While global leaders continue to stall on meaningful climate action, the direct impacts of climate change - wildfires, melting glaciers, depleting fisheries and rising sea levels - are already costing British Columbians hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Although BC's original climate action plan called for a 33% reduction in GHG emissions by the year 2020, experts now believe the reduction will be somewhere in the ballpark of just 2%!
In light of this disappointing reality, our provincial government has introduced a new set of targets calling for a 40% reduction in GHG emissions by the year 2030, 60% reduction by 2040, and 80% reduction by 2050. (Targets are based upon a reduction from 2007 levels.)
But our municipalities have yet to follow suit. While most BC municipalities have signed onto the BC climate action charter and made commitments to reduce both corporate (municipal operations) and community (city-wide) emissions, most have set targets that are significantly lower than province-wide goals, and few are measuring or reporting on their GHGs.