BC’s ‘New’ Climate Plan Scales Olympian Heights of Political Cynicism

This blog was first published as an Op-Ed piece in The Globe and Mail Aug. 21, 2016

In 30 years of evaluating government climate plans, I have learned to classify them into three categories: somewhat effective, naively ineffective and cynically ineffective. BC’s new climate plan fits perfectly into one of these categories. Can you guess which?

Let me help. The thing about ‘effective’ climate policy is that it is never a political winner. Effective policies would start immediately to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by either pricing these or regulating fuels and technologies. The price can be achieved by a carbon tax, as in BC and Alberta, or an emissions cap with tradable permits, as in Ontario and Quebec. Alternatively, regulations, which dominate in California, would require a growing market share for zero-emission vehicles, furnaces, electricity generation, and industrial equipment. In every case, the stringency of these effective policies must be increasing – a rising carbon tax, a falling emissions cap, tightening regulations. Everything else is bogus.

Politicians know that effective climate policy is not a political winner because these effective policies cause gasoline prices to rise immediately, while the benefits from slowing climate change and sea level rise occur after the politician’s career is over. Only a politician willing to show ethical leadership would take effective action on this difficult global challenge. Politicians who are not leaders but seem to care would gravitate to ineffective policies. Politicians who are cynical and don’t care would deliberately fake it, implementing a long list of ineffective policies, engaging in endless ‘public consultation’ and dismantling the effective policies implemented by previous climate leaders.

Which brings us to BC Premier Christy Clark and her new climate plan. From 2007 to 2011, her predecessor, Gordon Campbell, led the world in implementing effective climate policies, out-muscling even Arnold Schwarzenegger’s efforts in California. He banned the use of coal and natural gas to generate electricity. He implemented a rising carbon tax. He established the legislative framework for an emissions cap, and for tightening regulations on fuels, vehicles, buildings and equipment. He not only set a climate target for 2020, but also interim targets for 2012 and 2016 to enable real-time monitoring of the effectiveness of his efforts.

But when Clark replaced Campbell in 2011, one of her first acts was to freeze the tax at its 2012 level. Because of inflation, this means the tax has been declining in real value for the last four years. She also undermined his zero-emission electricity requirement and his emissions-cap legislation, and she has done nothing to tighten any of his other regulations. At the same time, she has vigorously promoted expansion of the natural gas industry which, if successful, would dramatically increase emissions. And last year, she launched yet another public consultation.

In refusing to serve on her consultative panel, I pointed out that this was the last thing BC needed, and that anyone joining the panel was legitimizing a strategy of inaction. In BC, we already had effective policies, and Clark would know from her advisors that only by increasing their stringency would emissions fall. But endless public consultation is a convenient way of appearing to care without taking action. And the panel did not help by naively calling for an increase in the carbon tax. This played directly into Clark’s populist posture as defender of overtaxed car and truck drivers, and was unnecessary, as California’s smart regulations have proven.

Last week, Clark finally released her climate policy. Predictably, it perfectly fits the ‘cynically ineffective’ category. First, there is no immediate tightening of the stringency of any effective policies to achieve emissions targets in, say, 2020 and 2025. Second, consistent with the cynical category, the plan includes a list of innocuous policies that are known to be ineffective – subsidies to industry to electrify some processes, information programs for consumers, and statements about the government’s good intentions. And taking cynicism to a new level, the plan’s so-called emissions reductions are dominated by tree planting on lands that are already allocated to forestry, an action that does not decrease emissions in the long run.

If there were an Olympic event for political cynicism on the climate challenge, BC’s new climate plan would be a strong contender for the gold medal.

Is B.C.’s LNG another pipe dream?

This blog first appeared as an op-ed in the Vancouver Sun on July 23, 2014:

Proposal looks good on paper but could fail in practice

During B.C.’s 2013 election campaign, at a conference of energy economists in Washington, D.C., I spoke about how one of our politicians was promising huge benefits during the next decades from B.C. liquefied natural gas exports to eastern Asia. These benefits included lower income taxes, zero provincial debt, and a wealth fund for future generations. My remarks, however, drew laughter. Later, several people complimented my humour.

Why this reaction? The painful reality is that my economist colleagues smirk when people (especially politicians) assume extreme market imbalances will endure, whereas real-world evidence consistently proves they won’t. For B.C. Premier Christy Clark to make promises based on a continuation of today’s extreme difference between American and eastern Asian gas prices was, to be kind, laughable.

Good news for stopping carbon pollution in BC

Today, on Earth Day, the NDP under Adrian Dix made a convincing case for British Columbians' support in the upcoming provincial election by re-affirming its opposition to the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline and stating its opposition to the proposed KinderMorgan expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline. Our political leaders must have the honesty and courage to reject jobs that involve accelerating carbon pollution, yet the BC Liberals under Christy Clark have been completely silent on this ethical duty to our kids - in spite of claims to care about families. As an economist, I have seen strong evidence that we can create sustainable jobs to replace the earth-destroying jobs from expanding coal and oil production. In 2007 the BC government stopped two coal-fired and one natural gas-fired power plants and the replacement electricity from wood waste, small hydro, wind and other renewables created far more jobs according to independent analysis by leading accounting firms.

Carbon neutral public sector: a myth B.C. cannot afford

By Mark Jaccard
Originally published in the Vancouver Sun July, 2011

On June 30, the B.C. government announced it had become “carbon neutral.” Do you know
what this means?

If you’re unsure, you’re not alone. Pollsters find most people are. But some vaguely understand that being carbon neutral absolves them from guilt because, by paying someone else to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions (especially carbon dioxide), they are somehow no longer causing climate change when taking an airplane. Like paying someone else to do penance, you still emit carbon, but no longer feel guilty about your impact on the Earth’s climate, ecosystems and people.

The carbon neutral industry is growing. There are the guilty parties: individuals and companies who want or must become carbon neutral. They pay money to people who reduce their emissions: “carbon offset providers.” The two parties find each other thanks to “offset brokers,” companies that verify the emission reductions and get a commission from each transaction. Finally, there is government, which sanctions the offset industry and may, as in the case of B.C., even set its own goals for being carbon neutral.

Saving the planet by paying money instead of reducing your emissions sounds too good to be true. Experts say it is, but no one is listening.

The reasons are quite simple. The people who are paid to reduce emissions do things like switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy, invest in energy efficiency and plant trees. The problem is that all these activities have been occurring before. In some locations and circumstances, investments in renewable energy, energy efficiency, tree planting and other offsets are profitable, and would occur without the offset payment.

The carbon neutral industry claims to have a foolproof system to ensure that all offsets would not otherwise have occurred. But they have a conflict of interest. Independent researchers are much more circumspect. By looking at past subsidy programs that are similar to offsets, and increasingly at existing offset programs, they tend to find that while some offsets are indeed bona fide, others are not. The big message is that even more vigorous verification schemes will not solve this. It is simply impossible for third party verifiers to ever know all the internal factors that will determine the long-run profitability of a particular investment by a so-called offsetter.

This evidence is conveniently ignored by the carbon neutral industry and governments. This in itself is of interest to researchers who, like me, are trying to find out why our societies have been implementing climate policy after climate policy for almost three decades now without hitting any of our greenhouse gas reduction targets. Those who research the ability of humans to self-delude may have something to contribute.

A myth like carbon neutral would be relatively harmless if it were just something that businesses and individuals did on their own. But when adopted as official government policy, it can be harmful. In his climate policy frenzy of 2007-2008, former B.C. Liberal premier Gordon Campbell implemented some policies – like our carbon tax and our zero-emission electricity requirement – that are now recognized among the best climate policies in the world. Unfortunately, he also bought into the idea that government should be carbon neutral.

An excellent recent Sun commentary by Bob Simpson pointed out that B.C.’s policy of a carbon neutral public sector has the perverse effect of diverting our tax dollars from schools and hospitals to purchase offsets from profitable companies like EnCana in order to subsidize their investments to reduce greenhouse gases (“Taxing the public for a private good is a bad idea,” July 4). This is both economically inefficient and unfair. Unlike the rest of us, EnCana does not have to pay the carbon tax on these particular emissions. Instead, our schools and hospitals pay the $25 carbon tax for each tonne of carbon dioxide emissions and then pay an additional $25 per tonne as an offset payment to be carbon neutral, money which goes to EnCana to subsidize its emissions reductions.

Wouldn’t it be nice if your furnace was exempt from the carbon tax, and then a local hospital sent you money to upgrade to a more efficient model? That’s not likely to happen. But, hopefully, what does happen is that the B.C. government abandons the myth of carbon neutrality and gets on with the important task of pricing or regulating all emissions in the province.