Global Warming
Global warming is the most urgent issue of our time. We risk creating an Earth with environmental conditions never experienced by humanity in its entire evolutionary history.
Dealing with that risk is a major challenge. If we want a better than 66% chance of global average temperature increase not exceeding 2 degrees C then we have 444 billion tonnes of ‘allowable’ carbon to emit before the day we finally bring our emissions to zero. Since we continue to emit close to 10 billion tonnes every year we would burn through the allowance by 2055, even without economic growth.
Electricity generation, transportation and deforestation are the big emitters, and since most ground transportation could be electrically driven the pre-eminent challenge is to generate electricity from clean sources. We need to use our precious hydrocarbon budget to manufacture the technologies of wind, wave, geothermal and solar energy transformation. We need also to reduce the clearing of forests.
Canada's unprecedented withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol is counter to national and global concerns, and converts Canada from being a contributing and creative partner to directly inhibiting the process of decarbonizing the global economy.
In B.C. many places are already experiencing the devastating impacts of global warming. Our beautiful interior forests have been decimated by the mountain pine beetle, a consequence of warmer winters having allowed a vast extension of the insect’s range. Large tracts of Vancouver’s treasured Stanley Park were destroyed in a 2006 winter storm that uprooted more than 1,000 trees, and scientists are warning that storms will increase in frequency and intensity as the world warms.
Rising sea levels threaten many of our coastal communities, fertile floodplains and shorelines. Sea water is rapidly becoming more acidic as CO2 is absorbed, threatening many species including plankton at the base of the food web. The fresh water cycle will also be severely impacted as rainfall and snow melt patterns change. All these changes pose grave challenges to the survival of many B.C. species, including caribou and salmon.
The B.C. government’s commitment to reduce carbon emissions 33 per cent by 2020 is commendable, but would be improved if the reference year were 1990, not 2007. Meanwhile, our province has no Transportation Plan aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in a sector responsible for 40 percent of BC’s greenhouse gas emissions. Continuing public subsidies to oil and gas companies and policies specifically encouraging the expansion of energy infrastructure, especially gas and oil pipelines and coastal LNG facilities serve to enhance the problem at a time when we have a pressing need to invest in clean, renewable energy.
Learn more about the issues involved in global warming.
We encourage the provincial government to develop climate-friendly policies such as renewable energy subsidies, continuation of the carbon tax and implementation of a "Cap and Dividend" trading scheme" to predictably reduce emissions. Funds collected should contribute to the permanent transition to a renewable energy infrastructure.
Learn more about some of the ways we can reduce the impacts of climate change.
