Greenhouse Gas Emissions Targets: BC Re-Establishes Targets

On May 7, 2018, the Government of British Columbia introduced Bill 34 to amend the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act. The Bill re-establishes the province's greenhouse-gas reduction targets, and broadens the regulatory authority of the Minister of Environment to set industry-specific reduction targets, among other amendments.

The Bill was foreshadowed in the BC New Democrat Clean Growth Climate Action plan—where a BC New Democrat Party government would "take measures to reduce carbon pollution... and will set a new legislated 2030 reduction target of 40 per cent below 2007 levels."

The new targets acknowledge the unlikelihood of the province achieving the 2020 Target (33-percent reduction from 2007 levels), and that active measures must be taken to achieve the 2050 Target (80-percent reduction from 2007 levels). The latest published provincial GHG inventory for 2015 reported B.C.'s greenhouse gas emissions as 61.6 million carbon dioxide equivalent tonnes