As the year comes to a close, it’s time to look back at my predictions for 2025. How clear was the Just and Reasonable crystal ball?
1. The BC government will fail to meet its 2025 GHG emission reductions target
I’d say this prediction was mostly on the money.
BC’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are down 6 percent since 2007. Some progress for sure, but still a far cry from the 2025 target of 16 percent.
There’s still some wriggle room, though. While the latest report shows a failure to achieve the 2025 target, it’s based on data from 2023 (the most recent available). There are still two more years to go until we know definitively whether we’ve hit the target (we won’t, that would take the equivalent of shutting down all the heavy industry in the province in two years).
You may wonder how the government’s announcement could claim a more flattering 9 percent decline in emissions since 2007. Look closely, and you’ll see this refers to “net emissions”, which deduct “forest carbon offsets” from the total figure. But the legislated targets are for actual emission reductions, and do not allow for offsets. The 9 percent figure in the press release is misleading.
2. The BCUC will accept BC Hydro’s long-term resource plan for Fort Nelson
The BC Utilities Commission (BCUC) did indeed approve BC Hydro’s long-term resource plan for the Fort Nelson area. Low-hanging prediction fruit.
As long-time readers probably recall, the BCUC was in a bit of a hurry to approve this one. They barred an established environmental group from intervening in the proceeding, and initially declined to give interveners the opportunity to make final submissions (they relented).
This meant that the environmental issues were not well examined. Fort Nelson continues to rely primarily on gas-fired electricity generation, with BC Hydro “advancing” a diesel generator as backup in addition to the existing transmission line bringing electricity from Alberta.
3. BC’s climate change targets will be reset
A bit of a mixed bag, but overall, I’d say I was too early with this prediction.
The 2025 target for reducing GHG emissions is alive and well, and there’s been no change to the legislated 2030 target of a 40 percent reduction either. No reset here, then.
The government did, of course, abandon the 2035 date for all vehicles sold to be zero-emission, and the 90 percent target for 2030 is no longer considered “realistic”. In a statement many might consider obvious, the energy minister is reported to have said “I think targets should be things that you can reach with efforts”. Don’t bet on this to be the last update to our climate change targets.
4. The approach to climate change will become more balanced
I think this prediction was spot on.
At the start of the year, I said that “governments will be a bit more cautious about how fast they push the environmental agenda in 2025, and how this is balanced with other public policy priorities, such as economic growth”. Here are some examples of how this balance has changed in 2025.
First, Canada abandoned its consumer carbon tax in April, and the province of BC followed suit, as it had promised to do. In addition to bolstering the re-election efforts of both governments, it also helped keep inflation in check. November’s BC consumer price index was only 2 percent higher than a year ago, helped by declines in the cost of natural gas and gasoline of 12 percent and 8 percent respectively, once the carbon tax was removed.
This year’s CleanBC budget is $589 million, down from $817 million spent in 2024/25, and BC (and Canada) also ended their electric vehicle subsidies in 2025. There’s less money to go around, and climate is a lower priority than it once was.
Finally, more projects with economic benefits are being approved despite their potential environmental cost. In September, the provincial government approved the Ksi Lisims LNG project on BC’s northwest coast. If it proceeds, the project will bring construction jobs and tax revenues, along with more GHG emissions from the upstream extraction and the LNG liquefaction process.
Perhaps the most revealing indicator is to observe that political weathervane, Prime Minister Mark Carney. In 2021 he launched the Net Zero Banking Alliance, aimed at encouraging the world’s lenders to support the clean energy transmission. Now, he is overseeing potentially the largest expansion of LNG and mining projects in a generation. As for the banking alliance, it shut down in October.
5. More attention will be paid to whether BC Hydro’s electricity is actually clean
I did say there was only an outside chance of this, and I was duly disappointed.
BC Hydro claims over 98 percent of the power it generates is from “clean, renewable sources.” That may be true, but the figure doesn’t apply to the electricity it delivers to customers. Thanks to continuing imports from the US, probably half of which are generated using fossil fuels, the electricity we actually use could be considerably less clean.
Exactly how much less remains a mystery. In its latest annual report, BC Hydro claims to have met its “100% Clean Electricity Standard”, but declined to provide the proof of this result (I did ask).
6. There will be a court challenge to a BCUC decision this year
I struck out on this one. Court records show no new challenges to BCUC decisions this year.
There were five reconsideration requests in 2025, where utilities (and in one case, an individual consumer) asked the BCUC to change its mind. That’s considerably down from the count of eleven from 2024, but then there were none from BC Hydro this year, after last year’s bonanza.
A couple of this year’s requests were summarily dismissed, and one was dismissed after a proceeding. Any of these could lead to a court challenge next year, but the likeliest candidate would appear to be the challenge from the Heiltsuk Nation, especially after the recent Appeal Court ruling on the “justiciability” of the 2019 Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.
7. BC Hydro will get serious about expanding generation and transmission
In January I said that BC Hydro should “start looking at long-term investments in firm, reliable energy, and the transmission to get that energy to customers.” It did.
In June, BC Hydro issued a request for “expressions of interest” from private sector companies to provide “reliable and cost-effective capacity and/or baseload energy.” Just in time, too. Its latest Integrated Resource Plan says that BC Hydro wouldn’t have sufficient reliable energy as early as 2036, were it not for the newly-announced addition of a sixth generating unit at Revelstoke.
And that’s only enough to satisfy BC Hydro’s “Reference” scenario, the one it claims is most likely. Its high-load scenario shows a deficit from 2036 even with Revelstoke 6 and an upgrade to all five GM Shrum generating units.
Discussions on the North Coast Transmission Line burst into public view this year too, despite not even being mentioned in BC Hydro’s 2023 plan update. The government announced it wanted construction to start by summer 2026, and that it would speed up the project by bypassing the BCUC’s review (it had already exempted the project from an environmental assessment).
The Integrated Resource Plan now also includes possible additions to transmit more power to Vancouver Island by 2036 and to the South Coast by 2042.
8. BCUC will review the cost of BC Hydro’s Site C project
Not yet. And probably not ever.
BC Hydro published its own “lessons learned” report on the Site C project in October, explaining why the $16 billion project was a year late and almost double the original budget. Veteran political reporter Vaughn Palmer called it “a 250-page exercise in excuse-making by an entity not known for its humility or for admitting mistakes”.
A lessons learned report is not an independent review. So far, we’ve heard nothing from the BCUC, which purports to regulate BC Hydro. There is a good case for reviewing the project – ratepayers should not be on the hook for costs not prudently incurred.
I did say this one was a non-starter…
(On December 16, after this was written, the BCUC issued follow-up questions to BC Hydro on its lessons learned report. Who knows? Maybe next year the BCUC will review this after all?)
And the final score is?
I’d say better than 50/50, which isn’t bad for Just and Reasonable’s first attempt at crystal ball gazing. Thanks to all those who contributed, in one way or another, to this exercise.
Look out for next year’s prognostications early in January!