By Cheryl Jahn

Climate Plan Ambitious

Dec 5, 2018 | 3:32 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – The Province has released it’s new climate action plan. 

Highlights of the CleanBC plan include:

* By 2040, every new car sold in B.C. will be a zero-emission vehicle. Government is helping people afford cleaner cars and save money on fuel with incentive programs, and making it easier to charge or fuel them: 1.3 Megatonnes of carbon pollution reduced by 2030
* The Province is speeding up the switch to cleaner fuels at the gas pump – with further reductions to the carbon intensity of transportation fuels: 4 Megatonnes of carbon pollution reduced by 2030
* Every new building constructed in B.C. will be “net-zero energy ready” by 2032. Along the way, government is requiring new buildings to be more efficient, and ramping up funding for renovations and energy retrofits to existing homes and offices, including $400 million to support retrofits and upgrades for B.C.’s stock of publicly funded housing: 2 Megatonnes of carbon pollution reduced by 2030
* Government is helping B.C. to reduce residential and industrial organic waste, turning it into a clean resource: 0.7 Megatonnes of carbon pollution reduced by 2030
* The Province is helping industry lower its emissions and reduce its pollution: 8.4 Megatonnes of carbon pollution reduced by 2030

But the MLA for Prince George-Mackenzie is less enthusiastic.

“Anything is doable. We look at how technology has moved 20 years ahead up here. But they live in this world in Victoria and the Lower Mainland where everything is there and they can get by with electric vehicles and the electrification of just about everything they have down there. But up here, it’s a little bit different. We have thousands of kilometres to travel up here.”

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He also adds it’s a bit hypocritical.

“There’s a lot of minerals and precious metals that come out of the ground that make up all these electric vehicles and these modern technologies that we have. You know, 64 elements in a cellphone, for example. Lithium is also a major component of the batteries that are in electric vehicles. It’s all mined out of the ground.”

He says the goals can be achieved but not in the ambitious timelines set out today.