The B.C. government says it will only meet half of its 2030 target to lower greenhouse gas emissions. 

The province has a legislative requirement to report its progress on reducing emissions. In an annual report released Tuesday, it said it expects to drop B.C.’s carbon pollution to 20 per cent below 2007 levels by 2030. 

That’s half the 40 per cent reduction in emissions the B.C. government committed to achieving in its Climate Change Accountability Act. 

BC Green interim Leader Jeremy Valeriote, MLA for West Vancouver-Sea to Sky, slammed the B.C. NDP government for blaming population growth on its inability to reduce emissions.

“The BC NDP just admitted they’re missing their own climate targets. And they have no plans to fix it,” said Valeriote in a statement.

Reporting government emissions data typically faces delays of up to two years. The latest report, which used 2022 data, found the province released 65.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide that year — a 0.2 per cent increase from the 2007 base year. 

B.C.’s economy and population have also grown in recent years. Adjusting for those factors, the province said net per person emissions declined by 21.6 per cent, from 15.3 to 12 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person between 2007 and 2022.  

That’s higher than the per capita emissions in Ontario, Quebec and Prince Edward Island, but lower than the Prairie provinces and the rest of Atlantic Canada.

Over that same period, the real gross domestic product grew by 41 per cent. 

Decarbonizing B.C.'s economy harder than some thought, says expert

Kathryn Harrison, a University of British Columbia political scientist researching climate policy, said the government report was surprisingly candid in its inability to meet its climate targets. 

It comes at a time when climate change has sunk in the list of voter priorities. A day earlier, Canadians elected a minority Liberal government in a campaign dominated by high costs of living, housing, and U.S. threats to Canadian sovereignty and the economy.

“There’s no way to fix climate change other than to decarbonize our economy. And that’s proving to be harder than many of us assumed,” said Harrison.

“This doesn’t mean we can’t do these things, but it means it’s hard.”

In B.C., the largest polluting sector of the economy was transportation, which accounted for 42 per cent of the province’s total emissions in 2022. The sector saw an 18 per cent increase in emissions between 2007 and 2022, largely driven by commercial trucking. 

“Even though the number of personal vehicles rose, the impacts were offset by people driving less and choosing cleaner vehicles,” the report noted. 

The next most polluting sector of B.C.’s economy was the industrial sector — including oil and gas — which released 39 per cent of B.C.’s total emissions in 2022. 

The remaining 19 per cent of emissions came from the buildings and communities sector, a six per cent decline from 2007, due largely to reductions in emissions from municipal solid waste. 

However, emissions from residential buildings were up one per cent while commercial buildings saw a 10 per cent spike over the five-year period. 

Emissions from buildings are driven almost entirely by burning natural gas for heating. 

Modest emissions gains would have been worse without government action, says report

The report said the modest gains made by B.C. would have been higher without the government’s flagship climate change program CleanBC.

The number of B.C. households with a heat pump spiked to 13 per cent in 2023, up from eight per cent in 2020, noted the report.

Further emissions reductions are expected to roll in between 2023 and 2026. But the report warned of “substantial uncertainty about their future trajectory.”

The government modelling only includes the recently cancelled consumer carbon tax for the years that it was in place. 

Harrison said the report offers an important window in the leadup to a review of the CleanBC program and sectoral emissions targets. The NDP and Greens agreed to the review as part of a four-year supply-and-confidence agreement. 

“This leaves open this big question: What next?” said Harrison. 

Critic says uncertainty reigns over how province hopes to close emissions gap 

To meet the 2030 target, an additional 13 megatonnes of emission reductions would be required.

“The current policy landscape does not put the province on track to meet its 2030 targets,” the report concludes.

Thomas Green, senior climate policy advisor at the David Suzuki Foundation, said the report is more realistic than it has been in the past.

Instead of making assumptions that targets will be achieved, the latest government report looks at what existing policies will actually deliver, he said. 

At the same time, Green said there remain big open questions around what the government will do to reach its targets and close the 13-megatonne emissions gap — equivalent to the annual pollution from almost four million passenger vehicles.

“It’s almost a quarter of the total of our total emissions,” said Green. “I am concerned. I don’t see enough attention on what they’re going to do to fix this.”

He said the province got rid of the carbon tax without figuring out what’s going to replace it. 

At the same time, recent direction from Energy and Climate Solutions Minister Adrian Dix softened requirements for new LNG export terminals to be powered by electricity. 

One of the most effective policies that could lower emissions is an oil and gas emissions cap, which Green said has the benefit of not costing consumers.

Without it, he said, “I don’t know how we meet our targets.”