On October 8 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a landmark report entitled Global Warming of 1.5 °C. The report highlighted the ongoing and imminent dangers of global warming and noted that “Limiting global warming to 1.5ºC would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.”

The House of Commons in Ottawa held an emergency debate yesterday on the topic of global warming. Today I rose pursuant to Standing Order 35 requesting an emergency debate also be held in the BC Legislature.

The Speaker granted my request.

Below I reproduce the videos and text of me both requesting the debate and subsequently participating in it. I also reproduce our accompanying media release.

Video: Standing Order 35 request for debate

Text: Standing Order 35 request for debate

A. Weaver: I rise pursuant to Standing Order 35 to make the following motion. By leave, I move that this House do now adjourn to discuss a matter of urgent public importance — namely, that in light of the recent IPCC special report on global warming and in light of the federal emergency debate on this subject which occurred yesterday, whether we as legislators are acting with sufficient urgency and demonstrating the appropriate leadership on preparing for and mitigating the escalating impacts of climate change on our province.

Video of speech

Text of speech

A. Weaver: Pursuant to the agreement regarding my application under Standing Order 35, I rise to move the following motion. By leave, I move:

[That this House do now adjourn to discuss a matter of urgent public importance, namely, that in light of the recent IPCC special report on global warming and in light of the Federal emergency debate on this subject which occurred yesterday, whether we as legislators are acting with sufficient urgency and demonstrating the appropriate leadership on preparing for and mitigating the escalating impacts of climate change on our province.]

Deputy Speaker: Please proceed.

A. Weaver: Thank you, hon. Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly, for allowing this emergency debate to take place. I note that my two colleagues in the B.C. Green Party and I will each have the floor for a few minutes, and we’ll divvy up the topics that we’d like to cover here. I’ll speak to my background in science. My colleague the MLA for Saanich North and the Islands will speak about our responsibility, and my colleague the MLA for Cowichan Valley will focus on opportunity and, where possible, hope.

This is the first week the Legislature has convened since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change special report was released. Three expert IPCC working groups issued a dire and urgent warning to governments around the world, including our own, arguing that we must immediately ramp up our efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees or face serious and irreversible consequences.

I know a little bit about the IPCC, having serviced as a lead author in that regard for the last four international assessments, and it was a proud moment for me to see a former post-doc and PhD student serving on the recent panel’s committee report.

Over the last 150 years, Earth has made a transition from the past, when climate affected the evolution of human societies, to the present, in which humans are affecting the evolution of climate and weather. Today we are at a pivotal moment in human history. Our generation will be responsible for deciding what path the future climate will take. You and I, as elected officials, will either be complicit in allowing climate change to despoil our world or we can lead the way and choose a new future

As a climate scientist, a lead author on four previous IPCC assessments, I know that it is my moral responsibility to speak about climate change as clearly and accurately as possible. I do not aim to alarm but need to emphasize the severity of the threat that lies ahead, because it is so often underestimated.

The current state of B.C.’s climate and environment is not “the new normal,” as many have been saying. “Normal” implies a plateau and consistency. We are not facing a plateau. We are on the edge of a very steep downward trend, and I’m sad to say that this is just the beginning.

Over hundreds of millions of years, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, together with global temperatures, dropped slowly as carbon was stored slowly in the sediments of the deep ocean and the great gas, oil and coal reserves of today were formed. Yet in a matter of just a few decades, the carbon drawn down over many tens of millions of years is being released back to the atmosphere. In a single generation, humans are taking atmospheric conditions back to that which existed during the age of the dinosaurs. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now far exceeds the natural range over the last million years, and it’s still rising quickly.

Metaphorically, we’re piling more blankets on an overheated planet. The hotter it gets, the more symptoms, if you will, humans will experience. If global emissions do not start to dramatically decline in the next few years, many millions of people, including British Columbians, will be at risk from heat waves, droughts, floods, storms and wildfires. Our coasts and cities will be threatened by a rising sea level. Many ecosystems, plants and animals will face widespread extinction, including most of the world’s coral reef systems.

This is not new information. Scientists have been raising concerns about what their data has been showing for years, for decades, for more than a century. In fact, in 1938, Guy Callendar made a presentation to the Royal Society of London that claimed (1) that humans had increased the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels, (2) that increased CO₂ could cause an increase in global temperatures and (3) that global temperatures were rising.

In the early 1800s, Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier was the very first to recognize that the atmosphere was essentially transparent to incoming radiation from the sun but was very effective at blocking outgoing radiation to the solar system, thereby creating a greenhouse effect. In the mid-1800s, John Tyndall, a British scientist, was the first to be able to determine that different greenhouse gases absorbed, preferentially, different wavelengths of infrared radiation.

In 1957, Roger Revelle and Hans Suess, from the University of California, warned that the oceans could not absorb the human emissions of carbon dioxide as fast as they were being produced. They stated, in their seminal work: “Human beings are now carrying out a large-scale geophysical experiment of a kind that could not have happened in the past nor be reproduced in the future…. We are returning, to the atmosphere and oceans, the concentrated organic carbon stored in sedimentary rocks over hundreds of millions of years.”

On and on it goes, in the 1980s, with the National Academy of Sciences and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Said the Academy of Sciences: “We’re deeply concerned about the magnitude of environmental changes.” They noted: “We may get in trouble in ways that we have barely imagined.” The Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S. said this: “Agricultural conditions will be significantly altered, environmental and economic systems potentially disrupted, and political institutions stressed. Changes by the end of the 21st century could be catastrophic, taken in the context of today’s world. A soberness and a sense of urgency underlie our response to a greenhouse warming.”

This is not new scientific information, as I’ve said. What is new, however, is how urgent and how dire the scientific warnings have become. What’s remarkable, when you look at this issue compared to every other environmental issue out there, is that the people speaking loudest, strongest and most frequently are the scientists themselves — out of concern for the direction we are taking our planet.

In recent years, the consequences of rising carbon dioxide and temperatures have become painfully clear. We’re on target to take ocean surface acidity into a realm for which we have no comparison in the history of Earth. Coral beds that have been around for millions of years are going extinct on a widespread basis. In Canada, overall precipitation will increase, but it’ll come in fewer and more extreme events interspersed between longer periods of drought. There’ll be an increased risk of flooding and wildfire, and we’ve seen that in British Columbia two years in a row.

At the rate we’re going, we’re looking at between 20 and 50 percent of the world’s species, almost certainly including the iconic Fraser River sockeye and Canada’s polar bear, becoming committed to extinction this century. As temperatures warm, salmon will have increased mortality rates as they struggle through hot waters to their spawning grounds. In southern regions, streams will dry up.

Think for a moment about a massive crop failure, economic collapse and millions of climate refugees desperate for safer homes. Our growing consumption levels are unsustainable on an earth with finite resources, and the limit is clearly in view.

Think about whatever issue you care about most as an MLA in British Columbia — economic growth, affordability, health care, education, poverty, transportation, agriculture, reconciliation, child care, housing, resource development, fisheries, forestry, safety, security, prosperity, family. Every single one will be undermined and endangered by unmitigated climate change.

I know that this can sound scary, an overwhelming proposition. It’s a normal human reaction to resist change and instead try to preserve the status quo. But the IPCC report, the one released this last weekend, tells us exactly where this leads.

We need to start now to build a new way of life. It can be a shift that provides economic opportunities like this province has never seen. By tackling climate change seriously, with carefully designed policies, B.C.’s economy can grow in new ways. We can prosper in a time of crisis, but it requires us to be honest with ourselves. In your work and mine, it is important we keep the spotlight on the stark and alarming reality of climate change and not get lost in the everyday bustle or the fog of November’s rain.

The time for “yes but” arguments — yes, but other people emit more, or yes, but other industries are worse, or yes, but B.C. is small, and this is a global problem — has passed. We now need “yes and” arguments. Yes, other people emit more. Yes, other industries will always be worse. And yes, B.C. is small compared to the world, and yet, we will do our part. As much as we may wish, we don’t have jurisdiction over the world, but we have influence in B.C., where we live. That is what is important.

This is an all-of-government issue, so it needs to be an all-government solution — every ministry, every MLA, every riding, every sector. We need everyone to look at the area they have influence on and think about how they can make positive change in the context of a warming world.

As the IPCC special report makes painfully clear, we only have a few short years left to steer away from catastrophic climate change. Choosing to take action is a luxury set to expire; soon, we will be forced. We must not squander this opportunity.

Thank you, again, to everyone in this chamber for allowing this emergency debate to take place.

Media Release

Weaver to move motion on emergency debate on climate change
For immediate release
October 16, 2018

VICTORIA, B.C. – Andrew Weaver, leader of the B.C. Green Party, will move a motion in the B.C. Legislature to hold a one-hour emergency debate on climate change tonight in the B.C. Legislature at 5:30pm this evening. The B.C. Greens called for an emergency debate this morning, following a similar debate in the Parliament of Canada last night.

“It’s time for a whole-of-government approach to mitigating the effects of climate change,” said Weaver.

“The potential calamity caused by climate change is avoidable. By refusing to create a plan to facilitate a gradual, managed transition, Canada is missing out on economic opportunities, as well as the ability to leverage the transition to make life more affordable for people.

“Canadians are highly educated, innovative and entrepreneurial – we can do far better than the race-to-the-bottom raw commodity economics of yesteryear. Instead, we should be putting our full attention towards championing clean growth and the value-added low-carbon industries that will undoubtedly be the drivers of economic growth as the world comes together to meet our targets.”

Sonia Furstenau, Deputy Leader, urged the other Members of the Legislative Assembly to recognize the human impacts of climate change.

“Climate change is not only an environmental issue – it’s a human rights issue,” said Furstenau.

“The effects of climate change will hit the most disadvantaged in our society hardest and first. We are already facing a crisis of inequality, both within Canada and across the globe. Any compassionate government that purports to care about people’s wellbeing must take immediate action to meet our emissions reduction targets, as well as to assist communities to adapt to the effects of climate change that are already beginning to take hold. If we act with urgency, we can couple strong climate policies with an approach that will also improve the health and wellbeing of the people we serve.”

Implementing a climate plan to meet B.C.’s legislated emissions reductions targets is a key component of the B.C. Green Party Caucus’ Confidence and Supply Agreement with the B.C. NDP minority government. Weaver is working closely with the government towards introducing that plan, the Clean Growth Strategy, later this year.

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Media contact
Jillian Oliver, Press Secretary
+1 778-650-0597 | jillian.oliver@leg.bc.ca

In question period today I asked the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources how she could possibly justify her government’s rhetoric concerning the magnitude of LNG Canada’s potential investment in BC. What I find particularly ironic is that for the last four years the B.C. NDP criticized the B.C. Liberals for using over-the-top exaggerations and hyperbolic language when referring to LNG. I was extraordinarily disappointed in the Minister’s responses to my questions.

Below I reproduce the video and text of our exchange.

Video of Exchange

Question

A. Weaver: Two weeks ago the province issued a press release heralding a $40 billion investment by LNG Canada. However, the government’s release provided no clarity about whether this investment was for the full plant, the full buildout, or just phase 1, consisting of two trains. In contrast, LNG Canada’s release, on the same day, clarified that the final investment decision was only for two trains but made no claim whatsoever about the size of the investment that’s represented.

To the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, can the minister please clarify, for the record, whether the investment that government was celebrating in its press release constituted two or four trains, and if it is only for two, whether a separate FID process would play out for additional trains at a later date?

Answer

Hon. M. Mungall: I was very proud to be in attendance at the announcement two weeks ago. I think this historic event of a $40 billion investment in British Columbia and Canada is actually a very non-partisan event.

I was happy to see members from the other side who were also there, because British Columbians — whether in my riding or in that of the member from Aldergrove–Fort Langley, the member for Parksville-Qualicum or the member for Peace River North — are all going to be able to benefit from this, because $23 billion of revenue is going to be coming back to British Columbia to fund child care, to fund education, to fund post-secondary education and to be able to fund our climate goals.

Now, I know members of the B.C. Liberal Party have mischaracterized our position for many, many years. That was to their benefit to do so. It was to their benefit to do so, but let’s put partisan politics aside, if they can.

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members.

Hon. M. Mungall: I know that’s hard for them, but if they could, we could acknowledge that that $40 billion investment, that historic investment for this country, for this province, is an FID — to answer the member’s question — for the entire project. That project, like I said, is going to be beneficial to British Columbians — 10,000 jobs during the construction phase, 950 jobs in northern British Columbia. First Nations are benefiting; local communities are benefiting. That is good for B.C.

Supplementary Question

A. Weaver: Well, thank you, Minister. That was a very simple question, and I can take it, from that answer, that the minister actually doesn’t know, which is quite shocking.

I’d like to dig a little deeper into the $40 billion investment rhetoric. The federal environmental assessment application shows low and high estimates of $25 billion and $40 billion for the project. However, according to this application, these estimates are for both phases of the LNG project for Kitimat. That’s four trains, not two trains.

When we turn to the provincial government’s own environmental assessment report, we find that the investment for phase 1 — that’s the two trains — is projected to be $13 billion to $21 billion, or half the number that the government highlighted in its press release.

Furthermore, it gets worse. In the assessment report of the B.C. government, it points out that for phase 1 costs, only about 20 percent of that will actually be spent in B.C. That would bring the number down to $2½ billion to $4.1 billion, a far cry from the $40 billion touted in the media.

To the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, how do we reconcile the headlines in the government’s own press release with the environmental assessment reports that underpin the project, given that the minister has, I think, sort of clarified that the $40 billion is for four trains as opposed to two? It has to be, based on her own documents. Finally, after years of listening to the B.C. NDP criticize the B.C. Liberals for using over-the-top exaggerations and hyperbolic language when referring to LNG, does the minister not see the hypocrisy unfolding before us?

Answer

Hon. M. Mungall: As I said, this was a historic day two weeks ago. People all over British Columbia were celebrating it, particularly people in the north. The mayor of Kitimat, who is ecstatic to see the potential of 950 permanent jobs in his community, was there. The chief councillor for the Haisla Nation, Crystal Smith, was there. She saw how important this is for her community, as does the member from Kitimat.

He knows very well how important this is. He has spent many, many years working on this project and knows exactly the benefits that are going to be going to his community as well as throughout British Columbia, particularly in the north. This government was proud to be there two weeks ago and to be working with LNG Canada to get that FID.

Adam Olsen and I today announced that we will both serve as intervenors in the upcoming new National Energy Board hearings on the Transmountain pipeline project.

Below I reproduce our press release outlining our intentions.

We remain profoundly perplexed as to why the BC NDP government has not given the federal government the 30 days notice required to pull out of the equivalency agreement.

As I noted earlier, the BC NDP campaigned on using every tool in the tool box to stop the the Transmountain pipeline project. The recent Federal Court of Appeal ruling demonstrated that politics was put ahead of evidence and reconciliation in the federal cabinet approval of the project. This presented the BC NDP with a very powerful tool.

Given that the provincial cabinet’s approval relied on the same NEB report, and in light of the Federal Court of Appeal’s ruling that the report was “impermissibly flawed”, the BC Government has every right to pull out of the Equivalency Agreement and conduct its own, independent environmental assessment.

This is particularly important in light of the “it will be built” rhetoric emanating from the Trudeau government. How can British Columbians trust an environmental assessment process when the final answer has already been prescribed? The answer is simple, it can’t.

We have yet to receive any compelling reason as to why the BC NDP are not withdrawing from the equivalency agreement.

Media Release

B.C. Green MLAs Weaver and Olsen to intervene in new Trans Mountain NEB hearings
For immediate release
October 3, 2018

VICTORIA, B.C. – Andrew Weaver, leader, and Adam Olsen, spokesperson for Indigenous relations and reconciliation of the B.C. Green Party have applied to intervene in the new Trans Mountain National Energy Board (NEB) hearings. Weaver and Olsen were both intervenors in the 2014 certificate hearing for the Trans Mountain Expansion project.

“Although we are concerned that this is yet another rushed process engineered to facilitate a political win, unfortunately right now it is the only one we’ve got,” said Weaver.

“The Prime Minister vowed that all new projects would be put through a new NEB process. Three years into his government’s mandate, that promise has still not been kept. The NEB has not even confirmed that marine shipping – one of the key reasons cited in the unanimous federal court decision – will be included in the scope. My previous intervention focused largely on the issue of marine shipping and I was deeply dissatisfied by the lack of answers to my questions. The NEB must do better this time.”

Weaver is a climate scientist with a specialty in ocean physics. His office has spent hundreds of hours on research on the Trans Mountain file ahead of his previous intervention. Olsen, who is a member of the Tsartlip First Nation in Brentwood Bay, will focus his intervention on the issue of consultation, as he did previously. Both have applied for participant funding.

“The federal government promised to advance reconciliation, but the federal court decision shows that their actions on Trans Mountain were in fact a setback,” said Olsen. “I do not see how you can have meaningful consultation and approach Indigenous people as partners when you have a predetermined outcome for a project. Regardless, I will continue to sit at the table because I feel it is my duty to do everything I can to fight for a better future for my province and for my people.”

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Media contact
Jillian Oliver, Press Secretary
+1 778-650-0597 | jillian.oliver@leg.bc.ca

Today in the BC Legislature I rose during question period to ask the Minister of Environment how the BC NDP could possibly reconcile their years of criticism directed towards the BC Liberals concerning LNG in light of their cheer leading of the same today.

Below I reproduce the video and text of our exchange.

Video of Exchange

Question

A. Weaver: In 2016, the B.C. NDP concluded that plans for an $11.4 billion LNG terminal on Lelu Island would generate an unacceptable increase in the province’s greenhouse gas emissions. They filed a definitive position against the project with federal environmental authorities. The NDP noted in their letter to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency that the project would increase the province’s entire carbon footprint for industry, transport and residential activity combined by 8½ percent.

This is what they said in the letter:

“The proposal fails to meet the condition of air, land and water protection with respect to both the threat to marine habitat and species as well as to climate through unacceptably high and inadequately unregulated greenhouse gas emissions.“

Here’s the kicker: the unacceptably high emissions cited by the letter are, in fact, lower than the emissions anticipated from the LNG Canada project announced today.

To the Deputy Premier: how does the Deputy Premier reconcile her party’s sharp opposition to the Lelu terminal development with the present investment in LNG Canada?

Answer

Hon. G. Heyman: Thank you to the Leader of the Third Party for the question, because it gives us on this side of the House an opportunity to talk about our serious approach to climate, an approach that stands in stark contrast to that of the previous government. When I talk to British Columbians, they want to be assured….

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members, we shall hear the response. Thank you.

Hon. G. Heyman: British Columbians want to be assured that as we develop our economy, we do it in a way that’s environmentally responsible, protects our air, land and water and has a path forward to meet clear climate targets that meet our and the Canadian government’s commitment to the Paris accord.

I will differ with the Leader of the Third Party a little bit. I will differ with him in that the announcement that was made today and the greenhouse gas emissions associated with this development, this final investment decision, are 3.4 megatonnes, far lower than that associated with the project that the member references.

But I will say that the member has been working with me, working with staff in the climate action secretariat, to design, review and to provide input into a clean growth strategy that we will release later this fall. It will outline a clear path to our legislated emission reduction targets. We are factoring in the emissions from this plant in that plan, and I look forward to continued work with the leader and his caucus.

Supplementary Question

A. Weaver: In 2015, the B.C. Liberals signed a development deal with Pacific Northwest LNG in an attempt to spur the Malaysian-led project to become Canada’s first major LNG exporter. The now Minister of Environment was sharply critical of this decision. He said:

“An economy that isn’t built on sound environmental protections that include a solid plan to control, limit and eventually eliminate greenhouse gas emissions isn’t in the economy’s interest….[or] in the interest of future generations“.

The Minister of Energy took this to another level. She said:

“They put themselves in such a desperate position” — they being the Liberals — “when it comes to negotiating for LNG that they had to say yes to any single thing that walked through the door. That’s exactly what they have done. This is the big sellout of British Columbia.“

— the words of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources.

Now the NDP want to take that sellout to a whole new level through exempting LNG Canada from increases in the carbon tax, by eliminating the LNG Income Tax Act while they’re retaining the royalty giveaway, by deferring the PST, by exempting them from the steel tariffs and by burdening ratepayers with billions of dollars of debt to build Site C to sell LNG Canada power at half the price it costs to produce it. Talk about sellout.

To the Deputy Premier: how is the development of LNG Canada any different from the B.C. Liberals’ attempt to develop Pacific Northwest LNG? Do you not see the grand hypocrisy of what is unfolding before us today?

Answer

Hon. G. Heyman: There could not be a more different approach to the economy or climate than this government demonstrates every single day and will make absolutely clear this fall when we release a clean growth strategy for a diversified, modern economy that meets emission reduction targets — full stop.

With respect to LNG Canada, we are applying the same conditions that will apply to any industry in British Columbia. An industry that is world-leading in its emission reduction targets, to be reviewed periodically, can get up to 100 percent rebate of the incremental carbon tax — a carbon tax, by the way, that the former government had no intention of ever applying again.

We will work with the Third Party. We’ll work with the Leader of the Third Party and the leader’s caucus. We’ll work with industry….

Interjections.

Mr. Speaker: Members, we shall hear the response.

Hon. G. Heyman: We’ll work with British Columbians to ensure that we meet our targets and we diversify and create a modern, sustaining economy for all British Columbians, for First Nations, for every region of this province while we protect the environment and while we meet our climate commitments.

Today a positive final investment decision was reached on phase one of LNG Canada’s proposed LNG export facility in Kitimat. My office released the statement below in response to this announcement.

Media Release

Weaver statement on LNG Canada FID
For immediate release
October 1, 2018

VICTORIA, B.C. – Andrew Weaver, leader of the B.C. Green Party, responded to the news that the LNG Canada project has received a positive final investment decision (FID).

“I am deeply disappointed that the NDP minority government’s tax giveaway has resulted in the country’s single biggest source of emissions receiving an FID,” said Weaver.

“Adding such a massive new source of GhGs means that the rest of our economy will have to make even more sacrifices to meet our climate targets. A significant portion of the LNG Canada investment will be spent on a plant manufactured overseas, with steel sourced from other countries. B.C. taxpayers will subsidize its power by paying rates twice as high and taking on the enormous public debt required to build Site C. There may be as little as 100 permanent jobs at LNG Canada. I believe we can create far more jobs in other industries that won’t drastically increase our emissions.

“In opposition, the NDP were outspoken critics of the Liberal’s LNG regime, then rightly noting that it did not amount to a fair value for our resource and that the emissions were too high. Our Caucus was shocked when they turned around and delivered an even larger giveaway once in power. We did everything we could to deter them from making this decision, but we are only three MLAs up against the 84 whose parties support the heavy subsidization of this industry.

“It breaks my heart that the young people of today must watch as politicians who once professed to champion climate action and a hopeful vision for the future instead succumb to the temptation of short-sighted political wins. Young people deserve better and our Party will keep fighting for them.

“Our Caucus has been clear that we do not support the government’s LNG regime. The government does not have our votes to implement this regime and will have to work with the B.C. Liberal MLAs if they want this project to go forward.

“Despite our profound disappointment on this issue, we have been working closely in good faith with the government to develop a Clean Growth Strategy to aggressively reduce emissions and electrify our economy. The B.C. NDP campaigned to implement a plan to meet our targets and reaffirmed that promise in our Confidence and Supply Agreement. We will hold them to account on this. We will have more to say once that plan becomes public later this year.”

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Media contact
Jillian Oliver, Press Secretary
+1 778-650-0597 | jillian.oliver@leg.bc.ca<mailto:jillian.oliver@leg.bc.ca>