Writing from our researchers this year
Dec 19, 2024
Climate change, the impact of fossil fuels and the role of BC’s oil and gas industry were much-read analyzes this year. Here are some key articles…. View Article
Fracking & LNG
Cedar LNG: Chronicles of a petro-state in the age of climate change
Jul 31, 2024
A final investment decision in June 2024 by Cedar LNG highlights the challenges and contradictions of BC’s climate and energy policies. For the BC government, this is the model industrial project: it creates jobs and development in the North, has a major Indigenous partner in the Haisla Nation and will meet the low-emissions target established… View Article
The Energy Action Framework and BC’s carbon crossroads revisited
Jul 25, 2023
Since first starting down the pathway of climate action in 2007, the BC government has both developed policies to reduce carbon emissions domestically while simultaneously promoting a growing oil and gas export industry. These contradictions are evident in the March 2023 announcement of a new Energy Action Framework, which tries to balance the interests of… View Article
Raising emissions while pledging to lower them — British Columbia’s Orwellian LNG gambit
Mar 23, 2023
In 2007, then-BC premier Gordon Campbell passed the “Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act” committing BC to a 33 per cent reduction in emissions from 2007 levels by 2020. Despite premier Campbell’s good intentions, emissions in 2020 were down just 1.6 per cent. In 2016, in lieu of increasing the carbon tax implemented in Campbell’s greenhouse… View Article
Modernizing BC’s Oil and Gas Royalty Regime to Tackle Climate Change
Feb 7, 2022
In 2021, BC got a full serving of extreme weather events due to global warming. It is clear that the BC government must speed up meaningful action to phase out domestic consumption and production of fossil fuels that are the principal cause of climate change. The BC government’s current review of the royalty regime for… View Article
Can CleanBC reach its 2030 GHG target? A closer look at industrial emissions
Nov 29, 2021
In the wake of negotiations in Glasgow to push forward global climate action, it is clear that rich countries and jurisdictions like BC are not doing enough to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. On the heels of Glasgow, the massive flooding in southern BC should be another wake-up call on top of a year of… View Article
LNG exports will doom BC’s emissions reduction goals
Nov 26, 2021
When the provincial government announced its CleanBC Roadmap to 2030 on Oct. 25, conspicuously absent was any mention of BC’s LNG export aspirations, which will increase emissions from the oil and gas sector and likely doom any chance of meeting BC’s emissions reduction targets. The LNG Canada project under construction in Kitimat includes a gas-fired… View Article
BC oil and gas royalty review seriously flawed without consideration of water
Nov 25, 2021
Open letter to the provincial government As prospects grow for intensified gas extraction in our province, we applaud the provincial government’s decision to review British Columbia’s decades-old oil and gas royalty regime. This once in a generation review is essential, given the significant threats posed to the climate and the environment by continued fossil fuel… View Article
Priming the pump
May 26, 2021
Scientist warns cumulative effect of thousands of fracked gas wells means powerful earthquakes ahead for northeast BC Massive amounts of water pumped with brute force into the earth at thousands of fracking operations is priming the pump for potentially deadly earthquakes in British Columbia’s Montney basin, warns a former top scientist with BC’s Oil and… View Article
Fracking in BC’s northeast
Feb 23, 2021
Last summer I got out of Vancouver and toured northern BC. While the trip was mostly for pleasure, my inner economist could not resist some industrial tourism and visits to resource towns and major industrial sites that are the heart and soul of BC’s resource economy. Forestry dominates near Prince George, fishing at Prince Rupert,… View Article