Promoting and Enabling GHG Reductions

Year
2019
Number
B142
Sponsor(s)
Victoria

Whereas the worlds leading climate scientists have warned that we have less than 12 years to meet our climate targets, and early action is required to avoid significant costs and impacts to social and environmental well-being in our communities, and worldwide, local governments are uniquely positioned to enable this mobilization effort, in a coordinated and integrated fashion across sectors, enabling individual action with timely and accurate information, incentives, directions, coordination, tools, targets and scalable, impactful programs; And whereas local governments GHG reduction plans will be effectively and expeditiously realized through a dedicated focus on cutting the most impactful GHG sources, including: retrofitting existing buildings to high-efficiency standards; renewable electricity; elimination of fossil fuel heating sources; shifting people to transit, active transportation, and renewably powered mobility options; and the electrification of commercial and passenger vehicle fleets, the complexity and paceprogress of GHG reductions in both local governments and community require additional resources and planning to reduce risks of missing interim and longer GHG and renewable energy targets: Therefore be it resolved that local governments call on the Governments of Canada and British Columbia to pursue the following immediate sector actions to promote and enable GHG reductions and realize important social and economic co-benefits: 1. Make available all ICBC municipal vehicle kmmakemodelfuel economy information. 2. Continue the development and implementation of world-class low carbon fuel standards. 3. Fully invest in delivery of the zero-emission vehicles sales targets as established in the CleanBC Plan. 4. Continue progressive and direct funding programs and partnerships for municipal low-carbon initiatives, including building retrofit, transportation, waste management and other priority and shared GHG reduction programs.

Provincial Response

Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy ICBC: The Province does not have access to transportation fuel or vehicle kilometre travelled information to allow the reporting of transport sector emissions at the community level. However, the Province and ICBC are exploring approaches to collecting information on annual vehicle use at the community level. The Climate Action Secretariat is currently conducting quality assurance quality control on ICBC registration data with local governments on aggregated vehicle registration data by community. The Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources EMPR will also be publishing quarterly and annual reports on the transportation sector, and progress of the Zero-Emission Vehicles ZEV policies and programming, including light-duty vehicle registration and sales. Low Carbon Fuel Standards: The Governments CleanBC plan includes the commitment to make our fuel cleaner by increasing the Renewable and Low Carbon Fuel Standard LCFS to 20 percent by 2030. In addition, to meet the demand for cleaner fuels, CleanBC includes the commitment to support production, in BC, of 650 million litres of renewable gasoline and diesel by 2030.The Province is engaging with stakeholders regarding the LCFS and expects to introduce legislation and approve regulations in spring 2020. Zero Emission Vehicles: The ZEV Act was passed on May 29, 2019. The ZEV Act requires automakers to meet ZEV sales targets; reaching 10 percent of new light-duty vehicle sales by 2025, 30 percent by 2030 and 100 percent by 2040. The ZEV Act applies to new vehicles for retail sale or lease, with annual requirements for automakers to meet, starting for model year 2020. To further support developing the ZEV sector and meeting the targets, Budget 2019 included new funding of 90 million for BCs Clean Energy Vehicle CEV program. While the ZEV Act provides the overarching framework for the ZEV standard in the province, some of the more technical components of the legislation are to be prescribed by regulation.EMPR completed consultations and are establishing regulations for Spring 2020. Funding Programs and Partnerships: The Province is currently finalizing the review of projects applying to community green infrastructure funding within the Federal Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program and the Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund CleanBC Communities Fund, Rural and Northern Communities Infrastructure and Organics Infrastructure Program. Final decisions are anticipated in spring 2020. Currently, there are no guaranteed future funds for programs under the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program. There are additional federal amounts that the Province could choose to utilize by matching with provincial funding. However, the timing of future intakes is not confirmed, as the Province does not yet have approval of provincial matching funds. The Province will be implementing commitments in CleanBC and will develop additional strategies to help BC and local government partners make progress on their respective climate actions.

Convention Decision
Endorsed