governments face the additional challenge of the disproportionate power of the petrobloc - major fossil fuel corporations and their allies in finance, the media, the government bureaucracy and elsewhere. Even if that precludes developing a just and sustainable economy.Ĭlimate action is difficult for any government because of the long time range, disruptive changes and indirect benefits.īut B.C.
Where is the COVID-level sense of urgency? The apparent strategy: Pick low-hanging fruit to dangle before soft green voters, but don't tread on the toes of corporate carbon capital. There are some creditable initiatives, but they amount to using buckets to douse a forest fire. Overall, this pattern is what Klein calls the “new climate denialism” - verbally accepting climate scientists' warnings while avoiding the public policy implications. Above all, the LNG project alone will make the targets impossible to meet without devastating the rest of the economy. But as Seth Klein points out in A Good War, those targets are not backed by budgetary allocations, are not actually being met and, unfortunately, are inadequate in light of the latest science. So, the CleanBC climate action plan has praiseworthy goals, including reducing B.C.'s greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent by 2030 (from 2007 levels) and 80 per cent by 2050. What about investment in renewable energy? According to the Narwhal's overview, faced with a glut of energy in B.C., the government has “shut the door” on most new wind and solar projects and has not renewed contracts with independent, small-scale green and clean power projects. The current NDP program makes no mention of fossil fuel subsidies - promising only to review oil and natural gas royalty credits. Liberal government's level, the province's $1 billion being second only to Alberta in generosity extended to corporate polluters. Overall, according to a Stand.earth report, Horgan has increased subsidies to fossil fuel industries by 79 per cent over the B.C. And the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers quietly helped ensure that public health impacts were beyond the panel's mandate. The government-appointed scientific review panel indicated a “ profound absence of knowledge” about relevant impacts, but the NDP leadership accepted the Liberals' branding of LNG as a “bridge fuel” to a lower emissions future - a notion that recent scientific evidence on methane emissions from fracking has further undermined. But the Horgan government has offered even bigger tax breaks than Clark did - never mind the environmental impacts of fracking and the dubious long-term benefits to B.C.'s economy. Site C's core purpose, argues policy analyst Ben Parfitt, is to provide electricity for the LNG industry, the pipe dream of former Liberal premier Christy Clark.
However reluctantly, Horgan green-lighted the Site C dam, an expensive legacy from the previous Liberal government. The government opted not to subject Trans Mountain to a “made in B.C.” environmental assessment, even though a Supreme Court decision authorized it to do so in 2016. The anti-pipeline “toolbox” came down to a single long-shot reference case on jurisdiction over bitumen transport, one that the premier seemed anxious to get off his desk.