FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

UNCEDED xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (MUSQUEAM), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (SQUAMISH) AND səlilwətaɬ (TSLEIL-WAUTUTH) TERRITORIES/VANCOUVER – Sierra Club BC is calling on the B.C. government to use the review of CleanBC to address the gap created by the decision to end the consumer carbon tax and get the province on track to meet climate goals.

“The provincial carbon tax was widely hailed as one of the most efficient and equitable ways to incentivize climate-smart decisions, encouraging a shift to less-polluting purchases and practices,” said Shelley Luce, Sierra Club BC’s director of campaigns. “Canceling the carbon tax makes it cheaper to pollute in our province, while making life more expensive overall because carbon pollution directly harms our health and our livelihoods through devastating fires, floods, drought and other climate disasters.”

The province has not shared concrete plans to replace the carbon tax with other policies to reduce pollution, nor to deal with the $1.8 billion hole left in the budget.

The planned review of CleanBC presents an opportunity to expand and strengthen existing climate policies in a manner needed to meet legislated targets.

“Swift action to amend CleanBC with more stringent regulation and incentives will have a real impact on reducing climate pollution, which helps mitigate climate disasters and save people’s pocketbooks from increasing costs of food, health care, insurance and more,” added Luce. “One of the most urgent steps we can take right now is to increase the industrial price on carbon and close the loopholes that allow some industries to escape the tax for the majority of their emissions.”

Closing the loopholes that allow industries to largely avoid the carbon tax would address the imbalance that existed in the former pricing regime, in which consumers paid $2.8 billion a year while polluting industries, including oil and gas, only paid $199 million, or about seven percent of the total carbon tax revenue. Continuing scheduled increases to the industrial carbon price until it covers all industrial emissions would provide a real incentive for those businesses to rachet down their pollution and save themselves money in the long run.

Another critical step is to speed up the long-promised cap on carbon pollution by the oil and gas industry. The sector is the biggest industrial source of carbon pollution in B.C., and new LNG projects are the biggest threat to B.C.’s targets. A cap on pollution consistent with the oil and gas sector target is necessary to bring the industry into alignment with the province’s climate goals.

Increasing renewable energy in B.C., strengthening building codes to better conserve energy and expanding incentives like support for heat pumps will also be critical in progressing towards the goal of reducing pollution by 40 percent by 2030.

“It’s not too late for B.C. to become a climate leader again, despite the partial end of the carbon tax. B.C. proved that we could pioneer climate policy when we were the first jurisdiction in North America to introduce the carbon price. We can once again lead on climate and transition away from fossil fuels,” said Jens Wieting, senior policy and science advisor at Sierra Club BC.

B.C.’s latest data showed climate pollution remains almost at the same level as 18 years ago (2007 is our baseline year). In contrast to other G7 countries, Canada is the only country with emissions higher than in 1990. This is undermining international climate agreements to reduce pollution by half by 2030 and keep global warming below 1.5 to 2 degrees C, a range considered critical to prevent unmanageable climate impacts.

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