The rise and fall of climate change in B.C.

Liberals took small steps and then bailed, writes Marc Lee.

A decade ago, in the Feb. 13, 2007, speech from the throne, the B.C. government launched a frenzy of climate action never before seen in the province.

Ten years later, almost all of the provincial government’s current “climate-leadership” claims — heavily promoted in a pre-election ad spree — originated from a brief period in 2007 and 2008 when climate action was ostensibly a top provincial priority.

The story goes that then-premier Gordon Campbell brought some books about climate change on his annual winter vacation in Hawaii, got religion on climate and then brought this zeal back to his unsuspecting backbenchers and cabinet colleagues.

The 2007 speech from the throne talked about climate change at length and covered methane capture in landfills, electrification of ports and truck stops, new standards for cars and fuel, a green building code, plus retrofits for existing buildings, green cities and tree planting. Plans for coal-fired electricity were killed because of the carbon emitted.

This throne speech was the first to include a greenhouse-gas target of a one-third reduction by 2020 (relative to 2007 levels). By November 2007, the B.C. government added a longer-term target of an 80 per cent reduction by 2050, and legislated the targets to demonstrate the government’s commitment.

The 2008 “green budget” funded some already-announced measures, and added a carbon neutral government initiative. The fiscal centrepiece, however, was the announcement of the B.C. carbon tax. The tax was supported by climate hawks even though the price was low ($10 per tonne) with annual increments leading only to $30 per tonne in mid-2012. Revenue neutrality (returning carbon tax dollars to the public through tax cuts) was a central and illadvised plank that undermined the ability to fund other aspects of the climate agenda.

The government released its climate action plan in June 2008, which it claimed would reach 73 per cent of the 2020 target. In the months and years to come, no further actions were taken for a climate action plan 2.0 that would meet the government targets.

This in spite of the appointment of a blueribbon Climate Action Team to provide advice on additional measures for B.C. to meet its legislated targets. The Climate Action Team was established in November 2007, but by the time its July 2008 report was released, the B.C. government appetite for climate action had begun to wane. The report gathers dust on the shelf.

By the time the carbon tax came into effect on July 1, 2008, gas prices had hit all-time highs, leading to public backlash. This found a home in the NDP’s populist “axe-the-tax” 2009 election campaign (an ill-conceived position that the party has since repudiated). The Campbell government won re-election, although it’s not clear if it was because of the carbon tax or in spite of it.

While hope remained for more climate action, progress stalled. The B.C. government pulled out of the Western Climate Initiative, a cap-and-trade system to cover large industrial emitters, and a 2012 carbon tax review kiboshed hopes of increases to the carbon tax.

Since 2011 under Premier Christy Clark’s tenure, the B.C. government has been faking it. The government claimed to meet its 2012 interim target of a six per cent reduction, but if you look closely this was based on shady accounting. In 2013, the auditor general published a scathing review of two major carbon offset projects that accounted for the bulk of the claim of a carbonneutral government, and the claim that the government met its interim 2012 target.

In 2015, with the Paris climate conference looming, B.C. launched another expert panel — the Climate Leadership Team — to provide advice that was again ignored in B.C.’s new Climate Leadership Plan, released in August 2016. CCPA B.C. director Seth Klein pointed out last year that leadership is precisely the wrong word.

In place of climate action, B.C. has had a deceptive ad campaign funded by tax dollars for partisan political purposes. The government has instead doggedly pursued a liquefied natural-gas (LNG) export industry.

In the end, was it all a ruse? There were some positive actions, but B.C. never got past the baby steps. The B.C. government was able to tap enormous goodwill for its efforts (some environmentalists presented Campbell with an award at the 2009 Copenhagen climate conference). However, a decade later B.C. remains a climate outlaw.