Adrian Dix, B.C.’s Minister of Energy and Climate Solutions, said despite leading the country in electric-vehicle sales, the province still isn’t meeting its targets.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
British Columbia will introduce changes to water down its legislated electric vehicle sales mandate next spring. The changes are part of a broader policy repositioning in a province that was once a global leader in climate action.
Adrian Dix, B.C.’s Minister of Energy and Climate Solutions, said Tuesday the province’s current targets, which require 90 per cent EV sales by 2030, and 100 per cent by 2035, are no longer realistic.
“We’re leading Canada in EV sales,” Mr. Dix told a news conference Tuesday. “But when you’re number one and you’re still not meeting your targets, you need to reflect on that.”
The B.C. NDP government abandoned the provincial carbon tax in April, and is pursuing the expansion of fossil fuel development as a core economic strategy. The province is expected to miss its 2025 greenhouse gas emission reduction targets by a wide margin, and a slate of top advisors is urging the provincial government to recalibrate future GHG targets so that they can fit alongside the many other priorities that have pushed its climate agenda onto the back burner.
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Mr. Dix said he remains committed to climate action, but targets need to be achievable. For the EV market, the cancellation of Canada’s and B.C.’s rebate program has hurt sales, while the Canada-U.S. tariff dispute has led to a significant drop in Tesla sales in Canada. Until this year, Tesla dominated the Canadian EV market.
Canada has paused the rollout of its own EV mandate pending a review, with a decision expected this winter. Under the federal mandate, manufacturers were supposed to ensure that 20 per cent of all new cars, SUVs and light-duty trucks sold next year would be zero-emission vehicles, including plug-in hybrids.
B.C.’s mandate is stricter, but Mr. Dix said his new legislation will be aligned with whatever policy the federal government settles on.
His announcement on Tuesday comes a week before he is expected to release an independent review of his government’s “CleanBC” plan, which sets out how the province is to lower climate-changing emissions by 40 per cent by 2030.
“It’s a critical moment for climate policy in British Columbia, Canada and the world,” Ian Mauro, executive director of the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, said in an interview.
PICS released a series of policy papers on Wednesday, produced to help advise the CleanBC review. The authors call on the government to broaden policies to help British Columbians convert their homes and vehicles to electric power, and to weave climate policy more closely with electrification efforts.
The agency says it is possible to develop new, credible climate targets, but they will be less ambitious than the current ones.
“You adjust your emissions target for something that you can realistically achieve given the financial circumstances, given the economic challenges we face, and given the population pressures that B.C. has experienced over the last kind of five or seven years,” Mark Zacharias, one of the authors for the PICS papers, said in an interview. “We are advocating that government maintain a realistically achievable emissions target, but also start measuring other things that measure your progress against building the clean economy as well.” That could mean setting targets such as per capita emissions.
Earlier this month, Ontario moved to scrap requirements that it set an emissions target and update its climate plan, eliminating the key measures for holding the government to account on efforts to fight global warming.
Mr. Mauro said this is not the time to abandon emissions targets, but British Columbia needs to reframe the objectives in a way that addresses the issues that British Columbians are focused on.
“Global science says that emission targets have to remain at the centre of the conversation. But at the same time, we live in a rapidly changing world where affordability and housing and basic requirements for living have to be part of our climate story,” Mr. Mauro said.
Those changes reflect a shift in priorities dominated by Canada’s trade dispute with the United States, a housing crisis, rising deficits, and health care shortages.
The B.C. government is promising heavy investments in building up its electricity grid, with new private power purchase agreements and a commitment to build the $6-billion North Coast Transmission Line. The new capacity that the transmission line will deliver is earmarked for new mines and LNG plants.
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The PICS authors conclude that the existing CleanBC program has made progress since its inception in 2018, helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions on a per capita basis. But the province’s economic and population growth nearly cancelled out the reductions, and the growth of LNG, with significant GHG emissions, will make future targets even harder to meet.
“The gap between ambition and reality is widening, and instead of continued momentum, the past year has brought setbacks. Climate commitments have been weakened at the federal and provincial policy levels,” the summary report notes.
PICS recommends that B.C. expand its clean energy resources, which will strengthen the province’s competitiveness in the global economy. “Electrifying end uses, such as heating and transportation, will enhance energy security by reducing reliance on imported fuels.”
The reports note that the households that would benefit most from energy retrofits are those that can least afford the upfront costs. “An estimated four to 16 per cent of British Columbians live in energy poverty, with disproportionate energy poverty in Indigenous households,” the authors wrote. “Technologies such as electric vehicles, e-bikes, heat pumps, energy efficiency retrofits, solar panels and batteries can reduce monthly bills and improve year-round comfort, but come with upfront costs that make them out of reach for otherwise-motivated households, even with rebate programs.”
On the EV mandate, PICS is calling for an affordable vehicle action plan that aims to ensure British Columbians have a selection of affordable EVs under the price point of $40,000 by 2030.