The Calgary, Alberta-based Pembina Institute singled out British Columbia for a dose of climate shame in a Tuesday media blitz that projects the westernmost Canadian province’s carbon emissions will rise nearly 40 percent by 2030.
That, according to a four-page backgrounder and companion infographic released Tuesday, puts British Columbia alone among Canada’s four most populous provinces. The other three — Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec — are projected to cut carbon emissions by roughly 20 percent each, by 2030.
An expected ramp-up in oil and gas development, including liquefied natural gas, accounts for some 80 percent of British Columbia’s projected carbon-emissions increase, Pembina said in the backgrounder.
The Pembina brief shows projected carbon emissions for the four provinces compared with emissions levels measured in 2014. The document uses data gathered by the Canadian Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project, part of the international Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project led by the Paris-based Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations; and the New York-based Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
According to Deep Decarbonization data, British Columbia’s carbon emissions in 2014 were about 60 million tons. Under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act that went into effect in 2008, the province’s legislated target for 2020 is 44 million tons, or 16 million tons below the 2014 level. British Columbia’s legislated target for 2050 is 13 million tons, or 47 million tons below 2014.
Among other things, Pembina called on British Columbia to increase the province’s CAN $30-per-ton carbon tax, which has not been raised since 2012.
A spokesperson for the British Columbia Ministry of Environment told GHG Daily Monitor in a Tuesday email the province’s carbon tax “is the highest and most comprehensive in North America,” and that the province “is revitalizing its climate plan to keep the province on a path towards its long-term climate goals.”
To that end, British Columbia is set to unveil a new Climate Leadership Plan this month, the provincial spokesperson said.
