Hong Kong city at night

British Columbia has an opportunity to gain from slow global shift to a lower GHG future

The results of the CleanBC plan, should they be achieved, will have "zero effect" on the level, pattern, or growth of global greenhouse gas emissions, states a new commentary from leading business group.

The Business Council of BC comment article, published on Dec. 12, found the CleanBC plan entitled Building a Low Carbon Economy: Industry in Action to be laudable, even if it is inwardly focused.

The plan tackles the climate challenge in pragmatic ways and can leverage BC’s “expertise and natural endowments of energy, raw materials, and other products demanded by the world” said the commentary.

BC’s total annual emissions are equal to two days of emissions from China. There is no point in trimming our own “infinitesimal and statistically irrelevant” GHG emissions if that means depriving the world of the relatively low greenhouse gas building materials, energy resources, minerals and metals, and food products that are exported from British Columbia, said the commentary.

Success will also require avoiding established tendencies to “impose self-inflicted costs, set unrealistic targets, and substitute endless process for action”, states the analysis.

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