The primary American research body tracking Global Warming and its affects, NOAA, just noted that September was the warmest September since modern records began in 1880. Seven of the warmest Septembers since 1880 have occurred in the past 7 years. So far, 2020 is the second warmest year in the modern era, just a 0.04°C behind the hottest year, 2016. In our Northern Hemisphere both years are tied for first.
NOAA also notes that the summer Arctic minimum sea ice extent this year is the second lowest on record, barely behind the 2012 record. The 14 lowest minimal annual sea ice extents have occurred in the past 14 years, which also means Arctic multi-year sea ice continues to disappear at an alarming rate. Our earth has not witnessed anything like this for thousands if not tens of thousands of years.
Meanwhile in BC, our government continues to push forward with massive natural gas expansion with more exploration, more pipelines and a $40 Billion LNG plant under construction with massive tax concessions and with proposals for more LNG plants to come.
We have no idea how much BC’s actual methane leakage emissions are, although BC’s GHG Emissions Inventory admits to 4.4 Million Tonnes (MT) CO2e, with 3.3 MT from oil and gas mining and production and 1 MT from coal mining. Methane is 108 times as powerful a GHG as CO2 over a decade, so it is critical to eliminate CH4 emissions from current oil and gas operations, and quickly. Independent assessments by St Francis Xavier University’s Flux Lab indicated that BC’s official emissions are grossly underestimated. With expansion of the natural gas drilling, fracking, piping and processing, emissions will only increase. We now have the technology to identify GHG emissions from oil and natural gas operations accurately. The innovative Canadian firm GHGSat has had their Claire satellite in orbit for two years measuring methane emissions at source points. In September they launched their next generation satellite Lisa which can accurately measure emissions from sites as small as your yard. Yet BC has yet to publish any findings from GHGSat’s observations.
BC released its latest GHG Emissions Inventory in August. It reports that BC’s direct emission are still increasing annually and hit a new record in their latest report, up 2,167 MT (3%) last year to 67,924 million tonnes (MT) of CO2 equivalents. For the record, that’s a 4,523 MT (7%) increase since 2007, the year before our small Carbon Tax was introduced. The tax is obviously too low to impact consumer behaviour as 72% of new vehicles sold in 2018 were higher polluting half tons and SUV’s, up from about 48% in 2008. Contrary to BC Liberal leader Wilkinson’s claim, BC does not have the most fuel-efficient fleet of vehicles in Canada, and we’ve lost ground.
BC continues to allow the destruction of our old growth forests, despite commissioning a Strategic Review which told them to protect these remnant treasures and prioritize ecosystem health over logging. Old Growth forest just happen to be BC’s biggest carbon sinks. Cut them down and they become instant carbon emitters for decades. A recent study noted that one 500-year-old tree absorbed more carbon annually than a 50-year-old tree has in its lifetime. How is this possible? Well, a 10-times increase in tree diameter produces a 100-fold increase in the mass of leaves. A 1’ diameter tree adds a ring of growth around a 3.1‘circumference whereas an 8’ diameter tree adds a ring around a circumference of 25’ and a 12’ diameter ancient Doug Fir would add a ring around a 37.7’ circumference. That’s more than 12 times as much as the 50-year-old tree!
In the past couple of years, major news outlets have finally wakened up to the very present threat that Global Warming has on the future of our planet and the liveability and diversity of life on Earth. Several years ago, The Guardian undertook a commitment to significantly increase its coverage on the impact of impending climate change. In the past year or so, The Economist has taken up the challenge and is giving much more focus on Global Warming and the need for businesses, governments and individuals to urgently take on the challenge of dramatically reducing and ultimately eliminating our use of fossil fuels within 30 years. Even the Globe and Mail has taken up the cause. Fifteen years after firing award winning science reporter Alanna Mitchell and publishing climate change deniers like Rex Murphey and Margaret Wente, no doubt to please their advertisers and business focus, the Globe has begun a careful series of stories on climate change.
As we get ready to cast our ballots in the BC election, if one cares about the environment and the very present danger of Global Warming, how does one express that at in the polling booth?
Here’s a summary of BC’s relevant record under the BC Liberals and NDP.
The BC Liberals bet BC’s economic future on resources, especially the development of natural gas and sought the development of an LNG industry in BC. It must be noted that most of the emission from LNG will not be accounted for in BC, as the country the gas is exporter to will assume responsibility for the emissions when they use the BC origin fuels. Despite their introduction of a small carbon tax in 2008 (the amount of which is often less than the weekly fluctuation in gas prices) ostensibly to reduce carbon emissions but exempting their favoured natural gas industry, carbon emissions in cars and other light duty vehicles increased by 1.57 MT or 19% by 2018.
On another critical front, the BC Liberals laid-off many Ministry of Forests and Ministry of the Environment personnel and turned over much of the responsibility for managing BC’s forests to the forestry companies who continued their assault on BC’s old growth forests.
The BC NDP have essentially continued on with the BC Liberals focus on developing the natural gas/LNG industry with more massive tax concessions and with the Site C Hydro project. The BC Liberals forced Site C into being by passing legislation to exempt Site C from BC Utilities Commission review, which it would have failed. Upon gaining office, the NDP referred the project to the BCUC for a very limited review to investigate but not recommend. Despite their restricted mandate, the panel opened the door to the possibility to stop the project. The NDP, afraid of being condemned by the BC Liberals and the media for writing off some $2 to $3 billion in sunk costs, decided to continue digging a bigger hole for BC Hydro. Now, in 2020, this unnecessary (no market for the electricity), environmentally destructive, risky project being built on a well-recognized unstable geological formation has a sunk cost of some $8 billion. If ever completed, it could suffer a fatal geological fault, which would shut it down resulting in a write-off of some $12+ billion and climbing. Site C’s has reportedly already used up all the construction “contingency fund” that was to cover total project cost overruns, years before scheduled completion. Should a fatal geological fault occur, there will be billions in “deconstruction costs” can conceivably extensive downstream risks. Is this why Premier Horgan called this early election? He hired former Finance Deputy Minister Peter Milburn to advise on the status of the project in July. Does Mr. Horgan know something we don’t? Did he want to get the election over with before having to issue some seriously bad news to the public, knowing full well that it would negatively impact the chances of winning an election in 2021?
On old growth forests, despite an in depth Strategic Report that recommends protecting these rapidly vanishing ecological treasures and some sympathetic utterings, the NDP continues to permit the destruction of old growth forests.
On GHG emissions, like Christy Clark in 2012, the NDP have paused the annual increase in the Carbon Tax due to COVID-19 until 2021, thus losing out on perhaps $200 million in lost revenues when the province is in desperate need of revenues to help pay for COVID-19’s $12 billion and still climbing bill.
All the NDP’s efforts to reduce future emissions via Clean BC will be swamped by the Kitimat LNG project’s 14 MT in BC emissions, let alone its 86 MT in global emissions, which will be 126% of BC’s total emissions declared in the latest BC Emissions Inventory.
In its September 19th edition The Economist vexed over business and governments’ inability to address the foreboding crisis of Climate Change in a 12-page Special Report on Business and Climate Change. In conclusion, under a sub-heading Vote early, vote green, The Economist notes “Electorates can, however, make a big difference. If hordes of green voters start turning up at polling stations…they will press political leaders to impose more environmentally friendly regulations and laws.”
For a magazine that is devoted to the free market, that is quite a remarkable statement, but perhaps sage advice for BC voters who want their BC Government to take Global Warming seriously and stop dithering.