The B.C. government says it will only meet half of its 2030 target to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
In an annual report released Tuesday as part of a legislative requirement, the province said it expects to drop B.C.’s carbon pollution to 20 per cent below 2007 levels by 2030. That’s just half the 40 per cent reduction in emissions the B.C. government committed to achieving in its Climate Change Accountability Act.
BC Green interim Leader Jeremy Valeriote, MLA for West Vancouver-Sea to Sky, slammed the B.C. NDP government for blaming its inability to reduce emissions on population growth, and then, having no plans to fix it.
“It’s huge. We’re not even coming close,” said Valeriote, pointing to the gap in emission targets. “If we missed our targets by this much on education, or health care or any other aspect of public life, people would be outraged.
“It’s a major failure and we all need to figure out how to fix it.”
Reporting government emissions data typically faces delays of up to two years. The latest report, which used 2022 data, found the province released 65.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide that year — a 0.2 per cent increase from the 2007 base year.
B.C.’s economy and population have also grown in recent years. Adjusting for those factors, the province said net per person emissions declined by 21.6 per cent, from 15.3 to 12 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person between 2007 and 2022.
That’s higher than the per capita emissions in Ontario, Quebec and Prince Edward Island, but lower than the Prairie provinces and the rest of Atlantic Canada.
Over that same period, B.C.'s real gross domestic product grew by 41 per cent.
Decarbonizing B.C.'s economy harder than some thought, says expert
Kathryn Harrison, a University of British Columbia political scientist researching climate policy, said the government report was surprisingly candid in its inability to meet its climate targets.
It comes at a time when climate change has sunk in the list of voter priorities. A day earlier, Canadians elected a minority Liberal government in a campaign dominated by high costs of living, housing, and U.S. threats to Canada's economy and sovereignty.
“There’s no way to fix climate change other than to decarbonize our economy. And that’s proving to be harder than many of us assumed,” said Harrison.
“This doesn’t mean we can’t do these things, but it means it’s hard.”
In B.C., the largest polluting sector of the economy was transportation, which accounted for 42 per cent of the province’s total emissions in 2022, the report found. The sector saw an 18 per cent increase in emissions between 2007 and 2022, largely driven by commercial trucking.
“Even though the number of personal vehicles rose, the impacts were offset by people driving less and choosing cleaner vehicles,” the report noted.
The next most polluting sector of B.C.’s economy was the industrial sector — including oil and gas — which released 39 per cent of B.C.’s total emissions in 2022.
The remaining 19 per cent of emissions came from the buildings and communities sector, which saw a six per cent decline from 2007, due largely to reductions in emissions from municipal solid waste.
At the same time, emissions from residential buildings were up one per cent while commercial buildings saw a 10 per cent spike over the five-year period.
Emissions from buildings are driven almost entirely by burning natural gas for heating.
Modest emissions gains would have been worse without government action, says report
The report said the modest gains made by B.C. would have been higher without the government’s flagship climate change program CleanBC.
The number of B.C. households with a heat pump spiked to 13 per cent in 2023, up from eight per cent in 2020, noted the report.
Further emissions reductions are expected to roll in between 2023 and 2026. But the report warned of “substantial uncertainty about their future trajectory.”
The government modelling only included gains made by the recently cancelled consumer carbon tax but only for the years that it was in place.
Harrison said the report offers an important window in the lead-up to a review of the CleanBC program and sectoral emissions targets. The NDP and Greens agreed to the review as part of a four-year supply-and-confidence agreement. Valeriote confirmed Tuesday the agreement remains on track.
“This leaves open this big question: What next?” said Harrison.
Critic says uncertainty reigns over how province hopes to close emissions gap
Thomas Green, senior climate policy advisor at the David Suzuki Foundation, agreed with Harrison that the report is more realistic than it has been in the past.
Instead of making assumptions that targets will be achieved, the latest government report looks at what existing policies will actually deliver, he said.
At the same time, Green said there remain big open questions around what the government will do to reach its targets and close the 13-megatonne emissions gap required to meet B.C.'s 2030 target — equivalent to the annual pollution from almost four million passenger vehicles.
“It’s almost a quarter of our total emissions,” said Green. “I am concerned. I don’t see enough attention on what they’re going to do to fix this.”
He said the province got rid of the carbon tax without figuring out what’s going to replace it. Meanwhile, recent direction from Energy and Climate Solutions Minister Adrian Dix softened requirements for new LNG export terminals to be powered by electricity.
One of the most effective policies that could lower emissions is an oil and gas emissions cap, which Green said has the benefit of not costing consumers.
Without the cap, “I don’t know how we meet our targets,” he said.
