VANCOUVER – The British Columbia government has released its plan to dramatically cut pollution as it builds a low-carbon economy. Here are some of the goals in the government’s plan:
— The strategy will require an additional 4,000 gigawatt hours of electricity over current demand, equal to increasing BC Hydro’s current system-wide capacity by about eight per cent, or about the demand by consumers in Vancouver.
— By 2032, new buildings will be 80 per cent more efficient than homes built today. Emission from buildings will drop by 40 per cent, the government says.
— Fossil fuel use for transportation will drop by 20 per cent by 2030, spurred by 30 per cent of sales of new light-duty cars and trucks being zero-emission vehicles.
— By 2025, methane emissions from the natural gas sector will drop by 45 per cent.
— Ninety-five per cent of organic waste from agriculture, industry and municipalities will be diverted from landfills and turned into other products by 2030.
— Seventy-five per cent of landfill methane will be captured by 2030.
— The legislated target for 2030 is a reduction of 25.4 megatonnes of greenhouse gas from the 2007 baseline.
— The province set new targets for greenhouse gas emissions in May, committing to reductions of 40 per cent by 2030, 60 per cent by 2040 and 80 per cent by 2050.
— B.C.’s price on carbon increased this year to $35 per tonne and will go up $5 per year until 2021 in an effort to encourage lower emission alternatives.