If LNG export terminal plans are realized in B.C., the Province is trying to make sure they will be the cleanest in the world.
The Province of B.C.’s new Greenhouse Gas and Industrial Reporting and Control Act (GGIRCA) came into effect on Jan. 1, making sure LNG terminals have emissions caps.
Within the act, LNG facilities can meet a greenhouse gas emissions intensity benchmark using “flexible options that act as incentives to invest in emission reduction projects for natural gas and other sectors around the province”, read a press release by the B.C. Ministry of Environment.
Some of those options include “purchasing offsets or paying a set price per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions that would be dedicated to a technology fund”.
“Enacting the Greenhouse Gas Industrial Reporting and Control Act brings about clarity and consolidates many important pieces of our GHG legislation. The act upholds commitments we made to industry and enables First Nations and others to develop offsets under the new system, while supporting our new #BCTECH strategy,” Mary Polak, B.C. Minister of Environment said.
“The greenhouse gas cap emissions we have placed on our LNG facilities will make B.C.’s LNG the cleanest in the world.”
Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen recently spoke with Black Press about the emissions coming from potential LNG facilities in the province and iterated that LNG emissions cannot be separated from other sorts of carbon waste that the province is emitting.
“Canada has just made some huge commitments in terms of reducing our carbon emissions, and that runs a bit counter to Premier [Christy] Clark’s ambition to grow carbon emissions in B.C. How do you square the circle? That’ll happen in the next couple of months in a meeting between the premiers and the Prime Minister,” said Cullen.
“LNG – first of all – the emissions coming out of it if you want to talk about the carbon piece, you can’t imagine another atmosphere; you can’t exclude them. They are what they are; they add to the province’s output and that’s reality, otherwise you’re just dreaming in technicolour.”
The BC Carbon Registry is established under the control regulation, which sets criteria for developing emission offsets issued by B.C.
The BCTech strategy is an initiative by the Government of British Columbia committed to building on the progress of tech companies with nine-figure revenues, a vibrant startup ecosystem and world class technologies used by companies in finance, retail, information technology and aerospace.
- With files from Chris Gareau