B.C. Views column by Tom Fletcher

B.C. should “walk the walk” on climate change

VICTORIA – A lot of carbon dioxide has been exhaled in the past few days in the debate about global warming, or climate change as it is now vaguely known.

I was surprised to pick up the Globe and Mail on Victoria Day and read about the great “furor” over the Canadian government’s apparent intention to back away from the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions. The furor turned out to be mostly more political posturing, and the story never got around to mentioning a pertinent fact, namely that since signing the Kyoto agreement in 1997, Canada has made extremely rapid progress – in the wrong direction.

The numbers were discussed in the recent federal election. After pledging nearly a decade ago to decrease greenhouse gas emissions six per cent by 2012, we were told they have already increased by 24 per cent. Now the new Conservative Environment Minister, Rona Ambrose, has tabled new data that indicates our emissions are up 35 per cent. I haven’t heard anyone argue with that total, which compares even less favourably with the U.S. increase, reported to be 11 per cent.

To meet our existing targets, stopping all the planes, trains and automobiles in Canada wouldn’t be enough, Ambrose said. And our government is supposed to seriously discuss even lower reduction targets?

B.C. should get serious, and it is starting to. In addition to leading opposition to a gas-fired power project in Washington state, canceling a similar project on Vancouver Island and scheduling the shutdown of Burrard Thermal in the Lower Mainland (which has more to do with high natural gas prices than greenhouse gases), B.C. has put a major emphasis on clean power development.

Foremost in that strategy is the development of small, run-of-river power projects. There is great potential here, for example a project on Furry Creek by a company headed by a former B.C. Hydro executive in partnership with the Squamish Nation.

That project won approval from the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, with the help of a “community benefits” fund. A similar but larger project on the Kettle River at Christina Lake hasn’t been so well received, opposed by local residents and governments because it is proposed for a scenic area called Cascade Canyon that’s a favourite of locals and tourists.

It’s opposition like this that apparently prompted the B.C. government to change its legislation to prevent local governments from interfering in these projects. The always colourful NDP energy critic, Nelson-Creston MLA Corky Evans, says he’s a fan of hydroelectric projects and participated in developments such as the Brilliant expansion project in the Kootenays. But he doesn’t like the Kettle River proposal, or the removal of local authority. “It's a tourism value being traded for an industrial value,” Evans told me. “Which would be OK, if it was being built by the people, or if they were part owners and they decided that they needed the money. But what the government has done is said that private businesses from anywhere in the world can supersede the local government to build a power project.” Maybe the Kettle River project, more than twice the output of Furry Creek, should be scaled back. But B.C. residents had better learn to love small hydro developments, because they’re the best hope we’ve got right now. And that's no joke.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

Tuesday, Sept. 19 --- Fall meeting Friends Parks & Trails
Saturday, Sept. 23 -- Annual Fall Fair in Pass Creek Park
Sunday, Sept. 24 -- Fall Fair in Pass Creek Park;
B.C. Rivers Day at Gyro Park in Trail is the White Sturgeon program
Rotary Family Bike Ride from Paulson Bridge to Christina Lake
October 19 - 22 (Thursday - Sunday) -- Environmental Culture Conference in Castlegar