bunker fuel, for instance, Tam Wu said the focus should be on directing renewable gases to those areas where electric options aren’t available and focusing on electric heat for buildings.

Fracking for natural gas, the transportation of natural gas and the compression of natural gas into liquefied natural gas, or LNG, are all emissions-intensive industrial activities. There are currently four large LNG facilities and two micro-LNG facilities in various stages of planning, proposal and construction in B.C. 

LNG Canada, the province’s largest LNG facility currently under construction, is expected to double fracking operations in B.C., according to the government.

The first phase of the LNG Canada project in Kitimat will emit four megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually, according to the provincial government — the equivalent of adding 856,531 cars to the road. The Pembina Institute, however, has pointed out that when both phases of the project are built, the LNG Canada project alone would emit 8.6 megatonnes of carbon per year in 2030, rising to 9.6 megatonnes in 2050.

In a statement, the environmental advocacy group Wilderness Committee raised concerns that the government’s modelling doesn’t include emissions from the second phase of the LNG Canada project or three other proposed LNG projects.

“What happens if and when Shell wants to finish the $40 billion LNG plant it’s building in Kitimat? How does this plan prevent them from doing that?” Peter McCartney, Wilderness Committee climate campaigner said in a press release. “And, if they don’t plan to allow any more LNG facilities — why not just say so?”

“The natural gas industry is B.C.’s most challenging problem in terms of getting to net zero,” Hoberg agreed. “But what this roadmap does is it sends a signal that we’re getting to net zero by 2050 and if the natural gas industry wants to continue it has to find ways to do things like direct air capture to compensate for the emissions that it’s making,” he said.

If the industry finds it too expensive to produce natural gas in a net zero way the investments will go elsewhere, Hoberg said, including into low carbon technologies.

For Singh though, an outstanding question is how the emissions from the combustion of that natural gas by the end user will be accounted for, a concern for which she’d like to see B.C. take some responsibility.

Province developing new carbon offset system for B.C. forests

While Heyman said the province would have more to say about old-growth forests in the weeks ahead, the roadmap notes the government is developing a new forest carbon offset protocol that will expand the ability for Indigenous communities and forestry companies to generate revenue from standing forests protected as carbon sinks.

The government is also committing to phasing out the burning of slash piles — piles of tree branches, needles and other material left behind by logging — by 2030.

Instead, the government wants to see more of that material used for “bioproducts,” whether it’s incorporated into concrete and asphalt or as a replacement for plastic packaging.

In a statement, Sierra Club BC climate justice campaigner Anjali Appadurai called it a “significant omission” that the roadmap did not offer “a clear path to reduce the staggering emissions caused by clearcut logging.”

“The roadmap calls for an end to slash burning, but not until 2030. Allowing this practice to continue another nine years is a clear indicator that this government is not grasping how little time is left to avoid climate breakdown,” Appadurai said.

No time to waste on implementation of new emissions reduction measures, observers warn

As 2030 nears, Tam Wu said the measures in the roadmap need to be implemented quickly.

The low carbon fuel standard, for instance, was introduced in 2018, but the regulations weren’t amended until this past summer, she noted. 

“Those are the kind of delays that we can’t afford,” she said.

Many of the measures outlined in the roadmap must also be backed up with funding, she added.

“So, we’ll be looking for significant investment from the province in budget 2022.”

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.

When B.C. unveiled its signature CleanBC plan in 2018, onlookers noticed something suspicious: it was full of holes.

Although the plan included a specific target — to reduce emissions 40 per cent below 2007 levels by 2030 — it only laid out the measures to get about three-quarters of the way there. 

By its own admission, the province had a climate plan but no credible pathway to implement it. 

And while B.C.’s NDP government promised to fill in those gaps on a tight two-year timeframe, that deadline came and went on Dec. 5, 2020, without so much as a mea culpa from officials.

What gives?

Two words: fracking and LNG. (Okay, one word and one acronym…)

How is the CleanBC plan affected by fracking and LNG?

Both fracking and the development of liquified natural gas, or LNG, are incredibly carbon intensive. 

Fracking is an energy intensive process used to extract natural gas from shale deposits deep underground. The process releases enormous amounts of methane gas, a potent greenhouse gas with a climate warming potential 25 times that of carbon dioxide on a 100-year timescale. Although B.C. has promised to tackle fracking’s methane problem, an explosion in fracking operations, necessary to feed B.C.’s growing LNG industry, is making that impossible. 

There are currently seven LNG facilities in various stages of planning, proposal and construction in B.C. 

LNG Canada, the province’s largest LNG facility currently under construction, is expected to double fracking operations in B.C., according to the government. The much smaller proposed Cedar LNG facility is expected to require 5,276 new wells to be fracked in northeast B.C. over the next 30 years, based on calculations from the Wilderness Committee.

But high emissions from fracking isn’t the only factor behind B.C.’s climate gaps: LNG facilities are also extremely large emitters. 

The first phase of the LNG Canada project in Kitimat will emit four megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually, according to the provincial government — the equivalent of adding 856,531 cars to the road.

The Pembina Institute, however, has pointed out that when both phases of the project are built, the LNG Canada project would emit 8.6 megatonnes of carbon per year in 2030, rising to 9.6 megatonnes in 2050.

To put that into the context of B.C.’s CleanBC plan, the province has committed to reducing emissions to 38 megatonnes by 2030. And during his reelection campaign, Premier John Horgan vowed to make B.C. carbon-neutral, or have net-zero emissions, by 2050. 

B.C.’s emissions for 2018 totalled 67.9 megatonnes, putting the province 14 per cent further away from its 2030 target than it was in 2007.

B.C.’s vow to make progress on these climate targets while also pursuing its fracking and LNG ambitions has left analysts, climate experts and environmental organizations scratching their heads. 

And this question has put a spotlight on CleanBC’s missing measures.

“B.C. has missed every climate target it has set for itself and now is refusing to come clean on the impact of LNG on meeting its 2030 — let alone 2040 and 2050 — targets,” Andrew Gage, staff lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law, said in a recent statement.

Gage said the CleanBC plan as well as B.C.’s Climate Change Accountability Act, which requires the government to give bi-annual progress reports, were “supposed to put an end to this cycle of broken promises.”

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas with a climate warming potential 25 times that of carbon dioxide on a 100-year timescale. Global efforts are underway to curtail methane emissions, and as a part of Canada’s international commitments, B.C. set a goal of reducing provincial methane emissions 45 per cent by 2025, compared to 2014 levels.But trying to meet that target at the same time as pursuing B.C.’s LNG ambitions is near impossible, experts say. Photo: Garth Lenz / The Narwhal

How LNG subsidies and support poked holes in the CleanBC plan

Here’s another important part of the story: B.C. has bent over backwards to attract the LNG industry. 

One of B.C.’s biggest lures to attract multinational LNG companies was the introduction of a new suite of giveaways making fracking, gas liquefaction and export more profitable. 

That 2018 fiscal framework, introduced just months before the CleanBC plan, offered LNG developers temporary relief from the provincial sales tax, new emissions standards so they had to pay less to pollute, the elimination of an LNG income tax and rebates for any penalties paid under the carbon tax if the facility met what B.C. deemed best-in-world standards (basically using more electricity).

This broad gesture of support for LNG did the trick. Just months later, LNG Canada — owned and operated by Royal Dutch Shell, Mitsubishi Corp., Malaysia’s Petronas, PetroChina Co. and Korean Gas Corp. — formally announced it would go ahead with a final investment commitment.

At the time, Shell Global’s Maarten Wetselaar said “the governments of Canada and British Columbia have helped to ensure that the right fiscal framework is in place to make sure that the pie is divided in a just and fair way.”

“And that fiscal framework leads to why we believe LNG Canada is in the right place.”

But that framework, so attractive to these corporations, cost British Columbia $5.35 billion dollars.

This support has further undermined B.C.’s climate credibility in the minds of critics.

Sven Biggs, Canadian oil and gas program director at the environmental organization Stand.earth, pointed out the province “gave almost a billion dollars in subsidies to the oil and gas sector in 2019 and 2020, twice what the government spent on their plan to fight climate change.” 

A recent Stand.earth report found B.C. is “second only to Alberta in providing subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.”

“Fossil fuel subsidies have grown by a whopping 79 per cent during Premier Horgan’s term in office,” Biggs said in a statement released by a coalition of environmental organizations to note B.C.’s missed Dec. 5 deadline. 

“It is difficult to see how this government will ever achieve their climate targets if they continue to heavily subsidize the very projects that are driving the increase in our emissions.”

Just the emissions from LNG Canada alone will make it very difficult for B.C. to meet its climate targets. Graph: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

Do B.C.’s oil and gas royalties have anything to do with missing CleanBC climate targets?

Canada has promised to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies by 2025, a commitment that includes subsidies from provincial governments. 

In recent months, and in the lead-up to the last provincial election, a new spotlight was shone on B.C.’s royalties regime when it comes to the oil and gas industry. 

The B.C. government describes royalties as a portion of the profits earned by a producer of a resource, such as natural gas. 

“Royalties differ from, say, corporate income taxes, in that they reflect a return to the provincial treasury when private development of a public resource takes place,” explains a March 2020 report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

In B.C., royalty rates are largely based on the price of natural gas, which means the royalties collected by the government are lower when the price of gas is low. 

While natural gas production increased significantly between 2008 and 2018, low gas prices were a “critical factor” in the decline in royalties collected over that same period, according to the centre’s report.

Royalty credits also played a role.

B.C. has a number of royalty credit programs, including the deep well royalty credit, which offers lower royalty rates to help offset the higher costs of producing gas from far below the surface, and credits for less productive wells to incentivize companies to keep those wells in production for longer.

These credits allow producers to reduce the amount of royalties they are required to pay the government, meaning the public is ultimately earning less from the production of its natural resources.

Read more: B.C. should disclose what fracking companies pay for publicly owned resources

The B.C. government was expecting to collect $153 million in natural gas royalties in the 2019-2020 fiscal year after accounting for royalty and infrastructure credits, which reduced payments by $381 million. The deep well credits accounted for $318 million of that reduction. 

The total allowable deductions for royalty revenue in 2019-2020 was listed as $567 million.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives report notes that credits can also be saved and used to offset future royalty payments. According to the 2019-2020 report from the Ministry of Finance’s comptroller general office, there are $2.9 billion in outstanding deep well credits that can be used to reduce future royalty payments.

The oil and gas industry argues these royalty programs are good for business. 

“Royalty credit programs, similar to other government programs such as the film and production tax credit program, are intended to maintain competitiveness, stimulate additional investment, and build a strong sustainable provincial economy,” the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers says in an August 2019 publication.

But that’s exactly the problem that some observers have with royalty credits — that they’re largely aimed at growing the industry, rather than phasing it out.

“If we’re going to be consistent with the Paris Agreement, we have to stop trying to do climate action on the one side and expand the oil and gas industry on the other side,” said Marc Lee, a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and co-author of the centre’s report on phasing out B.C.’s fossil fuel industry.

“The amount of gas we produce must move toward zero, essentially, by mid-century, if not sooner,” he said.

Could B.C. use oil and gas incentives to reduce, rather than grow, emissions?

Some of the royalty credits B.C. offers help offset the costs for oil and gas companies to reduce their emissions, such as the clean infrastructure royalty credit.

Lee said these measures amount to the government “paying for the companies to clean up their act by taking less royalties” and that methane emissions reductions should be handled by regulations. 

But Sara Hastings-Simon, a senior research associate at the Payne Institute for Public Policy and research fellow at the University of Calgary’s school of public policy said in general, “it’s definitely fair to differentiate between subsidies that have strong green strings or even that are directly for emissions reductions … (and) general subsidies to increase production.”

It then becomes a matter of determining whether there’s a particular reason to make a public investment in emissions reductions, such as legitimate barriers that would prevent companies from taking those measures on their own, or just a case of transferring the costs of those reductions from industry to the public.

Another way to look at it is “the carrot versus the stick philosophy of emissions reductions,” Hastings-Simon said.

“You can give companies an incentive to reduce emissions. Of course, the government can also simply regulate them and require them to reduce emissions,” she explained.

But in cases where there may be political pushback against a certain regulation or ‘stick’ policy, governments may opt for the ‘carrot’ approach.

B.C. has promised to conduct a royalty review, but so far hasn’t moved forward.

— With files from Ainslie Cruickshank

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The results are (partially) in and British Columbians have spoken: we’re headed for the first NDP majority government in nearly two decades.

While the record-high number of roughly 480,000 mail-in ballots means we likely won’t have the final tally for a few weeks, John Horgan’s NDP is on track to pick up 55 seats, with Andrew Wilkinson’s BC Liberals on pace for 29 seats and Sonia Furstenau’s Greens expected to win three seats.

The resounding victory will mean Horgan no longer has to count on the support of the Greens to govern. The 2017 vote, you might recall, saw the BC Liberals edge out the NDP 44 seats to 43 seats, leaving the balance of power in the hands of Andrew Weaver’s Greens. His party, which won three seats, negotiated a confidence and supply agreement with the NDP, which included several major commitments on environmental policy. 

The decision by Horgan to call an election a year ahead of schedule — and amid the COVID-19 pandemic — was criticized by his opponents as opportunistic. But the NDP Leader defended the move, saying a clear mandate from voters was needed to tackle the health crisis. 

Regardless of the motivations, the calculation clearly paid off in spades. The last time the BC NDP pulled off a majority? You’d have to go back to the 1996 election, when the NDP — under the leadership of Glen Clark — staved off future premier Gordon Campbell’s BC Liberals despite losing the popular vote. That was followed by a 16-year BC Liberal reign from 2001 to 2017.

So what do these 2020 B.C. election results mean for environment and climate issues in the province? Read on.

The B.C. Greens will have a lot less influence

Green Leader Sonia Furstenau. Photo: BC Green Party / Handout

Despite drawing about 16 per cent of the preliminary vote, the Green Party is set to win no more than three seats in this B.C. election. While that’s the same number of seats the party won in the 2017 election, the NDP no longer needs the support of the Greens to govern — resulting in a dramatic loss of influence for Furstenau’s party.

Still, the steady Green support sends a signal about the desire for action on environmental issues among British Columbians.

The fate of the Site C dam remains uncertain

When Horgan formed government in 2017, he sent Site C for an expedited review by the B.C. Utilities Commission, but ultimately decided to push ahead with the controversial BC Hydro project, saying Christy Clark’s BC Liberals had pushed the dam past the point of no return.

The NDP government proceeded to create a Site C assurance board while adding $2 billion to the project’s budget, for an estimated total cost of $10.7 billion.

But the assurance board’s work was largely kept under wraps until an investigation published by The Narwhal on Oct. 21 revealed the board was told in May 2019 that Site C faced “significant risk due to the weak foundation” of the dam.

Site C construction is seen along the Peace River in B.C. Photo: Garth Lenz / The Narwhal

Two top civil servants are among those who sit on the assurance board, raising questions about why the public wasn’t informed of Site C’s serious geotechnical problems until July of this year.

The government has tapped former deputy finance minister Peter Milburn as a special advisor to provide an independent report on the project’s geotechnical issues and cost overruns. Milburn’s findings are expected to come in November or December, but it’s not clear if the report will be made public.

During the election campaign, Horgan defended his 2017 decision to proceed with Site C, but left open room to change course depending on what Milburn’s report reveals.

“If the science tells us and the economics tells us that it’s the wrong way to proceed, we will take appropriate action,” Horgan said during an Oct. 16 leaders’ radio debate.

Some experts are estimating that the Site C budget could exceed $12 billion, and a new report from a U.S. energy economist found that B.C. taxpayers could save $116 million a year if the project is cancelled.

Full steam ahead on the CleanBC climate plan

If re-elected, the NDP has committed to enacting legislation requiring B.C. to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, meaning that any greenhouse gas emissions would have to be offset by carbon sinks, carbon capture and storage or other technology.

It’s a lofty goal given that, so far, B.C. has only released a plan to get the province to 79 per cent of its emissions targets for 2030. 

To help B.C. reach its climate goal, the NDP say they would invest in B.C. entrepreneurs working on carbon capture technology, use incentives to spur energy efficiency building retrofits, make additional investments in the CleanBC industrial emissions strategy to help mines, pulp mills, oil and gas processing plants and other industrial operations reduce their emissions, and work to reduce methane emissions. 

The NDP has also re-committed to reviewing oil and gas subsidies — handouts the Greens want to see scrapped.

George Heyman, who served as the NDP’s minister of environment and climate change strategy since 2017, said in an Oct. 15 debate that his party has “committed to put an environmental lens on all the oil and gas royalty credits and take a good, hard, comprehensive look at them.”

LNG Canada and B.C.’s liquefied natural gas ambitions

B.C. Premier John Horgan tours the site of the LNG Canada project in Kitimat, B.C., in January 2020. Photo: Province of B.C. / Flickr

B.C. has continually promoted having the “cleanest LNG in the world.” But experts have questioned whether the industry is compatible with the province’s climate plans, including a recent report which found B.C. could exceed its 2050 target by 227 per cent if it proceeds with all proposed LNG projects.

There are seven proposed LNG facilities in B.C., but so far — amid a global surplus in natural gas — LNG Canada is the only one that has seen construction move forward. 

Horgan has promised to monitor LNG Canada to ensure it falls within B.C.’s climate targets, but when it comes online in 2024, the project will be one of the country’s single largest sources of carbon pollution.

B.C. forests, logging and endangered species

The province still has no standalone endangered species legislation despite an NDP vow in the 2017 election campaign to enact a law to protect more than 2,000 species at risk of extinction.

The 2020 NDP platform only included a vague promise to develop “new strategies” that would better protect wildlife.

Meanwhile, questions linger over how far the new government will go to add further protections for old growth forests. In September, the NDP responded to a report on the dire state of B.C.’s old-growth forests by announcing it was deferring logging in nine areas. In reality, though, those areas contained very little old growth and will only be saved from logging for two years. 

The government also plans to auction off logging permits in the Kootenays, a move that threatens to destroy habitat for an endangered caribou herd said to have the best chance of survival in the region. 

And in B.C.’s Spuzzum Valley, a pair of breeding spotted owls — a species that had been presumed extinct in Canada — were recently discovered in an area slated for imminent logging.

B.C. salmon and coastal habitat

The NDP have promised to increase processing of wild fish caught in B.C., to work to double funding for the BC Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund (a joint effort with the federal government) and to develop new plans to protect wild salmon.

During the election, Horgan said that if the salmon farming industry doesn’t have support from local communities by 2022, he would look to phase out farms in the Broughton Archipelago, an important migratory route for wild salmon. 

The NDP has also promised to develop a new strategy to protect coastal habitat, specifically committing to look at freighter traffic management around southern Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. 

Reforming mining regulations in B.C.

Water contaminated with acid mine drainage flows into a containment pond near the Tulsequah River. Photo: Colin Arisman / The Narwhal

The NDP has said it would create a mining innovation hub to work toward stronger regulations and low-carbon approaches to mining, and has also promised to hold mining companies financially responsible for environmental clean-up if a project is abandoned.

The First Nations Energy and Mining Council said recent reforms to B.C.’s mining laws fall short in several areas, including updates to safety requirements around tailings facilities.    

Mining companies are theoretically required to pay the province money up front to cover the costs of reclamation and closure in case they go bankrupt. But according to a 2018 report from B.C.’s chief inspector of mines, the province is running a deficit of about $1.2 billion to cover reclamation costs. More than 30 mining advocacy and law organizations have lobbied the government for years to change its laws and hold mining companies financially accountable. 

Electric vehicles and entrepreneurship

The NDP has promised new incentives for both new and used zero-emission vehicles to make them more accessible to people with lower incomes and increase the number of vehicle charging stations with incentives and legislation. They’re also pledging to cut the provincial sales tax on e-bikes.

Horgan’s party also wants to make B.C. a global producer of low-carbon products and services. To get there, they’ve committed to investing in high-speed internet across the province, supporting innovative clusters that bring companies, researchers and entrepreneurs together and working with the federal government and BC Hydro to expand electrification infrastructure.

— With files from Ainslie Cruickshank, Matt Simmons and Emma Gilchrist

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 B.C. government is looking at a suite of the province’s natural resources — including liquefied natural gas — that could be marketed globally as “clean” products in an effort “to create new markets for B.C.’s goods and services.” 

Draft government documents obtained by The Narwhal through a freedom of information request suggest the province may also be looking to secure credits through international emissions trading for any reductions that result from the export of lower carbon products, such as lumber, copper, and aluminum, from B.C. to help meet Canada’s climate targets.

What’s unclear, according to Simon Donner, a climate scientist and geography professor at the University of British Columbia, is how it would work in practice.

“That’s probably where this falls apart,” he said.

In more traditional carbon accounting, countries are responsible for the greenhouse gasses emitted within their own borders, Donner explained.

What the province and the Business Council of British Columbia seem to be proposing is a situation where Canada is able to use the trading mechanisms that may become available under the Paris Agreement to get credits for natural resources produced with lower emissions that are then exported to other countries.

“There’s a reason this system hasn’t been set up, this is hard to do and people don’t agree on it because it upends the way some of the accounting is done,” Donner said.

“Here’s why the accounting matters: If you set up a system that allows for double counting of emissions, it could disincentivize people to do emissions reductions,” he said. “If Canada somehow is able to get emissions credits for selling LNG to other parts of the world, that disincentivizes us from doing other emissions reductions at home.”

There is also much debate about whether LNG is truly a lower carbon energy source than coal, when fugitive methane emissions are taken into account. A report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Corporate Mapping Project, released in July, details how B.C.’s plans for LNG are inconsistent with provincial climate targets. The report found that if all proposed LNG projects go ahead, the province will exceed its 2050 climate target by 227 per cent.

Paris Agreement rules for emissions trading still under negotiation

The exact rules for international trading of emissions reductions credits under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement have yet to be finalized, but the idea is that it would allow countries to buy credits from other nations that have already exceeded their reduction targets through voluntary agreements called internationally transferred mitigation outcomes, or ITMOs. 

A draft “ITMOs 101” presentation shared among senior B.C. government officials in November 2019 says “around 50 per cent of countries intend to use international carbon markets to meet their targets, including Canada.”

It goes on to say that “B.C.’s lower carbon exports (e.g., wood products, copper, aluminum, cement, LNG) may result in real global GHG reductions when used to displace higher carbon products.”

A draft presentation deck from government documents obtained by The Narwhal via a freedom of information request.

“Canada may need ITMOs to meet its targets; B.C. can work with Canada to feature clean exports that reduce emissions globally while supporting clean growth opportunities here at home,” it says.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy said the province “recognizes that emissions trading across borders like those being explored at the United Nations through Article 6 may help jurisdictions meet global targets.”

“We continue to work with the federal government to support international negotiations.”

B.C. needs further reductions to meet emissions targets

It’s not just Canada that may be looking to international trading to meet its targets. So far, B.C. has only released a plan to get the province to 79 per cent of its emissions targets for 2030. Measures are still needed to cut an additional 5.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions — emissions from more than one million cars per year.

A July 2019 briefing note prepared for then-Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources Minister Michelle Mungall and obtained by The Narwhal shows the NDP government considers emissions trading under Article 6 to be “a priority to ensure further industrial development fits within the B.C. climate plan.”

Earlier this summer, a spokesperson for B.C.’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy said the government “is committed to meeting our emissions reductions targets with or without an agreement on Article 6” but “recognizes that emissions trading across borders like those being explored at the United Nations through Article 6 may help jurisdictions meet global targets.”

B.C.’s pitch of a low-carbon advantage

In the meantime, the province and the Business Council of British Columbia have been working to develop a low-carbon industrial strategy that would “establish B.C. as a world leader in delivering low-carbon goods and services.”

The draft ITMOs 101 presentation cites preliminary findings from research comparing the greenhouse gas emissions intensity of key commodities produced in B.C. — coal, copper, LNG, natural gas, lumber and aluminum — to the emissions intensity of those same products produced in certain competing jurisdictions.

That work was completed as part of a joint effort between the government and the Business Council of British Columbia to develop a low-carbon industrial strategy that would “establish B.C. as a world leader in delivering low-carbon goods and services.”

According to that preliminary modelling, B.C. emits between 3.8 and 4.6 million tonnes fewer greenhouse gases per year from aluminum production compared with the average emissions from aluminum production in the Middle East and Russia or China.

A tailings pond in northwest B.C. at Imperial Metals’ Red Chris mine, which produces copper, gold and silver. Documents obtained by The Narwhal reveal the B.C. government is considering marketing the province’s copper — and other natural resources — as ‘low carbon’ to earn emissions credits. Photo: Garth Lenz / The Narwhal

B.C. also emits about 3.7 million tonnes fewer greenhouse gases per year from natural gas production than Texas and 3.3 million tonnes less than Australia in coal production, according to the draft presentation.

“The research found that B.C. commodities can on average have a greenhouse gas advantage over the same products from specific competitive jurisdictions,” a spokesperson for the ministry said in a statement to The Narwhal, noting emissions from production facilities, upstream emissions from electricity and downstream emissions from transportation of the products to the final destination market were all considered.

“There is however more work to do on this,” the statement said.

While the business council and province are still working on a final report of the research, the business council has released some of that preliminary work already, including a greenhouse gas benchmarking and competitiveness assessment. 

According to an August 2019 report prepared by consulting and accounting firm MNP, B.C.’s low emissions electricity and its provincial climate policies are greenhouse gas advantages over competing jurisdictions. However, transportation distances are a disadvantage for B.C.’s coal, natural gas, lumber and aluminum industries when it comes to emissions.

The business council is seeking relief from at least one of the climate policies that may be contributing to the very greenhouse gas emission advantage they’re hoping to promote: the carbon tax. 

The tax, according to the council, adds costs for B.C. industries and puts them at a competitive disadvantage.

In its report, MNP notes the analysis was based on modelling and cautioned “actual results across individual entities may differ.”

Proposal criticized as lobbying effort, not ‘real system’

Canada has proposed similar arrangements before in an effort to secure credits for exporting lower-carbon natural resources, to no avail. 

Referencing the clean exports project of 2002, the province’s draft ITMOs 101 presentation notes “Canada attempted to introduce the concept that credits from natural gas exported to the U.S. would meet 30 per cent of Canada’s targets. The international community reacted poorly, especially Europe, and the concept was scrapped.”

B.C. Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau is critical of the idea. In a statement she said “this endeavour by the NDP and (Business Council of British Columbia) is more about greenwashing our fossil fuel industry than it is about avoiding a climate catastrophe.”

“The explicit objective of ITMOs is that they should support ambition to promote greater efforts to cut emissions. LNG Canada plans to drastically increase our emissions by expanding fracking for the next 40 years, they’re just looking for a way to greenwash it,” she said.

“We need to get to work actually reducing our pollution levels instead of betting our future on a theoretical agreement that has yet to be finalized.”

The Narwhal did not receive a response to requests for comment from the provincial NDP or the Liberals by publication time.

Donner said one of his key concerns is the “cherry picking” of natural resource industries that might benefit from a system that allows Canada to claim credits for lower carbon exports.

“What if it turns out that the way we grow our fruits and vegetables, particularly where it’s done in hot houses, is actually higher carbon emitting than the production that happens in other countries, the U.S. included, that we import fruits and vegetables from,” he said.

“The concept isn’t bad, but it’s just ignoring all the practicalities of it,” said Donner, who questioned the focus on ITMOs when the rulebook for international emissions reductions trading has yet to be finalized.

That uncertainty isn’t expected to be resolved this year with the United Nations climate conference delayed until November 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It makes it feel like more of a marketing, lobbying argument than a real system,” Donner said. 

“I just think all of the other aspects of the CleanBC plan are great and that’s where the effort should be going.”

B.C. business leaders, however, are calling on the province to do more to promote B.C. natural resource industries as part of the climate solution, noting the sector is key to B.C.’s post-pandemic recovery.

Business leaders say natural resources critical to post-coronavirus pandemic recovery

Last month, the Business Council of British Columbia released a report citing the MNP research and calling on the province to maximize B.C.’s low-carbon advantage, arguing that a competitive industrial sector will be critical to the post-pandemic economic recovery. 

“The industrial sector, which produces the goods we and the global marketplace need, is the backbone of B.C.’s export economy and is essential to recovery, hiring and creating new jobs,” the report says.

A new Ipsos poll conducted for the Business Council of Alberta suggests a significant number of Canadians agree there’s a role for natural resource industries in the economic recovery. 

Using the Ipsos online panel, 1,003 Canadians were surveyed online between Aug. 24 and 27 for the poll, which found 75 per cent of respondents believe the COVID-19 recovery should both support natural resource industries and protect the environment.

When asked whether the recovery should be used to make green investments or get existing businesses back on their feet, 54 per cent of respondents said existing businesses should be the priority, while 27 per cent want to see a green recovery prioritized.

The business council’s report suggests B.C. can do both by supporting its natural resource industries.

Critics, meanwhile, contend that the continued promotion of extractive industries is at odds with emissions-reduction goals. A July report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Corporate Mapping Project found that, should B.C. proceed with all proposed LNG projects, the province would exceed its 2050 climate targets by 227 per cent.

Business Council of B.C. calls for carbon tax break

In its report, the business council calls on the government to develop a business investment strategy that markets B.C. as a lower carbon producer of key commodities, to embrace carbon offsets and investment in nature-based solutions as a means to meet emissions targets and to exempt heavy industries that compete in international markets from the full carbon tax.

“On average, our energy and commodity exports have half the climate change-causing greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity of our competition,” the business council’s report says. 

But B.C.’s industries “face a significant competitive disadvantage compared to global competitors” because of the carbon tax, it says.

B.C. is “the only jurisdiction with carbon pricing without a comprehensive approach to protection for its trade-exposed industries,” the report says.

“If B.C. products aren’t competitive in the marketplace, the products will come from elsewhere, at a proven higher carbon content,”it continues.

The ministry statement didn’t say whether the government is considering carbon tax protections for industry, but the province has delayed until next year an increase to the carbon tax, citing the coronavirus pandemic. The levy was initially supposed to take effect this past April.

The ministry statement also pointed to the CleanBC industrial incentive program, which reduces the cost of the carbon tax above $30 per tonne for industrial operations that have lower emissions than world-leading competitors.

“The lower emitting a facility is, the more carbon tax payment it can receive in return,” the statement said. “This provides a strong incentive for large facilities to invest in cleaner operations in B.C. and reduce emissions. 

Mark Jaccard, the director of the school of resource and environmental management at Simon Fraser University, said he agrees with industry’s argument that the carbon tax puts them at a disadvantage by raising their costs relative to their competitors, but he said there’s a contradiction in asking for a carbon tax break while simultaneously calling for a plan to promote your products as low carbon.

“It’s disingenuous,” he said.

Jaccard cautioned that there may not be much of a market for lower carbon products anyway — unless countries put climate tariffs in place. 

“Who’s willing to pay more for the low-emission aluminum? There’s nobody. But there would be if there was a system of global carbon pricing,” he said.

“We need countries like Canada to put tariffs on or to join with other countries in climate clubs and when that happens then you might have a system where everybody’s constrained to be reducing emissions and there would be more value for products whose production involves less emissions,” he said.

“We are nowhere near an agreement like that.” 

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Greenhouse gas emissions in B.C. spiked in 2018, reaching their highest levels since 2001, with oil and gas extraction, off-road industrial transport and heavy-duty diesel vehicles among the culprits, according to data released by the provincial government on Thursday.

The figures show 2018 gross emissions totalled 67.9 megatonnes (Mt) of carbon dioxide equivalent , an increase of seven per cent since 2007 and an increase of 2.2 Mt from 2017.

The numbers push the province further away from its targets of a 40 per cent reduction from 2007 levels by 2030. B.C. is now 14 per cent further from its 2030 target than it was in 2007.

The gap between the 2007 and 2018 numbers was higher than expected because the federal government has changed the way emissions are calculated, according to a government news release.

A change in the way marine transport emissions are calculated means B.C.’s 2007 baseline year was revised downwards by 1.3 Mt. Meanwhile, new estimates for fuel use in oil and gas extraction, heavy duty vehicles, commercial and institutional buildings and light-duty gasoline powered trucks means 2017 figures were revised upwards by 1.3 Mt.

“Taken together, these two technical changes made by the federal government for previous years’ emissions were equivalent to 2.7 Mt or more than 75 per cent of the gap between the new 2007 emissions baseline and 2018,” the government said.

In 2019, the provincial government had noted figures from the 2007 baseline year were revised upwards.

Because the data is from 2018 it does not include any reductions from actions undertaken as part of CleanBC, the climate action and clean economy plan implemented in 2019 that includes programs such as encouraging home retrofits and  the use of electric vehicles.

B.C. Environment and Climate Change Minister George Heyman said in a statement that the numbers reinforce the need to take action to address climate change and noted the independent Climate Solutions Council is providing advice to government on how to reach the goals.

“For example, our government is taking action to drive emissions down by requiring all new light-duty vehicles to be zero emissions by 2040. We’re making electric vehicles more affordable and convenient for people through CleanBC rebates and an expanded charging network . . .  We’re also working to reduce emissions from industry with investments in emissions-reduction projects,” Heyman said in the emailed statement.

“CleanBC remains the strongest climate plan in Canada, but it will still take time to make up for the lack of climate action in previous years,” he said.

Karen Tam Wu, B.C regional director of the Pembina Institute, a non-profit think tank focused on energy, told The Narwhal she hopes some CleanBC programs, such as the popular vehicle incentives, will show up in 2019 figures and that new accountability legislation, with annual tracking of progress towards CleanBC targets, will make a difference.

Carbon reduction targets by sector should also help pinpoint opportunities for reductions, she said.

Many questions about whether the targets are achievable centre around the fossil fuel industry and provincial approval of liquified natural gas (LNG) projects. At full buildout the LNG Canada project, under construction in Kitimat, will add an estimated four megatonnes of emissions a year at the terminal alone, with an additional nine megatonnes of upstream greenhouse gas emissions from fracking and transportation, according to a recent report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.  

The report found that if LNG Canada comes online, emissions from just oil and gas production will exceed B.C.’s 2050 climate target by 160 per cent, even if emissions from the rest of the economy were reduced to zero. The B.C. government has pledged to reduce emissions by 80 per cent from 2007 levels by 2050. 

Fact check: are B.C.’s LNG ambitions compatible with its climate goals?

“Certainly the oil and gas sector and specifically the gas industry continue to be the single largest source of emissions in B.C.,” Tam Wu said.

LNG emissions won’t show up until about five years from now and, in the meantime, some industry emissions should decrease because of new methane regulations and electrification, she said.

“What this does point to is that 75 per cent of B.C.’s emissions are from fossil fuel use and, in a low carbon economy, 20 years from now, moving into 2050, we are going to have to see that shift significantly if we are going to have any chance of achieving our climate targets,” she said.

B.C. Green Party interim leader Adam Olsen said the NDP government cannot talk about transitioning to clean energy and continue to subsidize and approve oil and gas projects.

“You will never have a successful transition if you don’t create the conditions for the shift. We need to stop approving oil and gas projects and, instead, focus all of that money and legislative support on renewable energy sources and sustainable careers,” Olsen said in a news release.

Climate change must be met with the same commitment to science as the COVID-19 pandemic, Olsen said.

The Green Party collaborated with the NDP government in developing the CleanBC program and Sonia Furstenau, Green Party MLA for Cowichan Valley, said she is hopeful the policies will lead to reductions.

But there is a long way to go and lessons from the pandemic should be used to protect vulnerable British Columbians from climate change, she said.

“There are lessons we can take from this challenging time. Things we never thought were possible are suddenly happening,” Furstenau said in a press release.

“British Columbia’s economic recovery efforts should respond to the present while preparing us for the future. It’s not just possible that the transition to a clean economy could create jobs, it’s inevitable,” she said.

Updated at 10 a.m. on Aug. 8, 2020, to correct an error. According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, LNG Canada’s facility will add an estimated four megatonnes of emissions a year at the terminal and nine megatonnes of upstream greenhouse gas emissions from fracking and transportation, at full build-out, not in the first phase.

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.

If you’ve been keeping abreast of pretty much any climate conversation in British Columbia, chances are you’ve heard about the role liquefied natural gas (LNG) will play in the province’s climate future.

But depending on who you’re talking to, LNG is likely to emerge as either a climate sinner or saint.

Formally, the provincial government and industry are squarely aligned around the narrative that B.C. will produce the “cleanest LNG in the world.” But calling a fossil fuel the “cleanest” of its kind is a bit like a fast-food chain purporting to sell the world’s healthiest fries. 

A bevvy of experts, researchers, think tanks and civil society groups are singing a very different tune, raising concerns about the LNG industry’s sizeable greenhouse gas emissions, the environmental and human health impacts of fracking for natural gas and the dangers of relying on LNG as a so-called “transition” fuel for heavily polluting economies in Asia.

A report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Corporate Mapping Project, released Thursday, details how B.C.’s plans for LNG are inconsistent with provincial climate targets. The report found that if all proposed LNG projects go ahead, the province will exceed its 2050 climate target by 227 per cent. 

So what’s the deal with LNG? How “clean” is it? Here’s what you need to know.

What is LNG and how is it different from natural gas?

LNG is natural gas that has been cooled to -162 C, at which point it condenses into liquid form at 1/600 of its previous volume, making it much more efficient for transport. 

The plan is to transport natural gas from northeast B.C.’s fracking fields to northwest B.C. via pipelines (like the Coastal GasLink pipeline). There, it will be cooled into a liquid and shipped by tanker mainly to China and Japan, currently the world’s largest LNG buyers.

When LNG reaches its final destination, it’s warmed to convert it back to natural gas for distribution in pipelines. This gas is mainly used for electricity generation and industrial and residential heating.

Dredging activities at the marine offloading facility in the Douglas Channel for LNG Canada’s project in Kitimat. Photo: JGC Flour

What does fracking have to do with LNG?

In B.C., the natural gas used by the LNG industry is extracted from underground deposits via fracking, which uses highly pressurized water, chemicals and sand to blast gas free from shale and other rock formations. 

Fracking wastewater is highly contaminated and is disposed of either deep underground or stored in above-ground tailings ponds. Some companies reuse fracking wastewater multiple times, leading to higher rates of contamination, which in some regions includes radioactivity. Studies have found fracking wastewater can leach into nearby aquifers and contaminate drinking water sources for nearby communities. The underground injection of fracking wastewater has been linked to earthquakes in B.C. and Alberta.

Natural gas fracked in B.C. is composed mostly of methane, a potent greenhouse gas with a climate warming potential 25 times that of carbon dioxide on a 100-year timescale. 

Global efforts are underway to curtail methane emissions, and as part of Canada’s international commitments, B.C. set a goal of reducing provincial methane emissions 45 per cent by 2025 compared with 2014 levels.

But so far, efforts to curtail “fugitive” methane emissions — primarily from leaks at fracking sites— have been criticized as insufficient.

Health professionals also note that air pollution from fracking releases dangerous pollutants into the air. There is increasing evidence of human health issues linked to fracking. One study found mothers who live close to a fracking well are more likely to give birth to a less healthy child with a low birth weight.

Human health issues related to fracking were also flagged by Dawson Creek, B.C., doctors as a potential cause for concern after they saw patients with symptoms they could not explain, including nosebleeds, respiratory illnesses and rare cancers, as well as a surprising number of cases of glioblastoma, a malignant brain cancer.

Fracking wastewater. Photo: Garth Lenz / The Narwhal

Is LNG compatible with B.C.’s climate targets?

Natural gas is often touted as a “clean” source of energy compared with other fossil fuels such as coal. But research published in the journal Nature earlier this year suggests natural gas is a much dirtier fossil fuel than previously thought, with emissions that can be comparable to coal.

The new report from the Corporate Mapping Project and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found B.C.’s LNG will not reduce global emissions even if it displaces coal-fired electricity in Asia. 

“LNG exports would in fact make global warming worse over at least the next three decades when compared to the best-technology coal-fired plants coming online in Asia,” said report author and earth scientist David Hughes.

Hughes said most LNG emissions calculations do not account for “emissions from production and processing of the gas, pipeline transportation, liquefaction, shipping and regasification.” 

An oft-cited 2010 report from the National Energy Technology Lab found that when LNG is burned, it produces about half the carbon dioxide emissions of a typical coal-fired power plant — but that calculation doesn’t take into account all the additional emissions sources during the production and processing of the gas.

Hughes also pointed out that emissions estimates typically use a 100-year cycle when comparing natural gas to other fossil fuels. However, LNG projects will only have a 40-year lifespan, and those 40 years are critical for curbing global warming.

“Methane, over 20 years, is 86 times more potent as carbon dioxide is, as a greenhouse gas,” he said in an interview. “The point being is that we don’t have 100 years to wait.”

What rock-bottom natural gas prices mean for Canada’s aspiring LNG industry

What LNG projects are proposed for B.C.?

There are seven LNG facilities proposed for B.C., but only the LNG Canada project has begun construction. 

When it comes online in 2024, the LNG Canada project will be one of the country’s single largest sources of carbon pollution, on par with Teck Resources’ controversial (and now mothballed) Frontier oilsands mine.

In its first phase, the LNG Canada project will produce about four megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions every year. That’s the equivalent of putting more than 800,000 cars on the road for a year. Those four megatonnes will account for 10 per cent of B.C.’s entire carbon budget by 2050, putting massive pressure on other sectors — such as transportation, building and industry — to undergo a rapid decarbonization.

If the project’s second phase goes ahead, LNG Canada will emit 8.6 megatonnes per year in 2030, rising to 9.6 megatonnes in 2050, according to estimates by the Pembina Institute. That’s roughly the equivalent of putting 1.7 million new cars on the road each year. 

B.C. has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent below 2007 levels by 2050, but emissions continue to rise and LNG development will push that goal further out of reach. Graph: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

What’s all this talk about electrifying the natural gas sector?

In a recent update on the progress of the LNG Canada project, Peter Zebedee, CEO of LNG Canada, wrote, “We’re confident that once in operation, the LNG Canada plant will provide the world’s cleanest LNG, with the lowest carbon intensity.”

The goal to produce the world’s lowest carbon-intensive LNG lies in a plan to “electrify” some aspects of B.C.’s LNG industry.

The main source of emissions for an LNG terminal comes from the enormous amount of energy required to cool natural gas during the liquefaction stage. 

Thanks to an industry exemption from regulations outlined in B.C.’s Clean Energy Act, LNG operations are allowed to use natural gas to fuel the giant refrigerators used to cool and compress gas. 

LNG Canada intends to use gas-fired compressors in its liquefaction process. The now-dead Pacific NorthWest LNG  project intended to operate using natural gas, while Woodfibre LNG in Squamish, owned by Indonesian billionaire Sukanto Tanoto, would be powered exclusively by hydroelectricity from the grid (via the BC Hydro Woodfibre LNG connection project). 

Both the provincial and federal governments have been offering generous subsidies to incentivize emissions reductions for the LNG sector.

In 2019, Ottawa pledged $220 million to LNG Canada for the purchase of energy-efficient gas turbines. 

In the project’s early stages, B.C. promised to provide LNG Canada — a joint venture of Royal Dutch Shell, Petronas, PetroChina, Mitsubishi and Korean Gas — with subsidized electricity from the B.C. grid. BC Hydro (a.k.a. B.C. ratepayers) also chipped in $58 million toward the $82-million LNG Canada interconnection project that will connect the project’s Kitimat export terminal to the provincial grid.

The subsidized electricity, which is critical to claims that LNG Canada will provide the “world’s cleanest LNG,” will amount to savings of between $32 million and $59 million per year for the consortium, according to economist Marc Lee from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. LNG Canada, Lee estimates, will pay for electricity at a rate about half of what it will cost to produce electricity at the publicly funded $10.7-billion Site C dam.

A Site C dam work crew in July 2020. The dam, which will flood 128 kilometres of the Peace River and its tributaries, will be paid for by BC Hydro ratepayers and will help power fracking operations in northeast B.C. Photo: Don Hoffmann

The other big question is how emissions can be reduced in the fracking operations that will produce the natural gas for LNG projects. 

Transmission lines paid for by federal taxpayers (to the tune of $83.6 million) and BC Hydro ratepayers (to the tune of $205.4 million) aim to bring electricity to fracking operations so they don’t burn as much gas. 

B.C. and Ottawa also pledged an additional $680 million toward electrification projects to reduce the LNG industry’s emissions. 

Part of that $680 million will go toward the Peace region electricity supply project, which Karen Tam Wu, B.C. regional director at the Pembina Institute, wrote is expected to reduce carbon pollution by 2.2 million tonnes because of increased electrification in the fracking industry.    

But when new emissions from the LNG industry are added to the provincial tally, that reduction is paltry and B.C. emissions will still be far higher than they are today.

Can LNG be ‘net-zero’ emissions?

The First Nations Climate Initiative, a think tank coalition among the elected leaders of the Haisla Nation, Lax Kw’alaams Band, Nisga’a Nation and Metlakatla First Nation, is hoping to attract more LNG investors to the northwest as a way to “create a vibrant low-carbon economy out of the economic devastation COVID-19 has precipitated.”

In a policy framework published this spring, the initiative claims B.C. “can produce LNG that has a net-zero or even positive impact on B.C. and Canadian climate objectives.”

But getting that net-zero classification doesn’t actually mean greenhouse gas emissions won’t be added to the atmosphere. For the LNG industry to achieve net-zero status, it will have to purchase carbon offsets and credits. 

“The premise of trading credits for the sale of LNG is convoluted and concerning, at best,” Tam Wu told The Narwhal. 

In a nutshell, the B.C. government would rely on emissions reduction trading credits, purchased from other countries under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, to offset emissions increases from LNG development.

But rules for trading these credits have yet to be decided. The United Nations climate conference that was scheduled for the fall has been postponed until November 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

B.C. eyes emissions trading to offset effects of LNG development, government documents show

Is LNG a ‘transition fuel’?

For most of the past decade, natural gas has been touted as a bridge fuel that will allow countries to “transition” away from dirty fuels to cleaner, greener economies.

But whether or not LNG will be used to replace coal and other polluting sources of energy is a cause for concern.

Tam Wu says LNG from B.C. might not replace coal at all in current industrial operations. Instead, it could be used to expand operations. “There’s no guarantee.” 

Marla Orenstein, director of the natural resources centre at Canada West Foundation, echoed the concern. “Frankly, it’s probably going to be used for new builds,” she said. “China has a huge energy demand that is growing.” 

In 2016, the International Energy Agency warned that “gas may be a supporting fuel for the transition to a low-carbon energy system but this should not be misunderstood as a sustainable growth opportunity in a 2 C world.” Two degrees of warming is largely agreed to be the most the world can tolerate without dangerous, potentially catastrophic, impacts. 

Tam Wu said B.C. needs to address its own climate emissions problems before trying to tackle emissions in other parts of the world. 

“The bottom line comes down to this: we have a responsibility for emissions at home. We need to reduce.”

Why not skip LNG and move directly to renewable energy sources?

“One of the challenges is that for some industrial processes, there is no substitution available in energy sources like wind or solar,” Tam Wu said. Large-scale industry relies on consistent, dependable power and, while technology is improving, low-carbon energy sources such as wind and solar need to be complemented by energy with a larger storage capacity, such as pumped storage, hydro or gas.

If LNG is used as a transition fuel, she said, it should be used only for large industrial operations that have no alternatives, while they transition to renewable energy wherever possible. 

The question we should be asking, she said, is, “What’s the best use for fossil fuels?”

China and Japan are the largest consumers of natural gas from North America. Despite its reliance on coal, China has also embraced renewable energy projects. 

“They’ve actually installed more wind power than all of the EU,” Tam Wu said. 

Given the current global surplus of LNG, there is always the chance that by the time B.C.’s LNG projects are ready to go, there won’t be a market to sell to. 

Updated at 1:20 p.m. PST on July 10 to credit Pembina Institute as the source of LNG Canada emissions estimates and to clarify that while compressors are the main source of emissions at LNG terminals, they are not the largest source of emissions in the entire lifecycle of LNG (upstream emissions are greater than terminal emissions). 

Updated at 9 a.m. PST on July 17 to remove a sentence that indicated the Pembina Institute’s emissions estimates for LNG Canada didn’t include methane emissions. The institute’s calculations do include methane emissions. 

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 B.C. government may be banking on buying emissions reduction credits to offset the effects of future industrial development, according to documents obtained by The Narwhal through a freedom of information request. But the postponement of this year’s international climate conference due to the COVID-19 pandemic means prolonged uncertainty on if and when this will be possible under the Paris Agreement on climate change. 

Negotiations on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which will establish the rules for trading emissions reduction credits internationally, were set to continue at the United Nations climate conference this November. The conference has been delayed until November 2021.

The B.C. government considers emissions trading under Article 6 to be “a priority to ensure further industrial development fits within the B.C. climate plan,” according to a July 2019 briefing note prepared for former Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources minister Michelle Mungall (now minister of Jobs, Economic Development and Competitiveness) and obtained by The Narwhal.

“Emissions trading could be a mechanism to mitigate B.C. GHG emissions from industrial development by offering an internationally recognized path for sharing reductions,” the document says.

Article 6 of the Paris Agreement will allow countries to purchase emissions reduction credits from other countries that have exceeded their reduction targets through voluntary agreements called internationally transferred mitigation outcomes, or ITMOs. 

How countries are allowed to purchase these emissions reduction credits will depend on the final rulebook, but they may be able to invest in other countries’ emissions reduction projects, share emissions reduction technology or, as the B.C. government documents suggest, offer some form of trade concession. 

Burgeoning LNG industry threatens B.C.’s ability to meet climate commitments 

B.C. has committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 40 per cent below 2007 levels by 2030 and 80 per cent by 2050. The province’s emissions, though, increased by 3.5 per cent between 2017 and 2018, according to Canada’s 2020 National Inventory Report to the United Nations.

While the actions outlined in the CleanBC plan are projected to get B.C. 80 per cent of the way to its 2030 target, additional measures are needed to cut the outstanding 5.5 megatonnes of greenhouse gases standing between B.C. and its target. That’s equivalent to the emissions from more than one million cars in a year.

Future emissions from the province’s burgeoning liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry could make the challenge of meeting its targets more difficult. There are several LNG projects at various stages of development in B.C., including the LNG Canada project, which is under construction in Kitimat. Phase one of the LNG Canada project will add an estimated four megatonnes of emissions per year, according to the B.C. government. If phase two goes ahead, total annual emissions will be an estimated 8.6 megatonnes by 2030 and 9.6 by 2050, according to a report from the Pembina Institute and the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions.

B.C. has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent below 2007 levels by 2050, but emissions continue to rise and LNG development will push that goal further out of reach. Phase one of LGN Canada has received approval but phase two has not. Graph: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

The report concludes that LNG Canada, along with the Woodfibre LNG project, “would together emit enough carbon pollution to make meeting B.C.’s 2050 climate target virtually impossible.” 

In a statement, a spokesperson for B.C.’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy said the government “is committed to meeting our emissions reductions targets with or without an agreement on Article 6.”

However, the province “recognizes that emissions trading across borders like those being explored at the United Nations through Article 6 may help jurisdictions meet global targets,” and it continues to work with the federal government to support international negotiations.

“CleanBC is one of the strongest plans of its kind in North America and includes dozens of actions across sectors to help us reach our targets and build a cleaner, better future.”

The ministry statement did not, however, include a response to questions about what consequences the delay of Article 6 negotiations could have for B.C.’s climate plan or the release of additional measures to ensure the province meets its 2030 targets, which are expected by the end of this year. 

B.C. considers giving countries a deal on LNG so it can produce more LNG

B.C. appears to be considering emissions reduction credit trading as a way to offset greenhouse gases from the LNG industry in particular, according to an April 2019 briefing note prepared for Minister Mungall and obtained through the same freedom of information request. 

The document suggests B.C. might be willing to offer a deal on LNG in exchange for the emissions reduction credits needed to meet its climate commitments. “Further work will have to be done on what the province and the federal government is willing to exchange in return for gaining the ITMOs (e.g. lower LNG prices, other trade concessions),” it says. 

What rock-bottom natural gas prices mean for Canada’s aspiring LNG industry

The briefing note mentions an opportunity to export LNG to Asia-Pacific countries including Japan, which is among the world’s largest importers of both coal and LNG.

“B.C.’s natural gas has much lower carbon intensity than similar products from other jurisdictions due to high regulatory standards and the availability of renewable, clean electricity,” it says.

While the paragraphs in the statement immediately after have been redacted, industry groups have repeatedly touted the potential for B.C.’s LNG exports to help reduce emissions from coal in a global context.

The Canadian LNG Alliance, an industry association, says liquefied natural gas production can help bolster the economy as part of the COVID-19 economic recovery and support a global transition to cleaner energy at the same time.

While the industry argues LNG will benefit the climate by replacing coal, which emits more greenhouse gases when it’s burned, a key concern observers is whether an uptake in natural gas would delay investments in renewable energy.

If countries such as Poland — home to the world’s largest lignite-fired power station — use B.C. LNG to reduce their reliance on coal, those countries will own the emissions reductions. Photo: VLLI / flickr

Moira Kelly, a spokesperson for federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, said in a statement to The Narwhal that the federal government’s priority is reducing emissions in Canada but that Ottawa recognizes “LNG is a transitional fuel that has the potential to significantly cut emissions as we transition to a clean economy.”

If other countries use B.C. LNG to replace coal, any emissions reductions would be owned by the countries that make the switch, said Kathryn Harrison, a University of British Columbia professor who studies climate policy. B.C., meanwhile, would take the hit for the greenhouse gases emitted during the production and transport of natural gas to LNG facilities, as well as the conversion of the gas to a liquid state for transport overseas. 

A large-scale LNG industry would mean “significant emissions increases” in B.C., as the province is working to reduce its climate contributions.

“That’s a hard circle to square, so it doesn’t surprise me that they’re looking into international trading as a way forward,” Harrison said.

“It wouldn’t be necessarily illegitimate,” Harrison added. “What’s worrying to me is that we’re not having an open conversation about that and these are big policy decisions.”

Article 6 could make or break Paris Agreement 

The stakes are high. Depending on the rules, Article 6 could either “strengthen” or “essentially gut” the Paris Agreement, Harrison said.

“There’s a lot at stake and I think that’s why it’s the last piece of the Paris rulebook that is yet to be finalized,” she said.

At its best, trading of emissions reduction credits could allow countries to meet their targets at a lower cost, which in theory means governments may be more willing to ramp up their climate ambitions, Harrison said.

“If we don’t get it right, what we can have is one country paying another country for fake reductions and what that does is it gives the appearance that we’re making progress when in fact emissions aren’t going down and might even be going up,” she said.

There are concerns, for instance, that some credits issued through the Kyoto Protocol’s emissions trading system are the result of companies temporarily ramping up production to gain more credits for their efforts to reduce emissions, Harrison said.

Since countries set their own targets, Harrison is concerned they could set them lower in an effort to increase the number of credits they have to sell. Australia, for instance, had a “very weak” target under the Kyoto Protocol, which it beat with little effort, and now wants those credits to count under the Paris Agreement, she said.

“The scale of carry-forward credits is potentially very large and it’s not enough for one country to say, ‘Well, we won’t buy any of those,’ ” she said. “They’re still on the market.”

Another challenge is ensuring emissions reductions aren’t double counted. While Harrison said the Paris Agreement is quite clear on this matter, she noted Brazil has tried to oppose rules meant to prevent the double counting of emissions reductions.

Kelly, the federal spokesperson, said “Canada will continue to stand firm in insisting on rules for Article 6 that ensure environmental integrity, rigorous accounting and respect for the rights of Indigenous Peoples.”

“It benefits everyone if we can agree on rules that ensure the reductions from any emissions trading are real and verifiable first,” she said.

The site of the LNG Canada project in Kitimat B.C. Photo: Garth Lenz / The Narwhal

Exporting a fossil fuel to offset another fossil fuel shortsighted, observers say

Some observers say B.C. should focus on provincial rather than international solutions to meet its emissions reduction targets. 

“There’s no doubt that the phasing out of coal is important, but over the long term if we’re substituting LNG, which is also a fossil fuel, for coal, that’s not a long-term solution to our climate challenge,” said Karen Tam Wu, regional director of British Columbia at the Pembina Institute.

Rather than trying to “export a fossil fuel to offset another fossil fuel,” B.C. should focus on reducing its emissions within the province, she said.

“That’s the part that we can control and that’s the part that we need to keep our eyes on.” 

Tam Wu said there are still plenty of opportunities for B.C. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industry, freight and the energy used to heat and cool buildings.

Andrew Weaver, an independent MLA and former leader of the B.C. Green Party, pointed to the province’s recent investments in renewable energy projects to reduce reliance on diesel generation in First Nations communities as an example of the way forward.

As for the Article 6 negotiations, Weaver said he’s happy they have been delayed. 

“It’s such a gong show with people figuring out loopholes to do nothing,” he said of Article 6, adding that we will have an opportunity post-pandemic “to do things differently moving forward, to build a clean economy — one that will actually be resilient and vibrant and prosperous in the years ahead.”

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British Columbians naturally assume they’re using clean power when they fire up holiday lights, juice up a cell phone or plug in a shiny new electric car. 

That’s the message conveyed in advertisements for the CleanBC initiative launched by the NDP government, which has spent $3.17 million on a CleanBC “information campaign,” including almost $570,000 for focus group testing and telephone town halls, according to the B.C. finance ministry.

“We’ll reduce air pollution by shifting to clean B.C. energy,” say the CleanBC ads, which feature scenic photos of hydro reservoirs. “CleanBC: Our Nature. Our Power. Our Future.” 

Yet despite all the bumph, British Columbians have no way of knowing if the electricity they use comes from a coal-fired plant in Alberta or Wyoming, a nuclear plant in Washington, a gas-fired plant in California or a hydro dam in B.C. 

Here’s why. 

BC Hydro’s wholly-owned corporate subsidiary, Powerex Corp., exports B.C. power when prices are high and imports power from other jurisdictions when prices are low. 

In 2018, for instance, B.C. imported more electricity than it exported — not because B.C. has a power shortage (it has a growing surplus due to the recent spate of mill closures) but because Powerex reaps bigger profits when BC Hydro slows down generators to import cheaper power, especially at night.

“B.C. buys its power from outside B.C., which we would argue is not clean,” says Martin Mullany, interim executive director for Clean Energy BC. 

Branding materials from CleanBC, the province’s strategy for reducing emissions. Photo: Province of B.C. / Flickr

“A good chunk of the electricity we use is imported,” Mullany says. “In reality we are trading for brown power” — meaning power generated from conventional ‘dirty’ sources such as coal and gas. 

Wyoming, which generates almost 90 per cent of its power from coal, was among the 12 U.S. states that exported power to B.C. last year. (Notably, B.C. did not export any electricity to Wyoming in 2018.)

Utah, where coal-fired power plants produce 70 per cent of the state’s energy, and Montana, which derives about 55 per cent of its power from coal, also exported power to B.C. last year. 

So did Nebraska, which gets 63 per cent of its power from coal, 15 per cent from nuclear plants, 14 per cent from wind and three per cent from natural gas.   

Coal is responsible for about 23 per cent of the power generated in Arizona, another exporter to B.C., while gas produces about 44 per cent of the electricity in that state.  

Counting carbon emissions from B.C. power imports

That adds up to a lot of carbon.

In 2017, the latest year for which statistics are available, electricity imports to B.C. totalled just over 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, according to the B.C. environment ministry — roughly the equivalent of putting 255,000 new cars on the road, using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s calculation of 4.71 tonnes of annual carbon emissions for a standard passenger vehicle. 

These figures far outstrip the estimated local and upstream emissions from the contested Woodfibre LNG plant in Squamish that is expected to release annual emissions equivalent to 170,000 new cars on the road.

Import emissions cast a new light on B.C.’s latest “milestone” announcement that 30,000 electric cars are now among 3.7 million registered vehicles in the province.

In November of 2018 the province announced a new target to have all new light-duty cars and trucks sold to be zero-emission vehicles by the year 2040. Photo: Province of B.C. / Flickr

“Making sure more of the vehicles driven in the province are powered by BC Hydro’s clean electricity is one of the most important steps to reduce [carbon] pollution,” said the November 28 release from the energy ministry.

Mullany points out that Powerex’s priority is to make money for the province and not to reduce emissions.

“It’s not there for the cleanest outcome,” he said. “At some time we have to step up to say it’s either the money or the clean power, which is more important to us?”

Electricity bought and sold by little-known, unregulated Powerex

These transactions are money-makers for Powerex, an opaque entity that is exempt from B.C.’s freedom of information laws. 

Little detailed information is available to the public about the dealings of Powerex, which is overseen by a board of directors comprised of BC Hydro board members and BC Hydro CEO and president Chris O’Reilly. 

According to BC Hydro’s annual service plan, Powerex’s net income ranged from $59 million to $436 million from 2014 to 2018. 

“We will never know the true picture. It’s a black box.” 

Powerex’s CEO Tom Bechard — the highest paid public servant in the province — took home $939,000 in pay and benefits last year, earning $430,000 of his executive compensation through a bonus and holdback based on his individual and company performance.  

“The problem is that all of the trade goes on at Powerex and Powerex is an unregulated entity,” Mullany says. 

“We will never know the true picture. It’s a black box.” 

In 2018, Powerex exported 8.7 million megawatt hours of electricity to the U.S. for a total value of almost $570 million, according to data from the Canada Energy Regulator. That same year, Powerex imported 9.6 million megawatt hours of electricity from the U.S. for almost $360 million. 

Powerex sold B.C.’s publicly subsidized power for an average of $87 per megawatt hour in 2018, according to the Canada Energy Regulator. It imported electricity for an average of $58 per megawatt hour that year. 

In an emailed statement in response to questions from The Narwhal, BC Hydro said “there can be a need to import some power to meet our electricity needs” due to dam reservoir fluctuations during the year and from year to year.

‘Impossible’ to determine if electricity is from coal or wind power

Emissions associated with electricity imports are on average “significantly lower than the emissions of a natural gas generating plant because we mostly import electricity from hydro generation and, increasingly, power produced from wind and solar,” BC Hydro claimed in its statement. 

But U.S. energy economist Robert McCullough says there’s no way to distinguish gas and coal-fired U.S. power exports to B.C. from wind or hydro power, noting that “electrons lack labels.” 

Similarly, when B.C. imports power from Alberta, where 48.5 per cent of electricity production is coal-fired and 38 per cent comes from natural gas, there’s no way to tell if the electricity is from coal, wind or gas, McCullough says.

“It really is impossible to make that determination.” 

The Gillette coal pits in Wyoming, one of the largest coal-producers in the U.S. Photo: NASA Earth Observatory

Neither the Canada Energy Regulator nor Statistics Canada could provide annual data on electricity imports and exports between B.C. and Alberta. 

But you can watch imports and exports in real time on this handy Alberta website, which also lists Alberta’s power sources. 

In 2018, California, Washington and Oregon supplied considerably more power to B.C. than other states, according to data from Canada Energy Regulator. 

Washington, where about one-quarter of generated power comes from fossil fuels, led the pack, with more than $339 million in electricity exports to B.C. 

California, which still gets more than half of its power from gas-fired plants even though it leads the U.S. in renewable energy with substantial investments in wind, solar and geothermal, was in second place, selling about $18.4 million worth of power to B.C. 

And Oregon, which produces about 43 per cent of its power from natural gas and six per cent from coal, exported about $6.2 million worth of electricity to B.C. last year. 

By comparison, Nebraska’s power exports to B.C. totalled about $1.6 million, Montana’s added up to $1.3 million,  Nevada’s were about $706,000 and Wyoming’s were about $346,000.

Clean electrons or dirty electrons?

Dan Woynillowicz, deputy director of Clean Energy Canada, which co-chaired the B.C. government’s Climate Solutions and Clean Growth Advisory Council, says B.C. typically exports power to other jurisdictions during peak demand. 

Gas-fired plants and hydro power can generate electricity quickly, while coal-fired power plants take longer to ramp up and wind power is variable, Woynillowicz notes. 

“When you need power fast and there aren’t many sources that can supply it you’re willing to pay more for it.”

Woynillowicz says “the odds are high” that B.C. power exports are displacing dirty power.

“As a consumer you never know whether you’re getting a clean electron or a dirty electron. You’re just getting an electron.” 

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