CleanBC: Good Start. Now the Hard Work.
The government of British Columbia is keenly focused on progressing its greenhouse gas reduction (“GHG”) goals. At the same time, however, it needs to protect industry and the economy, while also managing to advance First Nations’ social, environmental, economic, and reconciliation interests. Successful policy needs to confront, and balance, these sometimes-competing interests. While the CleanBC Report is a step in the right direction, it falls short in a number of critical ways, leaving key questions unanswered.
There is no clear solution to achieving the balance that the Province is seeking. And as governments around the world try their hand at similar problems, one thing is clear: sophisticated, in-depth policy initiatives, not simply aspirational political dialogue, are needed to effect real improvement.
When the BC government released its CleanBC report (the “Report”) on December 5, it laid out its initial vision for the future of a clean, and sustainable British Columbia.
Specifically, the Report discusses the future of industry in British Columbia, with an interest in addressing the conflict between simultaneous commitments to continued economic growth and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Section 2.4 “Cleaner Industry” explicitly discusses the electrification of industry in Northern BC, seen as a way of reducing GHG emissions without inhibiting economic growth. In the words of the Report: “Electrification of industry is critical to meeting our climate commitments and reducing air pollution. Our goal is to make B.C. industries the cleanest in the world by using our clean energy to power our industrial economy.”
Unfortunately, despite these impressive goals, specific policy initiatives laid out in the Report are less well developed. While aiming to make BC a world leader in environmentally conscious industry through a policy of electrification is a promising goal, CleanBC falls short of clearly laying out, in a policy sense, just how this will be made to happen.
That is, the Report clearly lays out targets, and is somewhat precise on timelines. But other necessary indicia of developed policy – specific policy actions, defined budgets, and direct accountability, for example – are largely missing from the plan.
These policy shortcomings are perhaps best seen in the Report’s discussion of electrification. CleanBC focuses on the expansion of BC Hydro’s network of transmission lines. But looking only at delivery of electricity does not tell the complete story when considering an electrified industrial economy. It is critical to also consider the electricity generation facilities that will be needed to meet future demand, something CleanBC does not do.
Projects mentioned in the report, such as the Dawson Creek/Chetwynd Area Transmission Project, do represent progress, and they are clearly important. However, by solely focusing on delivery, government avoids the more complex and expensive question of where the electricity to be carried on these lines will actually come from.
Any scenario where BC moves towards a materially electrified economy will sharply increase the demand for electricity, to an extent that will quickly consume the province’s existing generation surplus, and the planned output of Site C. The Province, and BC Hydro, must be prepared to meet this pending shortfall with adequate supply side solutions. Government must demonstrate to the sceptical project developers precisely how and when the electricity that they require will be supplied. Potential generators must, in turn, see how this latent demand translates to the power purchase contracts they need to trigger their investment.
Thus far, this sort of explanation is missing from provincial policy statements.
One promising element of government’s plans is a commitment to a “low carbon industrial strategy”. While this segment is likewise lacking in substance, the strategy does introduce certain frameworks to describe how the future of BC industry could focus on both growth and environmental protection. Specifically, the Report calls for:
- Positioning B.C. as a destination for new investment and industry looking to meet the growing global demand for low-carbon products, services, and pollution-reducing technologies
- “Advancing innovation that’s focused on lowering emissions and reducing climate pollution”
- “Supporting economic opportunities for Indigenous peoples and communities”
These goals are reasonably obtainable for BC and can potentially serve as a transitional step towards reaching GHG reduction targets by 2030.
Making BC a world leader in industrial environmental standards will not just be about improving existing facilities. It will also be about creating a marketable image of a clean BC that attracts new, low-carbon and pollution-reducing investment for future projects, helping both the environment and the economy.
Showing a strong and resolved policy commitment to electrification of industry will help BC mould a sustainable image and attract the type of investment that will be compatible with the Report’s vision of BC’s industrial future. New projects that are either electrified industrial facilities themselves, or projects that generate electricity to supply electric powered industry, represent the exact type of advanced innovation that government covets. This specific type of future investment is critically important to BC’s goal of balancing its economic and environmental, policy objectives in a way that must also advance First Nations reconciliation.
That is, such investment will work towards strengthening the provincial economy, but in a way that aids rather than hampers climate goals by working to reduce industrial GHG emissions. Further, these actions and future developments will serve as opportunities to engage First Nations communities in a productive future, providing opportunities towards reconciliation goals.
By signalling a desire to make BC’s industries the cleanest in the world through a commitment to industrial electrification, government has taken an important and promising step. Improving BC’s environmental standard will act as a means of realizing a better British Columbia. A cleaner environment is a social good that benefits all British Columbians.
However, this is not a simple task, made more complicated because BC industry competes in global markets. Any policy step taken toward this goal must ensure sufficient protection for domestic industries that are competing against jurisdictions with much less commitment to GHG reductions. Failure to provide these protections this will scare away investment and lead to missed opportunities for the province, from both an economic and innovation perspective.
BC must also recognize the foundational role that First Nations will need to play in BC’s plan for broad-based electrification. BC’s first round of electrification, during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, fundamentally failed First Nations, and remains a painful reminder of their exclusion from the benefits of BC’s valuable hydroelectric system. As BC eyes another round of electricity investment, it must embrace First Nations economic, social, and environmental objectives, right from the first planning stages.
Since the CleanBC Report was released, considerable attention has been paid to Section 6, which accepts that even if the initiatives in Report were to succeed to the fullest extent, a remaining 6.1 mega-tonnes, or 25%, of the province’s reduction goals, would still be unaccounted for. Critics claim that these numbers reveal a major flaw in the government’s approach to the Report. They complain that that the Report does not even provide a theoretical path towards meeting the Province’s GHG reduction goals.
But this focus does not reveal a problem about the “missing” 25% so much as it highlights the larger policy risk arising from CleanBC. Government has undertaken an exercise of drafting lightly-defined initiatives in an attempt to “count up” reductions towards the ideal 100% benchmark. That is a fine start, but now it needs to turn its focus on developing, funding, and implementing those reductions that are reasonably attainable within the broader objectives of GHG reduction, economic development, and First Nations reconciliation. Only these actions will actually serve the Province’s broad policy goals, and they are valuable even if, in the end, BC falls short of its goals.
To this end, the next phase of CleanBC needs to pivot from a hypothetical counting exercise to more structured and tangible policy development. This strategy must focus on envisioning and executing affordable, practical, and defined policies that make a real impact towards achieving BC’s objectives, including GHG reductions through electrification. And it must do all this with active and meaningful First Nations participation in planning, developing, and owning the required new electricity infrastructure.
In its current form, CleanBC does a strong job of laying out the potential benefits of electrification. But it does much less well in describing how, in a real and practical sense, this electrification can happen. The environment, the economy, and First Nations reconciliation are inherently intertwined in BC, and future approaches to policy must adequately acknowledge this in order to find acceptable paths forward. This must define BC’s efforts in 2019.