The government has admitted it’s not on track to meet its 2030 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target. It should stop trying, and focus instead on more realistic, longer-term goals.
Introduction
BC’s Climate Change Accountability Act (Act) sets out provincial greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets for each decade up to 2050, calculated from a 2007 baseline. The target for 2030 is a reduction to GHG emissions of 40 percent (the government also has an interim target of 16 percent for 2025).
CleanBC, launched in 2018, is the government’s flagship environmental program for achieving these targets. The Act requires the government to produce an annual Climate Change Accountability Report showing the actions being taken to reduce emissions and progress towards meeting the targets.
Flashback to 2023
The 2023 Report was released in November 2023. This claimed that CleanBC was on track and could achieve 96 percent of the 2030 target. I’ve shared my skepticism on this before. But a lot has happened in the 18 months since then, including a provincial election, the provincial deficit ballooning to $10.9 billion, and responsibility for CleanBC shifting from the minister of the environment to the minister of energy.
It was likely, then, that we would see some changes in the 2024 Report, released on April 29. The changes were more significant than I expected.
The 2024 report – an admission of failure
Most dramatic was the admission that BC is not on track to meet its 2030 target, and the forecast that BC will now only be able to reduce emissions by 20 percent. By 2022 (the most recent data available), GHG emissions were only 2.2 percent lower than in 2007.
The 2024 Report forecasts that we won’t come close to meeting the 2025 interim target either. In fact, 2025’s GHG emissions are projected to be a mere 2 percent lower than in 2018, when CleanBC was launched.
What went wrong?
The biggest reason we won’t reach the 2030 target is we’ve not made enough progress in previous years. The 2024 Report explains this is because economic growth (GDP is up 41 percent since 2007) and population growth (up 25 percent) have both driven up emissions.
As an excuse, this is pretty weak. Despite the government’s protestations, the targets were never about reducing emissions per unit of GDP or per person. The targets were always absolute figures – a reduction of 40 percent by 2030, regardless of the size of the economy or the population. You could say CleanBC has been a relative success but an absolute failure.
The real reason for the failure, I suspect, is that the government has had neither the political will nor the financial resources to transition the economy fast enough to reach the legislated goal. And on both fronts, the government is now in retreat.
For one thing, the government abandoned the politically inconvenient carbon tax in the run-up to the 2024 provincial election, despite modelling showing that this is one of the most cost-efficient ways to reduce GHG emissions. Lower gas prices may be good for affordability, and indeed electability, but they reduce the incentive to switch to electric vehicles (EV).
As for finances, the government is reported to be “pausing” its rebate program for EVs as of May 15. With a $10.9 billion budget deficit and credit rating downgrades, something had to give.
Future forecasts
There’s a refreshing honesty to the 2024 Report (maybe this is why it took so long to write?). It admits that previous Reports have been overly optimistic, assuming that all proposals from the CleanBC Roadmap to 2030, published in 2021, would be fully and successfully implemented.
The most recent emissions forecast is more realistic, and no longer counts reductions from CleanBC proposals that are not ready to be implemented (although the government claims these proposals may come to pass eventually).
For example, the forecast doesn’t include emission reductions from a 25 percent reduction in light-duty vehicle travel by 2030 (compared to 2020). CleanBC had claimed this could be achieved, in part, by “supporting more compact urban planning in partnership with municipalities to increase active transportation and public transit.” Apparently, social engineering on this scale wasn’t quite as easy as the central planners of the environment ministry had expected.
The most notable omission from the forecast is the cap on emissions from natural gas utilities. The proposed cap of around 47 percent of the 2007 level was expected to be in place by 2030, and it was intended to reduce emissions from industrial natural gas customers in particular.
I estimated earlier this year that residential gas prices at FortisBC Energy Inc., BC’s largest natural gas distribution utility, might have to rise by 66 percent by 2030 to achieve this goal. That figure included the now-defunct carbon tax, but the cost of clean renewable natural gas to reduce emissions is causing prices to rise significantly, both for residential and industrial customers.
With the risks to energy affordability and BC’s industrial sector, the government would be wise to think carefully before rushing to implement this cap.
Conclusion
The 2024 Report is a welcome dose of reality, but it doesn’t go far enough. While the minister has come clean that we’re not on track to hit the 2030 target, he hasn’t yet come right out and said that he’s abandoning the target entirely. He should.
Abandoning the target would require a change to the legislation, but that’s no great obstacle. The government already abandoned the 2020 target in 2018, when it became clear that it, too, would not be achieved. This may be kicking the proverbial climate can further down the road, but that doesn’t make it the wrong thing to do.
CleanBC has reportedly spent $4 billion since 2018, with little to show for it. Increasing its spending now in a desperate bid to meet a target only five years out would likely result in some very inefficient schemes, even if the target were achievable at all. Better to drop the 2030 target, and consider the long-term investments required to reduce emissions more efficiently.
For instance, BC Hydro, the provincially-owned electric utility, does not have the ability to deliver on the government’s electrification plans, a key part of its GHG emission reduction strategy. Last year’s procurements of wind and solar energy should address the short-term gaps, but there is still no plan for solving the deficiency in reliable generation from 2031 onwards. Today’s announcement that the government is exploring “baseload electricity projects to deliver for peak demand periods and to provide back-up intermittent energy resources” is encouraging, if a little short on detail.
Bringing CleanBC under the ministry of energy has the potential for a more realistic alignment of BC’s climate goals with the delivery of clean and reliable electricity. Dropping the 2030 target would be a good start.