Tag: Climate Leadership Plan

British Columbia releases long-awaited Climate Leadership Plan

On August 19, 2016, the BC government released its long-awaited Climate Leadership Plan, which updates the province’s earlier Climate Action Plan (2008). The plan follows the release of the government-appointed Climate Leadership Team’s (CLT) recommendations in November 2015 and sets out 21 actions to reduce emissions across five areas: (1) natural gas, (2) transportation, (3) forestry and agriculture, (4) communities and built environment, and (5) public sector.

The CLT had made 32 recommendations including, among others, the establishment of a mid-term 2030 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target and a reduction in the provincial sales tax from 7% to 6%, which would be offset by an increase in the carbon tax by $10 per year commencing in July 2018.  While the Climate Leadership Plan has been informed by some of the recommendations made by CLT and feedback received from the public and stakeholders, the plan focuses on actions that will enable BC to achieve its legislated target of reducing emissions 80% below 2007 levels by 2050. In so doing, the Climate Leadership Plan bypasses BC’s 2020 target of achieving a reduction in GHG emissions of 33% below 2007 levels. The BC government has declined to set a mid-term target and will keep the province’s revenue neutral carbon tax at $30 per tonne until the federal government’s approach to carbon pricing is revealed.

The key actions in the Climate Leadership Plan include the following:

Communities & Built Environment

  • Working together with local governments to refresh the Climate Action Charter, with a particular focus on: (i) growth near major transit corridors for large urban communities; (ii) increasing the use of decision support tools that provide the information needed to create more resilient green infrastructure; and (iii) strengthening the ability of communities to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
  • Amending regulations to promote more energy efficient buildings.
  • Creating a waste-to-resource strategy to reduce waste sent to landfill and establishing a food waste prevention target of 30% and increasing organics diverted from landfills to 90%.

Public Sector

  • Promoting the use of low carbon and renewable materials in public sector buildings.
  • Mandating the creation of 10-year emission reduction and adaptation plans for provincial public sector operations.

Transportation

  • Increasing the requirements for BC’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard to 15% by 2030 (it currently requires a reduction in the carbon intensity of transportation fuels by 10% by 2020 (relative to 2010)).
  • Amending regulations to encourage emission reductions in transportation by allowing utilities to double the total pool of incentives available to convert commercial fleets to natural gas, when the new incentives go towards vehicles using 100% natural gas.
  • Expanding support for zero emission vehicle charging stations in buildings through the Clean Energy Vehicle program.

Forestry & Agriculture

  • Rehabilitating under-productive forests, recovering more wood fibre, and avoiding emissions from burning slash; these actions will be taken through the new Forest Carbon Initiative, which will seek to increase the rate of replanting and fiber recovery by 20,000 hectares per year.

Industry & Utilities

  • Developing new energy efficiency standards for gas-fired boilers.
  • Facilitating projects that will help fuel marine vessels and commercial vehicles with natural gas.

Natural Gas

  • Developing a strategy to reduce upstream methane emissions, including targets for reducing fugitive and vented emissions from extraction and processing infrastructure (built before January 1, 2015) by 45% by 2025.
  • Investing in infrastructure to develop upstream electrification of several projects, including the Peace Region Electricity Supply Project, North Montney Power Supply Project and others.

The BC government has said that the Climate Leadership Plan is a living document that will be further updated over the coming year. The plan will likely be updated to reflect federal climate change policy developments once the working groups that were established at the First Ministers’ meeting in March 2016 report back in October 2016 (working groups were established to study (a) clean technology, innovation and jobs, (b) carbon pricing mechanisms, (c) mitigation opportunities, and (d) adaptation and climate resilience).

Alberta Releases Details of Climate Leadership Plan in Advance of Federal/Provincial Climate Change Meeting and COP 21

In advance of a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and fellow premiers, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley unveiled the details of the province’s Climate Leadership Plan on November 22, 2015. The plan, which is based on the advice of the Climate Change Advisory Panel (the Panel, led by Dr. Andrew Leach), will also be promoted by Premier Notley at the United Nations Climate Change conference that will take place in Paris from November 30 to December 11, 2015.

Alberta’s Climate Leadership Plan accelerates the province’s transition from coal to renewable electricity sources and sets an emissions limits of 100 megatonnes for the oil sands with provisions for new upgrading and co-generation (the level of current emissions from the oil sands is approximately 70 megatonnes). To ensure that the policy is progressive and protects the competitiveness of Alberta’s core industries, the Panel has recommended a consumer credit which will offset the impact of the policy for households and allocations of emissions credits for industrial emitters. A copy of the Panel’s Report to the Minister, which was also released on November 22nd, is available Leadership Report Online.
Alberta’s Climate Leadership Plan sets out the following policy objectives:

Carbon Pricing
Carbon pricing provides the backbone of the Panel’s proposed policy architecture. Alberta will phase in carbon pricing in two steps:
o $20/tonne economy-wide in January 2017.
o $30/tonne economy-wide in January 2018.

The Panel has also proposed that the existing Specified Gas Emitters Regulation be replaced by a Carbon Competitiveness Regulation in 2018, which would:
a) broaden the carbon pricing signal in Alberta to cover approximately 90% of the province’s emissions, up from less than 50% today;
b) provide a consumer rebate to mitigate the impacts of carbon pricing on low- and middle-income Albertans, fund complementary emissions-abatement programs and, where applicable, support a sound and just transition for labour and communities and strategies to protect small- and medium-sized businesses;
c) improve the mechanism by which trade-exposed industries are protected to ensure their competitiveness while encouraging and rewarding top performance;
d) increase stringency at the same pace as peer and competing jurisdictions; and
e) avoid the transfer of wealth outside of Alberta.

Electricity and Renewables
• Alberta will phase out all pollution created by burning coal and transition to more renewable energy and natural gas generation by 2030.
• Three principles will shape the coal phase-out: (i) maintaining reliability; (ii) providing reasonable stability in prices to consumers and business; and (iii) ensuring that capital is not unnecessarily stranded.
• Two-thirds of coal-generated electricity will be replaced by renewables – primarily wind power – while natural gas generation will continue to provide firm base load reliability.
• Renewable energy sources will comprise up to 30 per cent of Alberta’s electricity production by 2030.

Methane Reduction
• In collaboration with industry, environmental organizations, and affected First Nations, Alberta will implement a methane reduction strategy to reduce emissions by 45% from 2014 levels by 2025.

Revenue Neutral
• One-hundred per cent of proceeds from carbon pricing will be reinvested in Alberta.
• A portion of collected revenues will be invested directly into measures to reduce pollution (including clean energy research and technology), green infrastructure (such as public transit), and programs to help Albertans reduce their energy use.
• Other revenues will be invested in an adjustment fund that will help individuals and families make ends meet; provide transition support to small businesses, First Nations, and people working in affected coal facilities.

Alberta’s Climate Leadership Plan is expected to reduce emissions from current trends by approximately 20 Mt by 2020, and approximately 50 Mt by 2030. This would roughly stabilize emissions, by 2030, just above current levels at approximately 270 Mt.