B.C. will not hike carbon tax in new climate plan, Clark says
Opposition parties, environmentalists blast rejection of key panel proposal
Premier Christy Clark has rejected calls by her own climate-leadership team to steadily increase B.C.’s carbon tax to meet greenhouse-gas emission targets by 2050.
Clark released a climate plan Friday that she said addressed “almost all” of the recommendations by her team of business, environmental, First Nations and academic leaders.
But, in a move that drew harsh criticism from opposition parties and environmental groups, Clark said she was unable to support the recommendation to increase the $30-per-tonne carbon tax by $10 a year beginning in 2018.
The team stated that increasing the carbon tax, which has been frozen since 2012, was key to reaching the government’s longerterm goal of reducing greenhousegas emissions to at least 80 per cent below 2007 levels by 2050.
Clark, however, told a news conference that she needs to balance the tax with her obligation to protect the economy, jobs and affordability for families.
She said B.C.’s carbon tax is “far ahead” of other provinces, and she would consider increasing the tax only as “other provinces catch up.” Otherwise, she said, the tax would force industries elsewhere, taking jobs and money with them.
Clark said her government will focus instead on 21 actions, including: • launching an “ambitious” treereplanting plan; • introducing new energyefficiency standards for gas-fired boilers; • making electric vehicles more affordable; • improving the energy efficiency of buildings; • initiating a strategy to reduce upstream methane emissions in the natural-gas sector; • making B.C.’s electricity 100 per cent renewable.
Clark said the plan would create 66,000 jobs and “reduce emissions by eight per cent by 2030” — even if new liquefied-natural-gas projects come online.
But it was unclear where Clark got that figure, which did not appear to be referenced in the plan itself nor the news release issued by the government Friday. Environmental groups and other critics said they had no idea where she got the number.
“I don’t believe that for a second,” said B.C. Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist.
The Oak Bay-Gordon Head MLA said Clark’s plan will do nothing to reduce emissions, and that’s why she waited until a Friday afternoon in August, during the Summer Olympics, to release a document that was due last spring.
“There is no plan,” Weaver said.
Jay Ritchlin of the David Suzuki Foundation noted that Clark made no mention of the province’s legislated goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 33 per cent below 2007 levels by 2020.
“We’re not going to get anywhere near them, and this plan doesn’t do anything about that,” he said. “We don’t even think we’re going to see real reductions by 2030 out of this plan. It’s very unlikely.
“So the whole world knows that climate change is serious — and this is not a serious response to climate change.”
George Heyman, the NDP spokesman on environmental issues, said Clark ignored her own advisory panel’s recommendation to establish a new 2030 goal and instead eliminated all targets for the next 34 years.
“Now we know why we waited so long,” he said. “There’s just nothing here. Nothing that sets targets. Nothing that gives us concrete measures that will actually get us to where we need to go.”
Josha MacNab of the Pembina Institute said the plan undermines Clark’s purported commitment to making life more affordable for families.
“A climate plan that leaves significant emission reduction to a later day is basically passing the cost of climate inaction along to our children,” she said. “That is not acting in the best interests of B.C. families and affordability.”