BC’s Climate Leadership Plan already under fire from environmental groups

Premier Christy Clark says BC is leading the way in the fight against climate change with the new Climate Leadership Plan

She says the plan will balance climate protection with job creation and resource development.

“We know that British Columbians expect us to protect our environment, to protect our planet and they also expect us to make sure that we are protecting our economy and creating jobs, especially green jobs. And that is what our plan intends to do.”

The plan includes 21 action items including increasing reforestation promoting electric vehicles and increasing the energy efficiency of buildings. Clark says she’s proud of the government’s multi-pronged approach to battling climate change.

“We address almost all of the recommendations from our climate leadership team but I should also note that there is one recommendation that we cannot implement today and that is the recommendation to increase the carbon tax by 10% per year, starting in 2018.”

Clark says BC already leads the country when it comes to pricing carbon and can’t afford to do more until other provinces follow suit.

“A climate plan is not just about carbon pricing. Carbon pricing is just one instrument in a portfolio of approaches to fight climate change. We cannot get to where we need to be in fighting climate change in British Columbia with a carbon tax alone.”

Environmental groups are already slamming the Liberals’ plan.

“This plan is designed to create the impression of serious action on climate while doing nothing of the sort,” says Tim Pearson with the Sierra Club BC. “Any kind of climate plan has to begin with reducing reliance on fossil fuels.”

Pearson says pricing carbon is crucial to nudging us away from our reliance on fossil fuels. BC’s carbon tax was frozen for five years in 2013. It’s currently $30 per tonne of emissions.

“They’ve abdicated their responsibility to move forward on pricing carbon. An increase in carbon tax absolutely has to be central to reducing fossil fuel use.”

The Sierra Club has called the government’s plan a fraud and a Trojan horse for the LNG industry. The government says its balancing the need to act on climate change with the need to protect industry, resource development and affordability for the province’s families.

Pearson is particularly critical of one of the plan’s action items that will see an increase in tree replanting by as much as 300 thousand hectares over the next 5 years. He says that’s nowhere near enough.

“There are very real benefits to planting trees but it is an absolute con job to claim that that’s part of short and medium term climate solutions.”

Pearson says it takes decades before young trees are mature enough to sequester significant amounts of greenhouse gases.

You can read the Climate Leadership Plan in full here.