B.C. Energy Minister wants to lead in clean power at home while exporting fossil fuels abroad

Aug. 22, 2025

Adrian Dix wants British Columbia to be like Norway.

The province’s Minister of Energy and Climate Solutions expressed that aspiration during a recent, lengthy interview in his Vancouver riding. It would mean being a leading supplier of fossil fuels to the world, while also being a leader in the pivot away from them domestically.

It’s a desire that may not sit well with the province’s powerful environmental movement, which is accustomed to B.C. standing alongside Quebec as national leaders in unreservedly fighting climate change.

But it may align B.C. as neatly as anywhere else in the country with the balancing act that Prime Minister Mark Carney is also attempting: leveraging Canada’s natural resources to assert economic sovereignty and still embracing the transition to a low-carbon economy. And whether Premier David Eby’s government can pull it off may depend on getting Mr. Carney to throw Ottawa’s weight behind it.

At the centre of the strategy is an investment in wind and solar power that Mr. Dix likened in scale to the dawn of B.C.’s modern hydroelectricity system in the 1960s. He suggested it has the ability to draw capital displaced from the United States amid that country’s anti-renewables turn.

While the new capacity would partly enable a climate-friendly shift in energy usage – from gasoline-powered cars to electric vehicles, for example – it’s also meant to power the growth of province’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry, as well as new mining activity.

Much of this is already under way. B.C. recently announced 10 new wind and solar projects, almost all of them with at least 50-per-cent Indigenous ownership, which will produce nearly 5,000 gigawatt hours annually (enough to power about half a million homes). It recently launched a second call for renewable power aimed at even greater capacity. And it’s in the midst of trying to fast-track a new transmission line to the province’s resource-rich north.

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Meanwhile, LNG Canada – the country’s first export terminal for the fuel, in the Northern B.C. town of Kitimat – began shipping overseas this year; a second phase of that project is nearing a final investment decision. Construction is under way on Cedar LNG, a floating facility also in Kitimat, and Woodfibre LNG near Squamish. And several other proposed projects are at advanced stages of planning, highlighted by the Ksi Lisims LNG facility (near the Alaska border) and the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline that would supply it.

Still, B.C.’s version of Mr. Carney’s grand bargain between resource extraction and sustainability remains tenuous. And Mr. Dix’s overarching message was that Ottawa’s backing – financial, rhetorical and, in some cases, regulatory – could go a long way toward ensuring investor confidence, as well as social licence.

Making that case, he was not shy about drawing a contrast between national-interest projects that are on other provinces’ wish lists – including Alberta’s oil pipeline to the West Coast, which B.C. opposes and which does not have a known private-sector proponent – and those in his province that are readier to go.

“Our proposals are smaller in terms of quantum,” Mr. Dix said. “But they’re real.”

At the top of B.C.’s shovel-ready wish list is the North Coast Transmission Line (NCTL), which Mr. Dix touted as “the best national project existing in Canada now.”

The power line, for which the provincial government has somewhat controversially fast-tracked its own environmental-assessment process, would carry electricity approximately 450 kilometres from Prince George to Terrace, with possible extensions in other directions. It’s being billed as helping to both electrify the gas industry – enabling lower emissions – and open up the development of mineral reserves that could supply EV battery production.

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Neither the NCTL’s exact cost (reported to be in the ballpark of $3-billion) nor the amount being sought from Ottawa are entirely clear. But financing through the Canada Infrastructure Bank seems the likeliest form of federal involvement, and Mr. Dix implied it could make a difference in whether the line is built out to its full potential. (The Canada Infrastructure Bank is also providing financing for Indigenous ownership in the first round of renewable power projects.)

The province will likely be looking for federal backing on other electrification investments, including the next round of wind and solar projects, and possibly additional transmission capacity to the gas reserves in the Montney Basin, in Northern B.C. and Alberta.

At the same time, B.C. is also looking for other forms of federal help with the fundamental (if environmentally contentious) argument that, as long as other countries consume natural gas, Canada can supply it in a relatively low-emissions way – a competitive advantage in climate-conscious markets such as Japan and South Korea.

While the electrification of gas production is a big part of that argument, Mr. Dix flagged the implementation of stricter regulations around methane leaks at natural-gas sites – which Ottawa was advancing under former prime minister Justin Trudeau, but which Mr. Carney has yet to follow through on – as key to enhancing the industry’s credibility. “It’s a massive advantage to our LSG industry internationally that we do that,” he said.

But as the province tries to find a sweet spot between the ecological focus for which B.C. is known and a more hard-edged industrial prioritization, it may also be looking for some cover.

Mr. Dix was quick, upon taking his current role, to publicly acknowledge that the province is nowhere near the pace needed to hit its target of a 40-per-cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2007 levels by 2030, which is similar to federal commitments. And he doubled down on that position in the interview.

His argument is that, rather than allowing missed goals to sap confidence in the energy transition altogether, both the province and the country should garner momentum from the progress that is being made – which in B.C.’s case includes emission reductions of more than 30 per cent relative to GDP and more than 20 per cent per capita.

It’s not too far off from where Norway is at. That country is reducing emissions, despite being a huge fossil-fuel exporter, though nowhere near the rate needed to hit its target of a 55-per-cent cut from 1990 levels by 2030.

Whether that appeases British Columbians for whom being an environmental leader has been an article of faith remains to be seen.

The same goes for whether it’s a form of pragmatism that Mr. Carney – who has thus far struggled to reconcile his climate-change advocacy prior to taking office with his economic approach since – is ready to embrace.

But it may be as close as any province gets to the tightrope walk that the Prime Minister is attempting.

[Top photo: B.C.'s Minister of Energy and Climate Solutions Adrian Dix has publicly acknowledged that the province needs work to hit its target of a 40-per-cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2007 levels by 2030.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press]