B.C. is not on track to meet climate goals: civil society groups
Janelle Lapointe, a climate justice and Indigenous rights advocate from Stellat’en First Nation, Caribou Clan, called on the provincial government to up its current climate action plan. Photo by Isaac Phan Nay
By Isaac Phan Nay
A campaign mounted by several B.C. climate and civil society groups is calling on the provincial government to set more ambitious climate targets and enact policies to reach them.
For two years, an alliance of groups called the BC Climate Emergency Campaign has been calling for the provincial government to respond to 10 calls to action, including winding down fossil fuel production, restoring nature and setting climate targets based on science and justice. On Tuesday, several representatives of the campaign upped the demands.
“We are in deep doo-doo with respect to the climate crisis,” said Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs. “It absolutely astonishes me that in spite of clear evidence that we’re in the middle of the crisis of our time, governments continue to carry on business as usual.”
Member groups include the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, and more than 550 organizations have signed on to the campaign.
In 2021, the campaign released an open letter asking B.C. to ramp up its climate action plan, called CleanBC. As written, the CleanBC plan would not do enough to reduce the province's emissions of planet-warming gases, the campaign said. It also urged B.C. to phase out fossil fuel production and use, protect and restore nature, invest in zero-emission transportation and buildings and track and report its own progress.
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