SCBC campaigner available for comment on IPCC report and blind spots in BC’s climate action plans

April 4, 2022

Sierra Club BC’s Senior Forest and Climate Campaigner and Science Advisor Jens Wieting is available to comment on key findings of today’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report and why Sierra Club BC and Ecojustice are taking the B.C. government to court over missing action plans for several critical targets required by law in B.C.’s climate accountability report.

The third part of the 6th IPCC assessment report is of particular importance because it offers more detail on what actions all parts of the world, particularly the richest countries and biggest polluters, have to take to address the climate crisis, with a particular focus on reductions needed by 2030.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said about the report “The jury has reached a verdict. And it is damning. This report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a litany of broken climate promises. It is a file of shame, cataloguing the empty pledges that put us firmly on track towards an unlivable world. We are on a fast track to climate disaster.”

Key findings include that global emissions must peak before 2025 and be reduced by 43 percent by 2030 if we are to have a chance of keeping warming below 1.5 degrees, the threshold considered crucial to maintaining a livable climate.

Canada is among the top ten polluters and like Canada, B.C. has failed to meet emission reduction targets for over a decade. The province’s emissions have increased every year during the last five years data is available for (2015-2019) and have remained higher than 2007 levels, B.C.’s baseline year.

The B.C. government claims to have a “continent leading CleanBC plan” but it continues to support and subsidize the expansion of fracking wells and new LNG terminals. Once built, the full emissions enabled by the LNG Canada terminal in Kitimat alone would make it nearly impossible to meet B.C. targets.

Several Canadian provinces (New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Quebec) and U.S. states (Vermont, New York state, Maryland and Washington) have banned fracking. New research released by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) in March showed that rich countries like Canada must end oil and gas production by 2034 to keep the world on track for 1.5°C (the new IPCC report only considered findings available by last October.

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