Editor:
Re: LNG expansion supports lower-carbon future, June 25
I find the opinion piece on LNG by Douglas Stout, a VP at FortisBC, interesting. It’s interesting and disturbing at the same time. Op-eds by their very nature are just that: opinions. The fact that Stout works in marketing for the industry would define his opinion very clearly to be one-sided.
Stout states he would like to clarify “misinformation” presented by Eon Finn on the LNG expansion project (Optimist, June 18). Having said that, he really has no misinformation to clarify. The proposal and the outcome may always vary according to market demand. That does not change the actual scale of the proposal on the table. Once a proposal is accepted, the expansion can go to its full acceptance level.
One thing to make clear is that Finn, unlike Stout, is not a representative of the industry and has nothing to sell. The only “bias” Finn can be guilty of is a bias towards a healthy environment and community.
Canada has committed to reducing its annual greenhouse gas emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. In late 2015, Canada and almost 200 other countries adopted the Paris Agreement, the ultimate goal being to limit the average global temperature increase to only 1.5 degree.
Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) regularly publishes updates on the country's progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In January of 2019, the department projected that even under a best-case scenario — one that takes into account policies already in place and those that are "under development but have not yet been fully implemented" — our total emissions in 2030 will only be 19 per cent below 2005 levels. The operative part of this claim is “under development but not implemented.” Read: industrial policies and improvements that don’t yet exist.
The most recent Canadian greenhouse gas emissions report shows that even with our efforts to reduce climate pollution, B.C.'s annual emissions increased by 3.5 per cent from 2017 to 2018. These figures will only rise by our development of the LNG industry.
So how are we, as a nation or province, to reach these goals? We can only do this through: 1) less demand for all fossil fuels; 2) more demand for near zero-carbon energy sources; and 3) less overall energy use because of energy efficiency and conservation.
LNG is a fossil fuel. By increasing its production, we will not “support a lower-carbon future” as the Optimist article implies.
Peter van der Velden
