Meanwhile, BC United has committed to scrap the CleanBC plan, saying it “will kill jobs, kill paycheques, kill billions in funding for vital public services and plunge our province into a recession.”

If anything, B.C.’s progress in reducing emissions has been too slow for such a wealthy place in light of the climate emergency we find ourselves in. As of 2021, B.C.’s greenhouse gas emissions were a mere three per cent below 2007 levels, even as the economy was still emerging from COVID-19 shutdowns that year.

The consequences of inaction are becoming painfully clear, globally and locally. We estimated economic costs of $10.6 billion to $17.1 billion from B.C.’s 2021 extreme weather trilogy of heat dome, wildfires and floods/landslides. Nearly 600 people died in the heat dome event alone, a call to action if ever there was one.

Despite this, the provincial government remains overly concerned about introducing climate action that affects industry’s “competitiveness.” It has overseen a major expansion of the oil and gas industry, with gas production up 40 per cent in 2022 relative to 2017 — when the current government was first elected — and 126 per cent higher than 2007, when B.C. first legislated GHG reduction targets.