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Comments due by March 26, 2016 Climate leadership report and recommendations http://engage.gov.bc.ca/climateleadership/files/2015/11/CLT-recommendations-togovernment_Final.pdf Email for comments [email protected] "mailto:claire.trevena.MLA"@leg.bc.ca Please accept and consider these comments on The Climate Leadership Team Recommendations. First off, nice work! I’m impressed by the recommendations as a whole and support the adoption of all of them, except insofar as they use public funds to support the LNG industry. 1) 2020 Goal. I am disappointed that BC is abandoning its 2020 goal. The Clark administration had the opportunity to take timely action to meet distant targets. Its failure to do this tarnishes the province’s credibility on climate action and puts the efficacy of the current process in question. 2) Recommendation 5 - Increase the carbon tax. I strongly support recommencement of the annual increase of the carbon tax in 2018 by $10/year. The climate news makes me worry that it may be too little too late. But the 5 year review will provide the opportunity for upward adjustment to reduce GHG emissions if necessary to prevent runaway climate change. 3) Recommendation 6- Expand the carbon tax now. I strongly support the expansion of the carbon tax to include non-combustion sources of carbon pollution, including aviation. This should be done in 2016 rather than 2021. The subject industries have seen climate action coming for a very long time. It was their decision to bet on climate tragedy and they bear the consequences of taking this risk, not the public. 4) Recommendations 5 c) and 7 a) and 8-No more protection for bad actors. I do not support measures to protect high emission trade exposed industries from competitive disadvantage relative to other jurisdictions. These industries bear the risk for poor decision making in the several decades during which knowledge of climate change has harbingered the end of high GHG businesses. They received a lot of short term gain for those decisions. The public should not be expected to bail them out. These industries should not be exempt from PST on electricity rates. These bad actors may lose out but the economy as a whole will benefit in the long term. In particular, I oppose using the carbon tax to fund companies that produce and use natural gas. Natural gas funding is government support for a fossil fuel economy. Carbon tax funds should be used exclusively for renewables. 5) Recommendation 11 - Social cost of carbon. I strongly support inclusion of the social cost of carbon in Environmental Assessments. For fossil fuel industries, this should include emissions at the point of burning in addition to production emissions. 6) Recommendation 12 - Clean energy target. I strongly support increasing the clean energy target to 100 per cent by 2025. Natural gas, however, is not a clean energy. The definition should be revised to include only renewable energy sources. 7) Recommendation 13 - First Nations electricity. I strongly support the recommendation to phase out diesel generation in remote communities. 8) Recommendations 14 and 15 - Natural Gas and LNG. I strongly oppose the development of LNG in BC. Natural gas displaces renewables due its lower cost. There is no clear accounting of its lifetime emissions in BC. Some estimates in other jurisdictions state that it is worse than coal. It ruins water tables and thus destroys a resource that is increasingly precious in a climate destabilized world. If the province is serious about climate mitigation and adaptation, it must withdraw all support from this destructive industry. The carbon tax should be immediately applied to natural gas and LNG to help offset the externalization of its very high long term costs onto the public. 9) Recommendations 16-18 - Forestry and Agriculture. I support further study as suggested in the recommendations, but a few things seem obvious even now. Forestry policies need to reflect the building policy recommendation: that we want more BC wood in our buildings because it sequesters carbon. To do this, we need to recreate the value added incentives that were disassembled over the past two decades and stop exporting raw logs. In addition, to counteract the destructive impact of climate change on forest health (increased wildfires and pests), we need to lower the AAC and encourage the forests to regenerate the characteristics of the more resilient old growth forests. Such forests hold vast amounts of water and create tempered microclimates. We need this as summer droughts become the norm. 10) Recommendation 19 a) – d) - Transportation. I strongly support the transportation recommendations. However, aviation should not be exempted from low carbon fuel standards or the carbon tax. This ever-expanding high emission industry needs price signals to bring it in line with BC and global GHG targets. I also suggest expediting the schedule of targets for sale of Zero Emission Vehicles. Once EV infrastructure is in place, there will be no barrier to complete EV adoption. Building out such infrastructure could be done in less than a decade. There should be no funding for any fossil fuel vehicles such as those running on natural gas and propane. 11) Recommendation 19 e) - Car PST based on CO2/km. I strongly support this recommendation. Ferries and parking fees should be calibrated to emissions as well. 12) Recommendation 10 - Buildings. These recommendations are terrific and I strongly support them. 13) Recommendations 21-24 - Communities. I strongly support rural transportation strategies, updated hazard mapping, improved monitoring systems and systematic communication of climate risks to rural populations. 14) Recommendations 25-27 - First Nations. I strongly support business funds for new opportunities and modeling of climate impacts on indigenous rights. My understanding of indigenous right is that they are much more far reaching than these recommendations acknowledge. Proponents of renewable energy projects on traditional territory should be required to negotiate First Nation consent. The book Aboriginal Power by Chris Henderson describes many successful collaborations.