Climate change & energy policy

BC is giving away its natural gas

Nov 21, 2012
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In September, when the BC government tabled its First Quarterly Report on the BC Budget the big story was on plummeting natural gas royalties, which means cuts to public services in order to keep the budget balance in check. As the update states on page 6: The deterioration in natural gas royalty revenue is the main… View Article

Will Frankenstorm put climate change back on the political radar?

Oct 30, 2012
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In recent years the world has experienced a sequence of climate-change-related disasters. Hurricane Sandy comes on top of massive drought through the summer that has led to 40% loss of American corn and other grain crops, raging wildfires in the southeast US, tornados and derechos, etc – and that is just the US. Check out this extreme weather… View Article

BC’s Natural Gas Strategy nothing more than a fairy tale

Oct 21, 2012
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I have an oped in Saturday’s Vancouver Sun. The editor wanted me to focus on the claims of economic gains for BC, so the piece ended up being a complementary piece to the Behind the Numbers report on GHG emissions and the Natural Gas Strategy. The title was his choice not my own, but I… View Article

Is BC breaking its GHG law by pursuing natural gas development?

Oct 10, 2012
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Today we released a new report by yours truly, BC’s Legislated Greenhouse Gas Targets vs Natural Gas Development: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. It was just five years ago that BC brought in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act, a signal that BC was serious about climate action. The Act calls for a 33% cut in emissions by… View Article

What’s Next for BC’s Carbon Tax?

Sep 10, 2012
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The Minister leading up BC’s Carbon Tax Review, Kevin Falcon, may be gone – his departure came just as the deadline for submissions was closing – but the carbon tax lives on. For now. Back in 2008 when the carbon tax was announced, it was scheduled to rise from an initial level of $10 per… View Article

Canada’s Emissions Deception

Aug 8, 2012
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The federal government released an updated Canada’s Emission Trends 2012 report today. In a remarkable shift in federal rhetoric just this past week, the Harperites now appear to be more sensitive to concerns about the Enbridge pipeline and climate change more generally. But appearances can be deceiving and there is good reason to believe the current charm… View Article

The staggering future costs of the BC government’s contracts

Jul 27, 2012
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As usual, there has been quite a hubbub surrounding this week’s release of British Columbia’s Public Accounts.  The provincial auditor says the provincial deficit is $520 million more than the government admits. And then there is the Auditor General’s review of finances at the legislature that found “substantial irregularities.” But all of the above is… View Article

Time for a Serious Conversation about Natural Gas

Jun 22, 2012
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It is pretty clear that the government’s ill-conceived Energy Plan is falling apart. The near religious call for self-sufficiency has been moderated (though not sensibly changed) and the legislated requirement for insurance eliminated. The plan to develop run-of-river and wind IPPs for export has been abandoned. The problem of charging major new industrial customers less… View Article