Politics keep B.C. at a standstill on climate change

Alberta might yet become a climate change leader.

Not because the NDP government’s new climate change plan is moving so quickly but because other provinces are moving so slowly.

Or, in the case of British Columbia, standing still.

The B.C. government announced its much-delayed climate-change plan last Friday afternoon — the day-of-choice to release bad news by governments the world over — and was immediately pummelled by environmental groups.

The new plan freezes the province’s carbon tax at $30 per tonne of carbon dioxide. It also sets out new emissions targets that are weaker than its previous commitments. Based on promises made in the past, you could argue B.C. is actually moving backward.

This should come as a surprise to nobody.

For one, Premier Christy Clark campaigned against a carbon-tax hike during her 2013 election campaign and there’s no way she’s going to hike the tax in advance of the next B.C. election, tentatively scheduled for May 8, 2017.

For another, Clark is a conservative politician in Liberal clothing.

She is no more likely to hike a carbon tax than Saskatchewan’s Premier Brad Wall is to introduce one. Not that Wall is entirely ignoring the problem.

He is focused on continued tinkering with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects to capture carbon dioxide emissions from large industrial smokestacks, compress them into a fluid and inject them underground.

It is an idea just as goofy, expensive and experimental as it sounds.

Once upon a time, CCS was Alberta’s unicorn-and-rainbow solution to the province’s greenhouse-gas emissions problem. Back in 2008, then-premier Ed Stelmach announced $2 billion in spending to fund CCS projects. Most of the proposed projects were rejected or cancelled and the current Alberta government is reluctantly spending $1.2 billion on two projects only because of contractual obligations.

The NDP government prefers to focus on reducing Alberta’s emissions through a carbon tax, green-energy projects, an eventual cap on oilsands emissions, and phasing out coal-fired power plants.

The problem for the government is that we won’t see any real reduction in emissions until 2030.

The NDP’s climate change plan will only slow the growth of emissions the next 14 years, at which point the government hopes to finally “bend the curve.” (Somebody really has to tell the government that a curve is already bent).

Alberta could reduce emissions faster but that would mean a higher carbon tax than the current proposed levy that will start at $20 a tonne in 2017 and increase to $30 in 2018. Besides being unpalatable to many Albertans, a much higher tax would likely drive businesses out of the province.

That brings me back to B.C.’s plan where its carbon tax is already at $30, and holding.

Clark argues that hiking the tax would put her province too far ahead of the pack and harm the economy. She also argues B.C. is an environmental leader for the simple reason it has a carbon tax and others are playing catch-up. (Ontario and Quebec are introducing a cap-and-trade system but that’s a whole other column topic for another day).

Clark sort of has a point.

She is getting hammered by environmental groups because she is slowing the province’s pace of emissions reduction. And she is doing it for that most obvious of reasons: politics.

Hiking the carbon tax might win her friends with environmentalists but there are more votes with the majority of voters, who I suspect are of the I-wantto-do-what’s-right-for-the-environment-as-long-as-it-doesn’tcost-too-much variety. And it’s all well and good to do what’s right for our grandchildren, but really, what have they ever done for us?

The NDP opposition in B.C. is attacking Clark for not raising the tax. But this is the same NDP that bitterly fought against the B.C. Liberals for introducing the carbon tax in 2008.

Politicians from all parties like to play politics with climate change, even tree-hugging New Democrats.

If you want to see leadership on the environment, don’t look to the provinces.

Maybe the federal government, as promised, will come up with something this year.