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.

Jobs for us, a planet for our kids

by Mark Jaccard

Originally published in The Vancouver Sun February 16, 2012

People who profit from an expanding fossil fuel industry want you to be suspicious of climate science. You should be suspicious of them. 

All the world’s leading climate scientists know that burning coal, oil and natural gas is heating the earth. These scientists may debate whether our current path will increase temperatures four or six degrees Celsius in this century, but they all agree that either of these outcomes will devastate British Columbia’s environment during the lives of our children and, eventually, raise sea levels by tens of metres. Unfortunately, the fossil fuel profiteers have a lot of money to buy media coverage, politicians and even a few contrarian scientists who are not climate experts, so our ability to prevent this disaster is a long shot. But, for our children, we have to try.

For one thing, we must see through the deceit of politicians who trumpet jobs from fossil fuel expansion while ignoring the impacts on the planet, not to mention on their own climate promises. Prime Minister Stephen Harper knows that his pursuit of oilsands expansion, the Northern Gateway pipeline across B.C. from Alberta and dangerous oil tankers on our coast contradicts his promise to reduce Canadian greenhouse gas emissions 17 per cent by 2020. Premier Christy Clark knows that her pursuit of expanded shale gas production and natural gas exports contradicts her promise to reduce B.C.’s emissions 33 per cent by 2020. One of her ministers has already justified this destructive choice, saying “jobs come first.” In other words, jobs from destroying the planet are preferred to jobs that preserve it.

But what would happen if we rejected the plans of politicians and fossil fuel profiteers who are propelling us to the high-carbon, planet-destroying economy? Actually, we know the answer. The evidence is all around us.

In 2007, the B.C. government recognized it could not allow fossil fuel electricity plants and meet its emissions reduction promises, so it cancelled contracts to build two new coal-fired power plants and relegated the natural gas-fired Burrard Thermal plant to backup status. Yes, the economy lost jobs associated with these fossil fuel projects. But in their place, BC Hydro contracted for zero-emission electricity from run-of-river hydro, wind and biomass projects. A recent estimate by PricewaterhouseCoopers puts the combined economic impacts of these clean electricity projects at 18,000 person-years of construction and 2,000 full-time jobs, which is more than the coal plants would have created. These include high-paying skilled jobs in engineering, accounting, economics, finance, planning, law, environmental science, hydrology, public relations, construction trades, and technical operations.

Fossil fuel profiteers want us to believe that we must continue to pollute the atmosphere in order to drive our cars. This is not true. Vehicles can run on biofuel (biodiesel or ethanol), clean electricity and hydrogen, none of which pollute the atmosphere. An extended range hybrid car or truck can rely mostly on clean electricity, supplemented with biodiesel or ethanol, giving the same horsepower as conventional vehicles. Since such technologies are already commercially available, you can buy one today.

My research group at Simon Fraser University is currently estimating the job effects in B.C. of transitioning 80 per cent of cars and trucks to zero-emission technologies and fuels over the next two decades. This would create more jobs in zero-emission electricity generation as well as jobs in forestry and biofuel production as cellulosic ethanol can be produced from wood waste and dedicated wood chip-to-fuel facilities. Our preliminary estimate is that the replacement of planet-destroying gasoline and diesel with planet-saving electricity and biofuel in hybrid cars and trucks would create more than 60,000 person-years in construction and 15,000 to 20,000 permanent jobs in the province.

These are crude estimates which we will refine over the coming year of research — they depend on choices about clean electricity projects, biofuel production processes, and vehicle technologies and fuels. Regardless, the lesson is clear. Job creation is not a reason to develop planet-destroying fossil fuels.

We can create as many or more high-skilled, high-paying jobs by shifting now to the planet-saving energy system. As Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank says, “the low-carbon economy will be more energy-secure, cleaner and safer … the high-carbon economy will self-destruct.”