British Columbians will not find out before next spring’s provincial election if the province has adequate programs in place to adapt to climate change.

Earlier this month Auditor General Carol Bellringer released a list of projects her office intends to investigate in the next three years and, among the hot button issues — ranging from grizzly bear management to the Site C dam — is whether government is adequately managing risks posed by climate change.

In the wake of heavy criticism of Premier Christy Clark’s August release of the province’s “Climate Leadership Plan” — which does not include carbon tax increases or set emission targets for 2030 — some were hoping that Bellringer would release the report early next year.

“It is a question I am being asked, but the timing is not going to work,” Bellringer said in an interview with DeSmog Canada.

“We are probably going to have finished our field work by spring, but we won’t be able to issue it before the election,” she said.

It is likely the report will be completed by fall of 2017 and will then be tabled in the Legislature, Bellringer said.

Audits of provincial management of climate change risks are being conducted simultaneously across the country and individual reports will then be wrapped into Canada’s first comprehensive national audit of climate policies.

It is the first time provincial and federal auditors have worked together to compile a common audit on any issue, indicating the importance of the issue, Bellringer said.

The federal report, likely to be completed late 2017, will look at how provinces are coping with climate change, both through restricting emissions and adapting to the new reality.

Some provinces will take a look at both mitigation and adaptation while others will delve deeper into one of the areas. The B.C. report will take an in-depth look at adaptation, Bellringer said.

“There’s quite a bit of information about mitigation. It’s easier to find out what emission targets are. It’s harder to pull together the various programs that may be in place around adaptation, so we decided it was going to be a more useful thing for us to work on,” said Bellringer, who, until the report is tabled, cannot discuss information collected or speculate on how B.C. measures up against other provinces.

Sybil Seitzinger, executive director of the B.C.-based Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, applauded the decision to look at adaptation.

“Many areas of B.C. are already being impacted by the changing climate. A comprehensive adaptation plan will be important in the next phase of the B.C climate leadership plan,” she said.

“Attention to B.C.’s communities and businesses in the coastal and northern regions will be particularly important.”

The auditor general’s office is not given access to confidential cabinet documents, but uses analyses, experts and government documents to come up with base information, so B.C.’s Climate Leadership Plan will be one of the documents under scrutiny.

B.C. Climate Change Audit Won’t Be Released Until After Election: Auditor General https://t.co/2u9xzXv0XI #bcpoli #BCelxn2017

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) September 27, 2016

Lack of substance in the misnamed plan should give the auditor general’s office plenty of food for thought, according to George Heyman, NDP environment critic.

“I would like to see the auditor general look at the reality of the B.C. government’s and Christy Clark’s inaction on the climate file since she took office. . . .I think the auditor general should assess the premier’s rhetoric against the facts, ” Heyman told DeSmog Canada.

“Her climate procrastination plan skips over the 2020 targets and ignores the 2030 targets. . .  The premier claims to be on track to reduce emissions, but people can see that emissions have been rising steadily since she took office.”

After the plan was launched, Seitzinger said in a speech that it would not take B.C. even halfway towards its legislated 13-million tonne 2050 emissions target.

Environment Minister Mary Polak did not respond to interview requests from DeSmog, but told the CBC that a more comprehensive plan will be developed after meeting with the federal and other provincial governments.

B.C. is missing out on the opportunity to grow the economy through green jobs and, instead, provincial policies are geared to supporting the fossil fuel industry, Heyman said.

New Democrats are holding consultations and will probably be ready to release their climate action plan this fall, said Heyman, who would not speculate on whether an NDP government would increase the carbon tax but said the tax should be restructured to support green initiatives and transit, rather than subsidizing tax cuts for rich British Columbians.

B.C., Alberta, Ontario and Quebec have either carbon taxes or cap-and-trade laws to limit emissions, but federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said during an interview on CTV’s Question Period that the federal government is ready to impose a carbon price regime on provinces that don’t adequately regulate their own emissions.

Photo: Province of British Columbia

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

B.C. faces a future of disappearing salmon runs, more wildfires and dying forests with a temperature increase of two or three degrees and it is time to adapt to a new reality, a panel of experts told a packed audience at the University of Victoria’s Ideafest.   The weird weather of 2015 broke records, but it is a harbinger of the future, said Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium climate scientist Trevor Murdock, adding that models showing a two degree temperature rise are probably optimistic.   By the end of this century, if greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed, there could be a temperature increase of six degrees Celsius, Murdock warned.   “With zero net greenhouse gas emissions and with some pulled out of the atmosphere — so pretty much what was agreed to in Paris — we are still looking at about two degrees of warming,” Murdock said.   “For the 21st century it looks as if 2015 is our way to the new future.”

Last year, which saw near record streamflow highs and near record lows, was “an uncomfortable glimpse into the future,” agreed Faron Anslow, PCIC’s climate analysis and monitoring leader.   “Between May and June (2015) things really went off the rails in terms of the snowpack,” he said.   That meant high water flows in late spring and record-breaking low flows in the summer and the glimpse into the future shows wetter winters and hotter, drier summers, with inevitable effects on everything from fish and forests to agriculture and recreation.   “There’s more precipitation in the wet season and less in the dry season. The biggest factor is the change in timing,” said Sybil Seitzinger, Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions executive director.   That is bad news for fish, said Fisheries and Oceans Canada research scientist Kim Hyatt who has studied problems with warming waters resulting from the 2014-2016 strong El Niño and The Blob of warm water that developed in the Eastern Pacific in 2014.   “With those things back-to-back you can expect biological outcomes in spades,” he said.   The water, which was two-and-a-half to three degrees warmer than usual, brought a toxic algae bloom that extended from California to Alaska and caused the death of seabirds, fish and whales, Hyatt said.   Toxic algae blooms are not new, but they usually die off after a few weeks. The scope and duration of the 2015 bloom was unprecedented.

Like what you're reading? Sign up for our email newsletter!

The warm water brought in species such as trigger fish and butter fish, usually found in the waters off Hawaii, and those ecosystem changes are likely to continue this year, so more research is needed on interaction with native species, Hyatt said.   Salmon runs in B.C. did not collapse in 2015, but the fish were smaller than usual and the warm water in rivers had disastrous consequences for some runs such as the Columbia River.   Last year, 400,000 sockeye were counted at the mouth of the Columbia and, with 100,000 caught, 300,000 were making their way to the spawning grounds, but only 11,000 made it because of river temperatures that were elevated by two or three degrees.   “Ninety-seven per cent of the fish died en route,” Hyatt said.   “Two or three degrees doesn’t sound like much if you can air-condition your house, but fish can’t do that, so these fish expired,” he said.   “If 2015 is a harbinger of what we are going to see routinely, we are going to have serious problems maintaining salmon populations in the Columbia.”   Losses in the Fraser River were between 30 and 50 per cent because the more biologically diverse fish were better able to cope and that should provide a climate change adaptation lesson, Hyatt said.   “If we want fish in the future we are going to have to maintain biodiversity and look at fisheries systems that put demands on wild populations and make sure they are flexible and precautionary,” he said.   If people want to eat fish they must start relying more on aquaculture, Hyatt said.   “Marine populations are already at the ceiling of what they can support in the long run and, if you bring the ceiling down you are going to have to look at other ways,” he said.   Reduction of crop yields, increasing competition for water and wildfires are among the fallouts from drought, said Allen Dobb of the B.C. Agriculture and Food Climate Action Initiative.   Pests, diseases and pathogen patterns shift with warmer temperatures and, after the 2015 drought, salt water started coming further up the Fraser River and into irrigated areas, Dobb said.   “That is becoming a problem,” he said, pointing out that, in B.C., agricultural land is undervalued and underused.   “It is too easy to get produce somewhere else and I think that will have to change,” said Dob, who then skirted a question on the wisdom of flooding agricultural land to build the Site C dam.   “I can’t really respond to that dam situation,” he said diplomatically.   Drought will alter B.C.’s forests and species of trees planted, areas used for forestry and harvesting practices must change in order to adapt, Robbie Hember, a Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions research scientist, said.   British Columbians must expect more extreme weather events and there may be catastrophic mortality in some areas, Hember said, suggesting landscapes should be designed to be less vulnerable to wildfires.   “The timber supply will be more volatile and it’s going to be difficult to keep all the sawmills open all the time,” he said.   Anna Warwick Sears, executive director of the Okanagan Basin Water Board, watched the average snowpack suddenly melt away last year and, as the drought set in, she turned her mind to adaptation.   Her conclusion was that many solutions were basic common sense and she came up with a list of immediate actions for communities.   “Get the crap out of the water,” Warwick Sears said. “This is not rocket science, it’s manure and sewage and we know how to do this. With hotter, drier summers we’re going to grow more bacteria and algae and have a huge pollution problem. We’ve got to keep the water clean.”   Universal metering, expanded monitoring of streamflows and groundwater, local planning, a halt to lawn watering and going slow on new demands for water usage are among the actions suggested by Warwick Sears.   Then address obvious areas of difficulty, such as lack of communication between different levels of government and between governments and the public.   The number one piece of advice from Warwick Sears can be summed up with the word “collaboration.”   “Extreme weather events are going to cost more money and the only way we can get things done is to collaborate and get information from each other (on how to) adapt to climate change,” she said.   That may mean ditching preconceptions such as the necessity of preserving species in areas where they now exist.   In a world of imperfect solutions, resiliency is vital when addressing climate change, said Johanna Wolf, policy advisor with the Environment Ministry’s Climate Action Secretariat.   “Instead of focusing on species at risk, focus on the whole ecosystem. It’s a more resilient response.”

Image: BC Forest Fire Info via Facebook

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.

This is a guest post by Cam Fenton, Canadian tar sands organizer with 350.org.

Last week the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions released a report criticizing the fossil fuel divestment movement. While the report came as a surprise, the arguments didn’t, especially given that they were based more on building a straw man to support the report’s conclusions than actually understanding the movement.

At best the report fails to accurately reflect the demands and the theory of change of fossil fuel divestment movement, and at worst it fails to understand the true role and power of organizing, action and social movements.

The report gets a lot wrong and a little bit right, but most of its problems are undercut by three assumptions at the core of its argument – assumptions which seem to have been cherry-picked by the authors to support their own conclusions rather than reflecting those articulated by the movement. In fact the divestment movement has only ever been founded on one assumption that “if it’s morally wrong to wreck the climate, it’s wrong to profit from that wreckage.”

The movement has been helped along by financial developments related the carbon bubble, the advent of reinvestment as a strategy and a slew of others. Still the core demand of the divestment movement remains for public institutions to divest from the top 200 fossil fuel companies.

Three faulty assumptions about divestment

1. The first “assumption” the movement is charged with is that divestment alone will keep carbon underground. Will one institution divesting do this? No, but dozens of public institutions refusing to do business with the world’s biggest fossil fuel giants will help build the political and moral will for governments and others institutions to leave fossil fuels in the ground.

Take New Jersey based utility company NRG for example. NRG built itself on coal and in late in 2014 announced that it was seeking to cut 90 per cent of its carbon emissions because they “don’t relish the idea that year after year we’re going to be graduating a couple million kids from college…that come out of college with a distaste or disdain for companies like mine.”

This one single shift, a direct result of the divestment movement, will keep three billion metric tons of carbon in the ground.

Energy Information Agency map showing retired coal plants in the U.S. 

This is just one example from a campaign that an Oxford University study found to be the fastest growing divestment movement in history. The same study, which looked at past divestment efforts found that “in every case [they] reviewed, divestment campaigns were successful in lobbying for restrictive legislation.”

In other words, that while divestment may not itself leave carbon in the ground, it’s a tactic that will play an integral role in forcing policy change to do just that.

2. PICS’s second assumption is that one can simply replace high carbon investments with low carbon alternatives. This is not a demand of the UBC divestment campaign, which the report uses as its case study. UBC’s campaign recognizes the divestment is not simple, which is why UBC campaigners are demanding first a freeze of new investments, then a five year divestment phase.

Even with this, many divested institutions have chosen to move faster and in doing so are driving fundamental shifts in the investment market. Investment managers like Canada’s Genus Capital are already managing tens of millions in fossil fuel free funds because their clients asked them to replace high carbon investments with low carbon ones. The Divest/Invest coalition the report cites is driving a new wave of impact investment into climate solutions alongside grassroots reinvestment efforts supporting frontline impacted communities to develop and build resilient climate solutions.

Banks worldwide are rolling out fossil fuel free investment options because of popular demand (in part driven by the divestment movement). This undermines another of the report’s objections – the lack of easily divested options. The divestment movement is overcoming the very barriers the PICS authors claim to impede its success.

3. Finally, and falsely, the authors assert that the primary goal of divestment is to protect investors from the risk of the carbon bubble. Divestment is about organizing, building power and about bankrupting the reputation of the fossil fuel industry in order to revoke its political and social power.

That said, when the top 200 fossil fuel companies were taken out of Standard & Poor’s S&P 500 and tested back over 10 years, it showed that the divested portfolio outperformed by an average of 30 basis points.

Does this mean that divesting protects from the carbon bubble entirely? No, but it does point out that divesting from fossil fuels reducing an investor’s exposure to the volatility of the fossil fuel market, something the carbon bubble is sure to exacerbate.

Of course, that’s just a bonus.

Getting divestment all wrong

So why did they get things so wrong?

The main reasons is probably that report demonstrates a near complete lack of understanding of social movements. While the report pays lip-service to the symbolic power of divestment, it shuffles it to the side failing to grasp that throughout history people powered social change has routinely been won through symbolic action.

Take the Civil Rights Movement as an example. The overwhelming majority of campaigns were symbolic – were they to boycott buses, sit-in at lunch counters or take freedom rides across state lines. No one expected any campaign alone to achieve the visionary goal of ending racial oppression in the United States, but understood that with each campaign won the movement got one step further on the path to victory.

Even in past divestment movements it was never the goal of campus divestment to bankrupt the South African Apartheid regime, but rather to morally bankrupt it in the eyes of the public to pave the way for greater change.

Representatives from the University of Waterloo's divestment movement at the People's Climate March in New York City. Photo by Zack Embree.

Divestment organizers recognize that this campaign is just one piece of a greater whole, another thing the report fails to grasp.

Student divestment organizers believe so fervently that divestment alone is not enough than many spend hours working in other parts of the climate movement. They engage in electoral strategies, they support frontline communities, they intervene at international climate negotiations, they fight infrastructure projects near their homes and work to build renewable energy. Students organize iconic mass civil disobedience actions, like the student led XL Dissent action.

Last September student divestment organizers recruited over 50,000 of their peers to march in New York City at the Peoples Climate March. In fact, the only people who seem to think that divestment exists in a bubble are the movement’s detractors.

The bottom-line is: if the strategies the PICS report outlines were going to work in a market and a political system controlled by the fossil fuel industry they would have already.

Ignoring this fact is like trying to play checkers while your opponent is using a chess board. The game has been stacked against us and so we need to change the rules. To do that we have to take on cultural, political and economic power of the fossil fuel industry through organizing, mass action and campaigning. The fossil fuel divestment movement is one part of a climate movement that is finally doing just that and emerging with people power leading ahead of policy pontification.

Hundreds of thousands of people around the globe are organizing and fighting for divestment because we need to rapidly and fundamentally change our energy system – and that’s something only a movement can do.

This article originally appeared on gofossilfree.org.

Image Credit: Zack Embree

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.

Ditching fossil fuel stocks and replacing them with green energy investments will have little effect on greenhouse gas emissions until there are government and institutional policy changes, according to a new report.

The white paper, written by two University of British Columbia (UBC) researchers working with the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, finds that even if divestment campaigns – now being waged at more than 30 Canadian universities – are successful, there will be minimal impact on emissions, partially because governments, rather than shareholder companies, control the vast majority of the world’s oil reserves. If conventional energy companies were serious about avoiding surpassing the 2 degrees Celsius temperature limit recommended by scientists and policy makers, that would require "deep structural changes," the authors, Hadi Dowlatabadi and Justin Ritchie, argue.

However, the good news for those fighting for divestment, is that, with the right policies in place, divestment could speed up the change to a low carbon economy and change social norms when it comes to investing, the researchers concluded.

“Divestment movements are socially significant, but currently exert little influence on financing transition to sustainability," Dowlatabadi said.

“A lot of very well-meaning people put a lot of energy into the divestment campaigns and they are our friends – we believe that the symbolic value of their activities is significant,” Dowlatabadi told the Globe and Mail. “But for that symbolic value to be translated into progress towards decarbonization of the economy, all sorts of supported policies are needed.”

One of the reasons divestment may not be enough to tackle climate change is that fossil fuel energy is integrated into multiple areas, including low carbon industries.

“This means that divestment may end up being greenwash, when money is taken away from fossil fuel companies and reinvested, for example, in banks, which, typically, fund such companies anyway,” Dowlatabadi said.

Among policy changes suggested for municipal and provincial governments are the creation of an energy transition bank that could offer bonds and help ease investors into the low carbon economy while supporting B.C.’s green tech sector, a low carbon transition investment tax credit and support for public fund managers.

Universities and other institutions should set timelines for divestment, review their goals and screening of investments and use in-house expertise to come up with divestment strategies.

Those working on divestment campaigns should consider launching a separate low carbon or fossil free endowment fund so the performance can be compared to traditional funds, possibly with crowdfunding help, and explore how investment returns fit with broader campus sustainability goals, the paper says.

The University of Victoria and Simon Fraser University are circulating student and faculty-led divestment petitions and more than 200 UBC professors recently voted for the university to divest from the 200 most polluting companies over the next five years. The UBC Faculty Association is currently voting on whether the endowment fund should divest.

In December, Concordia University committed to divest itself of $5-million of fossil fuel investments and has plans for a new sustainable investment fund.

Image Credit: Daily Collegian via Flickr

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

The 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.

Last year B.C. joined Washington State, Oregon and California in an effort to limit the causes and effects of climate change. A new poll released today shows British Columbians are eager to see the government keep its commitments under the Pacific Coast Action Plan on Climate and Energy.

The climate plan was designed to respond to “the clear and convincing scientific evidence of climate change, ocean acidification and other impacts from increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which threaten our people, our economy and our natural resources.”

The plan was signed in 2013, with little fanfare. Yet, residents of B.C. strongly support the initiative, and the government’s commitments to limit carbon pollution.

But with the B.C. government’s big ambitions to develop and export liquefied natural gas (LNG), there appears to be a conflict brewing within the province’s own objectives.

Today’s poll, commissioned by the Pembina Institute, Clean Energy Canada and the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS) was conducted by Strategic Communications and shows British Columbians want to prioritize five things:

1.     Transition to energy efficient buildings (91%)

2.     Hit our climate targets (89%)

3.     Maintain low-carbon fuel standard (88%)

4.     Increase electric vehicles in government and company fleets (82%), and

5.     Continue the carbon tax (69%)

So far B.C. has been successful at limiting its carbon emissions. The province has a commitment to limit emissions 33 per cent below 2007 levels by 2020 and 80 per cent below by 2050.

In 2012 the province met its interim goal of being 6 per cent below 2007 levels. The next interim goal comes up in 2016, when the province plans to be 18 per cent below 2007 levels.

But, given the province’s massive push to develop its natural gas resources and build several LNG facilities to liquefy and export the gas to Asia, experts are concerned B.C. may be in danger of failing to meet those targets.

B.C.’s failed ‘clean’ LNG promise

The B.C. Liberal government has made the development of the province’s natural gas deposits and the export of LNG a strong part of its clean energy platform.

In 2010 the province committed to having one LNG plant in operation by 2015 and three more to follow by 2020. Initially the government pledged to have these plants run on clean energy, but has since exempted LNG plants from this requirement, confusing exactly what ‘clean’ LNG might mean.

In 2012 Premier Christy Clark promised to deliver “the cleanest LNG in the world” at the World Economic Forum in China. Within a year she clarified that her “cleanest” standards would only apply to LNG facilities, and not the extraction of gas via fracking or transmission of the resource to production plants.

Then recently Rich Coleman, the provincial minister responsible for natural gas development, told the Globe and Mail the B.C. government would now only be measuring B.C.’s LNG facilities against other facilities, meaning the “cleanest” LNG in the world only has to out-perform previously existing plants to meet the province’s standards.

Coleman also dismissed the previous goal of running LNG plants on clean energy, saying “the cost to deliver the power would be so expensive that it would be ridiculous to make the investment.”

Clean Energy Canada, however, would disagree. The group recently commissioned a feasibility study to determine the reliability and affordability of regionally sourced renewable power for B.C.’s LNG development.

They found “any LNG facility on the North Coast could primarily power its production facilities with renewable energy and do so reliably, affordably and on schedule – using established commercial technologies.”

Further, they found “doing so reduces that plant’s carbon pollution by 45 per cent, and increases local permanent jobs by 40 per cent.”

Kevin Sauvé from the Pembina Institute confirmed that B.C.’s LNG ambitions stand in conflict with its own climate targets: “Multiple analyses have shown that B.C. targets are not achievable if three LNG terminals are developed by 2020, as the government intends.”

“This highlights a tension between public opinion and current government priorities, and is something that government should address as it develops its LNG regulations and the next phase of the Climate Action Plan,” Sauvé told DeSmog Canada.

There are a total of 14 proposed LNG facilities for the central coast of B.C.

As DeSmog Canada previously reported, the gas industry is seriously underreporting fugitive methane emissions – a reporting error that threatens B.C.’s ability to meet its own targets under the Climate Action Plan.

Using standard industry fugitive emissions rates, B.C. natural gas production emissions are likely 25 per cent higher than reported.

Another poll, commissioned by the same three groups and released in April of this year, found 78 per cent of British Columbians want the province to shift away from producing, using and exporting fossil fuels and to make the transition to using cleaner sources of energy.

“Given British Columbians desire to see the province transition away from both using and exporting fossil fuels, a wholesale push for LNG does not make sense for B.C.,” Sauvé said.

“Particularly given that the government’s current plans for developing LNG will make it impossible for the province to hit its climate targets.” 

Climate action and a strong economy

An analysis from the group Sustainable Prosperity shows B.C.’s carbon tax is both an “environmental and economic success story.”

The carbon tax, according to Sustainable Prosperity, has been remarkably good at limiting fuel use since it was introduced in 2008. And there have been no adverse impacts on the B.C. economy to speak of.

While B.C. reduced its fuel consumption by 17.4 per cent, its GDP kept pace with the rest of Canada.

Stewart Elgie, professor of law and economics at the University of Ottawa and the report’s lead author said, “B.C.’s experience shows that it is possible to have both a healthier environment and a strong economy – by taxing pollution and lowering income taxes.”

Another new report from PICS shows that, despite the government’s decision to exempt the agricultural sector from the carbon tax, there is “little evidence that the carbon tax was associated with any statistically significant effects on agricultural trade or competitiveness.”

Even in areas where the carbon tax was assumed to have negative impacts, there appears to be little damage done.

“The first phase of BC’s climate action plan has been an environmental and economic success,” Sauvé said, “and now is the time to build on it.”

“Government needs to lay out a road map for how we will meet our 2020 climate target as part of the second phase of its Climate Action Plan. Following through on the commitments it’s made in the Pacific Coast Action Plan would be a good start, particularly as those commitments appear to be popular with British Columbians.” 

Image Credit: Rich Coleman speaks at the B.C. LNG Conference. Photo by the Province of B.C. via Flickr.

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

A new poll released Thursday finds that more than three quarters of British Columbia residents want the province to shift away from producing, using and exporting fossil fuels and to embrace cleaner sources of energy.

The online survey, conducted by Strategic Communications Inc., found that 78 per cent of British Columbians agree that B.C. should transition away from using fossil fuels to cleaner sources of energy to prevent climate change from worsening, compared to 17 per cent who disagree.

"As climate science continues to demonstrate, climate change could have devastating impacts on both the environment and the economy," said Kevin Sauve, spokesperson for the Pembina Institute in B.C.

"It's encouraging to see that British Columbians are on the same page. Not only do they understand the need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels but see economic benefits in developing cleaner sources of energy as well."

"British Columbia is largely sitting on the sidelines of a global clean energy bonanza," said Merran Smith, Director of Clean Energy Canada. "Citizens know that the world's energy system is changing. The provincial government needs to strengthen the province's clean energy economy through targeted policy today."

The poll was commissioned by the Pembina Institute, Clean Energy Canada and the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions. Eight hundred and two adult B.C. residents were surveyed from April 1 to April 2, 2014, using an established proprietary research panel. The results were statistically weighted according to the most recent education, age, gender and region Census data to provide a representative sample of the B.C. population.

"This poll sends a clear message that British Columbians want steps put in place now to transition this province towards a prosperous low-carbon future," said Tom Pedersen, Executive Director of the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS). "It is encouraging to see such strong support for change across all levels of society, but especially among tomorrow's leaders — 18-34 year olds."

The poll found that 67 per cent of B.C. residents agree that the province should decrease its reliance on fossil fuels for greater economic security while more than 78 per cent suggested a move away from fossil fuels is necessary to avoid worsening climate change. Another 74 per cent agreed the province could benefit from clean sector jobs and growing the alternative energy economy.

Natural gas "out of step with clean energy"

The results of the poll come as B.C. Premier Christy Clark is pushing for the increased development of natural gas fields and liquified natural gas (LNG) plants for export.

On Earth Day, April 22nd, Environment Minister Mark Polak suggested the rush to develop the province's vast gas deposits was a part of B.C.'s climate plan.

“Our proven track record of climate leadership and our unwavering commitment to sustainable economic growth will also guide the development of B.C.’s liquefied natural gas industry. Climate change is a global issue. By exporting our abundant natural gas, B.C. will supply growing markets with the cleanest burning fossil fuel from the world’s cleanest LNG plants," she said.

Yet B.C.'s natural gas and LNG ambitions might not square with its ambitious emissions reductions.

“There are scenarios under which natural gas could potentialy be a transition fuel and that’s certainly the way the government has been positioning it," Sauve told DeSmog Canada. "But there is very little analysis to back that up.”

An increase in natural gas development will pile up on the climate impacts of other fossil fuels, Sauve said.

“Given this poll it looks like [the development of natural gas] is out of step with the expectations of British Columbians. It is out of step with clean energy.”

He added: “The general direction B.C. wants to go in is away from fossil fuels and towards clean energy.”

Image Credit: Sookie / Flickr Figures 1-3: British Columbians' opinions on climate change and clean energy: poll summary

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.