Introduction
Since 2011, the SCCA has provided all candidates engagement opportunities for Sunshine Coast voters to hear from candidates on environmental issues with written Q&A. This year we framed the Q&A in terms of how BC government ministries and mandates intersect with the environment. We hope the background information provided along with the questions helps inform both the candidates’ responses, and public awareness.
We posed four questions to candidates on the following topics:
➡️ BC Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship
➡️ BC Ministry of Forests
➡️ BC Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy
➡️ BC Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation
You can read all the questions with candidate responses from October 3rd on our main page for the 2024 Provincial Election.
Background
Under the BC Climate Change Accountability Act, the Province has legislated targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 40% below 2007 levels by 2030, 60% by 2040, and 80% by 2050.
Under the BC Energy Action Framework, the Province has committed to
- require all proposed LNG facilities in or entering the environmental assessment (EA) process to pass an emissions test with a credible plan to be net zero by 2030;
- put in place a regulatory emissions cap for the oil and gas industry to ensure BC meets its 2030 emissions-reduction target for the sector;
- establish a clean-energy and major projects office to fast track investment in clean energy and technology and create good, sustainable jobs in the transition to a cleaner economy; and
- create a BC Hydro task force to accelerate the electrification of BC’s economy by powering more homes, businesses and industries with renewable electricity.
The elephant in the BC GHG emissions conversation is Liquified Natural Gas (LNG). LNG produces greenhouse gas emissions at every phase of the extraction and liquefaction process and uses a vast amount of energy to cool the gas enough to liquify (and ship) it.
BC Hydro generates a total of 43,000 GWh per year. 90% of the power is hydroelectric. The remainder is derived from natural gas, petroleum, biomass, wind, geothermal and solar.
Hydroelectricity is generated by harnessing the power of water as it moves through watersheds.
Most of BC’s hydroelectricity comes from the Mica, Revelstoke and Hugh Keenleyside dams on the Columbia River and the W.A.C. Bennett and Peace Canyon facilities drawing from the Williston Reservoir. When the new Site C Dam comes online it will add an additional 10%, or 5,000 GH/year.
The first and only plant being built in BC is LNG Canada in Kitimat. The second in the queue, held off for a decade by conservation advocates and first nations land defenders in Átl’ḵa7tsem Howe Sound, is Woodfibre LNG.
According to the Pembina Institute, Woodfibre LNG and phase 1 of LNG Canada would require 1,883 gigawatt hours (GWh) of power just for their liquefaction plants. Another 10,626 GWh/yr is needed to electrify extraction, collection and transportation of the gas to supply the terminals. The total power requirement would be 12,509 GWh/yr.
In other words, more than double the power generated by Site C, and more than a quarter of all hydro power generated in BC, including site C, would be sucked up by these two LNG projects.
BC’s hydroelectric power is created through massive, publicly funded, dam and reservoir projects. Taxpayers are subsidizing LNG in ways they don’t even realize.
Dams and reservoirs are known to have major impacts on ecosystems and wildlife. Water is also lost through evaporation in dammed reservoirs at a much higher rate than in rivers and streams, which dries out surrounding ecosystems and increases impacts of drought.
In 2023 BC Hydro warned that drought and low snowpack levels had lowered water levels in critical waterways used to power hydroelectric plants. Drought conditions led BC Hydro to increase the amount of energy it imports from other jurisdictions. And on April 3, 2024, BC Hydro issued its first Call for Power, in 15 years.
The fact is, BC will never be able to produce enough hydroelectricity to power the alternative energy transition we all crave, and build LNG facilities without undermining BC’s climate, biodiversity and watershed commitments.
If we are truly going to move forward with the promise of electric vehicles and heat pumps, and address impacts of climate change on our watersheds and ecosystems, the BC government must choose between all of these crucial values or LNG. It must limit industries like LNG that use massive amounts of hydro power and stop subsidizing projects with taxpayer and ratepayer funded infrastructure. It must recognize that the simplest and most practical BC Energy Carbon Innovation solution is to stop approving LNG plants.
Question for Candidates
Where does your party stand on LNG development and its contribution to GHG emissions and energy consumption? Will you be a voice of opposition to new LNG and major dam projects? Will you support FN and community advocates fighting to stop the Woodfibre LNG and FortisBC Eagle Mountain Pipeline expansion projects?