It’s 31 degrees outside and I was planning to go to the lake this afternoon — and I’d be willing to hazard a guess that many British Columbians are in the same boat.

That’s exactly why B.C. Premier Christy Clark chose tomorrow to release her Climate Action Plan — originally scheduled for release nearly six months ago.

Politicans often "take out the trash" on Fridays during the dog days of summer and this time is no different.

The plan — according to a leak in the Globe and Mail today — will fail to increase the carbon tax or update greenhouse gas reduction targets.

Those were two of the cornerstone recommendations from the province’s own expert committee.

“The depths of August on a Friday afternoon is not the time you release a plan that you want a lot of people to pay attention to,” said Josha MacNab, B.C. director for the Pembina Institute.

Pembina was a member of the Climate Leadership Team comprised of environmental, academic, business and First Nations leaders. The team presented 32 recommendations reached by consensus (except for one dissenting vote by LNG Canada on the carbon tax recommendation).

“The Climate Leadership Team was very clear that the recommendations needed to be accepted as a package and they warned against picking and choosing amongst the recommendations that they put forward,” MacNab said.

MacNab says she is shocked the government appears ready to cherry pick from the recommendations.

“The premier herself appointed this panel to give her advice to get B.C.’s emissions back on track because under her leadership they have been going up,” MacNab said.

B.C. had promised to reduce its emissions by 33 per cent below 2007 levels by 2020. That’s not going to happen.

Instead, emissions are expected to increase 39 per cent above 2014 levels by 2030, according to modeling by the Pembina Institute.

Now the province will continue touting its pie-in-the-sky goal of reducing emissions by 80 percent below 2007 levels by 2050 — without any credible pathway to get there.

.@ChristyClarkBC Hopes You’re Not Reading This https://t.co/1SZDfJqUVY #summertime #holidays #bcpoli #climateactionplan

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) August 19, 2016

That puts B.C. in stark contrast to Canada’s other most populous provinces — Ontario, Quebec and even Alberta, all of which are projecting a decrease in emissions.

Merran Smith of Clean Energy Canada was a part of Clark's Climate Leadership Team and says B.C. has a legal obligation to reduce carbon emissions.

"We’ve been a climate leader in the past and our economy has thrived as a climate leader so I’m a bit shocked that this government has put all its eggs in the oil and gas basket and really procrastinated on climate action," Smith said.

"The carbon tax is the cheapest and most effective way to reduce carbon pollution. And that’s why it was a key part of our recommendations," Smith added. "We didn’t create a shopping list of different ways to reduce carbon pollution to meet our targets. We created a cohesive, coherent plan and you need all those different recommendations to work together in order to reduce carbon pollution."

Clark appears poised to defend her inaction on the basis of protecting “affordability for families” and maintaining a “strong economy.”

But the old dichotomy of environment versus economy is false, according to MacNab.

“The mandate of the Climate Leadership Team was to present a plan that met B.C.’s climate targets and maintained a strong economy. A strong climate plan going forward needs to meet our climate targets. But a strong climate plan also needs to position B.C. to be competitive in a low-carbon economy — in an increasingly de-carbonizing international market.”

In an attempt to placate anyone who’s paying attention, the province will announce feel-good measures like rebates on electric vehicles and incentives for industry to switch to electricity tomorrow.

The Globe and Mail has also reported that the plan will include details of the electrification of upstream natural gas production, one of the ever-changing justifications for building the controversial $8.8 billion Site C dam on the Peace River.

And therein lies the rub. Clark desperately wants to develop a natural gas industry — but she can’t do that and meet B.C.’s climate targets.

Instead of all the smoke and mirrors, it’d sure be refreshing if someone would just come out and tell the truth.

As it stands, the plan to be released tomorrow ought to be named B.C.’s Climate Inaction Plan. Question is: if we’re all at the lake, will it matter?

Photo: Province of British Columbia

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By Josha MacNab, regional director for British Columbia at the Pembina Institute.

When world leaders gathered in Lima, Peru, for global climate change talks, British Columbia’s environment minister, Mary Polak, was among them. She shared the province’s successful experience in implementing commendable climate policies, like B.C.’s carbon tax — a policy that the president of the World Bank hailed as a “powerful example” of carbon pricing.

However, Minister Polak also included the province’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) export aspirations as part of B.C.’s climate success story, arguing that LNG will displace coal in Asia. Unfortunately, the evidence doesn’t support this claim.

LNG versus coal

Compared against each other, a coal-fired electricity plant will produce more carbon pollution than a gas-fired electricity plant on a life-cycle basis if methane emissions from natural gas extraction are well managed. But research from the Pembina Institute and the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions shows that, without strong climate policies, increasing the supply of gas in the global market does not lead to the displacement of more polluting energy sources like coal. It simply feeds an increasing energy demand with additional fossil fuels, putting the world squarely on track for dangerous climate change.

A study published recently in Nature supports this conclusion. For natural gas to displace carbon-intensive forms of energy like coal there need to be climate policies in place that shift investment decision-making. A strong carbon price, for example, would provide an incentive to replace coal plants with lower-carbon energy alternatives.

Click image for larger version.

The recent China-U.S. climate agreement is an example of a step in the right direction towards what is needed to encourage the development of climate policies that could result in LNG replacing coal in China. However, the same climate policies that shift investments towards lower-carbon choices ultimately result in a decrease in the demand for all fossil fuels, including natural gas. In fact, as part of that agreement, China plans to increase the share of non-fossil fuels in its primary energy consumption to around 20 per cent by 2030.

Gas as a “bridge fuel”

Our research shows that less natural gas will be used in a world with strong climate policies. In the short term, and in the context of strong climate policy, natural gas can act as a “bridge fuel” that helps the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy and more energy efficiency. To keep the planet below an average of 2°C of global warming (the internationally recognized limit to avoid dangerous climate change) that bridge must be very short: by 2030 natural gas demand would peak, and by mid-century it would fall below current levels.

Governments and industry also need to get better at measuring methane emissions that result from the extraction of natural gas. Recent studies have concluded that this carbon pollution is higher than previously estimated. This means that the role for natural gas as a bridge fuel in a carbon-constrained world could be even shorter, unless methane management practices improve significantly.

An economic risk

Not only is it inaccurate to claim that LNG is a “climate solution”, it’s also economically unwise. Tying B.C.’s economic engine to a resource that will decline in 15 years if governments around the world implement strong climate policy is a recipe for a major boom and bust — something many B.C. communities are unfortunately all too familiar with.

Instead of focusing so intently on LNG, B.C. should look at what types of energy solutions will be needed with strong climate policies in place, and figure out how to supply those needs. In such a world, the International Energy Agency predicts that by 2035 demand for renewable energy would increase by 127 per cent over 2011 levels. Meanwhile, total energy demand is predicted to go down globally by 20 per cent relative to a world without strong climate policies, thanks to the rise of energy efficiency and conservation.

This represents a massively growing global market for clean energy technology and services, one in which B.C. already has an advantage. For example, analysis from consulting firm KPMG found 200 clean technology companies operating in the province, employing over 8,000 people and generating $2.5 billion in annual revenue, primarily from exports. Many of these companies are well positioned to take advantage of a growing market for clean energy.

There are many ways B.C. can and should play a productive role in global climate change initiatives. Fortunately, with its track record of implementing credible climate policies, a global reputation for climate leadership and a growing clean energy sector, B.C. has a lot more to offer the world than more fossil fuels.

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The B.C. government’s claim that LNG exports offer the “greatest single step British Columbia can take to fight climate change” is inaccurate in the absence of stronger global climate policies according to a new report released today by the Pembina Institute and the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions.

Natural gas does have a role to play in a world that avoids two degrees Celsius in global warming, but only if strong emissions reduction policies are put in place in the jurisdictions that produce and consume the gas, says the report, LNG and Climate Change: The Global Context authored by Matt Horne and Josha MacNab.

“Natural gas is often described as a bridge fuel. The question is, how long should that bridge be?” says MacNab, B.C. regional director for the Pembina Institute, a national non-profit focused on transitioning Canada to a clean energy future.

“Our research suggests it must be very short if we’re going to be able to get off the bridge in time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.”

If strong climate policies were put in place to avoid reaching more than two degrees of warming, the burning of natural gas would peak by 2030 and drop below current levels by mid century, according to the report.

Under that scenario, energy efficiency, renewables and nuclear would increase significantly while the use of fossil fuels drops.

“It’s climate policy that will determine coal use, not the availability of natural gas,” MacNab says. “It’s not simply a question of LNG and coal swapping out for each other.”

The B.C. government’s claim, which was made during the February 2014 throne speech, is premised on two assumptions.

The first is that natural gas is cleaner than coal. On that point, MacNab said that in most cases natural gas is 10 to 40 per cent cleaner than coal assuming that methane is safely managed. However, the Pembina Institute report also notes that there “remains material uncertainty” about the life cycle emissions of natural gas that requires additional research.

The second assumption the B.C. government makes is that LNG will replace coal.

“In a world with weak climate policy, natural gas will not reduce coal use,” says Horne, B.C. associate regional director for the Pembina Institute. “Without a global push for low carbon energy sources and efficiency, LNG will likely worsen rather than ease global warming.”

The institute’s findings are in line with a report published last week in Nature, which found that cheap abundant natural gas will actually delay any efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

B.C. Needs to Put Emissions Reduction Policies Before LNG Strategy

To draw its conclusions, the Pembina Institute report compares the role of natural gas under two different scenarios: one in which global warming is limited to two degrees Celsius and one that stays on the business as usual path. The comparison yields two very different roles for natural gas — either as part of an energy mix that helps avoid dangerous climate change or as part of an energy mix that accelerates the world down the path to dangerous climate change.

“Instead of leading with LNG and natural gas strategies, jurisdictions — B.C. included — need to lead with emissions reduction policies,” the report says.

To avoid more than two degrees of warming and keep atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases below 450 parts per million, the International Energy Agency says policies need to include economy-wide carbon pricing, the phase out of fossil fuel subsidies, emissions standards on power plants and a renewable transportation fuel standard.

The Pembina Institute makes three recommendations to the B.C. government to increase the chances that B.C.’s LNG industry can be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem, including applying an evidence-based approach in assessing energy exports, strengthening domestic efforts to reduce emissions from natural gas and LNG development and playing a more proactive role on climate change and methane management globally.

If strong climate change policy was enacted on a global level, natural gas use would peak by 2030 — just 15 years from now. What does that mean in terms of B.C.’s plans to build an LNG industry?

“We would encourage the B.C. government to be thinking about that in terms of the long-term sustainability of the industry,” MacNab says. “B.C. ought to be careful in hitching its economic wagon to a resource that will decline in a carbon-constrained world."

Photo: Christy Clark at LNG Canada announcement via Province of British Columbia on Flickr

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