LNG in BC - Selected recent articles

05/10/18
Author: 
Roger Annis

[Recent articles included in the 'Canada Newsroll' at A Socialist in Canada]

BC Premier John Horgan considers ways to proceed with ‘LNG Canada’ project in Kitimat without an approval vote in the Legislature, by Rob Shaw, Vancouver Sun, Oct 2, 2018

[The NDP government in British Columbia is a minority government. In order to govern, it depends on support from the three elected Green Party members of the BC Legislature. The Greens have offered conditional support to the massive, $40 billion-plus ‘LNG Canada’ project announced on October 3, 2018, provided the government finds ways to legislate substantial greenhouse gas emissions in other areas of the provincial economy as part of its yet-to-be-announced ‘climate action plan’. The Globe and Mail‘s Justine Hunter reports on October 3, 2018 (subcriber only article):

… Today, after “hundreds of hours” of meetings between the Greens and the NDP – including regular sessions between Mr. Weaver and Environment Minister George Heyman – the Green leader believes the clean-growth strategy [sic] that is now being finalized can reach the province’s targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade even with LNG Canada in production…

“George Heyman and I are rising to the challenge,” Mr. Weaver said in an interview. “I see a pathway to supporting an exciting plan in the clean-growth strategy.” He said that strategy embodies the Green’s economic agenda: shifting the economy toward a low-carbon future…

[The mainstream ‘environmental’ organizations in British Columbia take a similar stand to the Greens (see the first of the ‘related’ reports here below).]

Related:
*  LNG Canada is a ‘carbon bomb’ that will blow up B.C.’s climate goals, critics warn, report by CBC News, Oct 3, 2018

[In this CBC News report, the David Suzuki Foundation explains its conditional support to an LNG industry in British Columbia. Director Ian Bruce tells the CBC, “[LNG Canada will emit] more than double all the emissions from all the cars and trucks in Metro Vancouver. BC is going to need the best, most aggressive, world-class climate plan to make up for this additional increase.” Karen Tam Wu, a managing director with the Pembina Institute environmental think-tank, sounds a similar note in the same news report: “That just means we’re going to need to step up and accelerate the rate at which we’re reducing carbon from other parts of our economy in BC.”

[Marc Lee of the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives dispels the greenwashing in an interview with CBC Radio One. He is cited in the above-mentioned CBC news article: “This project [LNG Canada] is a carbon bomb. We don’t have the luxury of indulging in building big, new, fossil fuel megaprojects.”

*  LNG Canada will blow B.C.’s climate targets, by Wilderness Committee, Oct 2, 2018  Wilderness Committee is condemning provincial and federal subsidies for LNG Canada because the project puts British Columbia’s climate goals effectively out of reach…
*  LNG is incompatible with BC’s climate obligations, by Marc Lee, published by Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives, July 11, 2018
*  The BC NDP’s longstanding advocacy of natural gas fracking and extraction, now on steroids with its LNG advocacy, by Vaughn Palmer, columnist, Vancouver Sun, Oct 3, 2018
*  Canada’s fossil fuel industry hopes the ‘LNG Canada’ project in Kitimat BC is the first of many, Bloomberg News, Oct 3, 2018