The greenhouse gas pollution produced by the wells, pipelines,
processing plants and liquefaction facilities needed to fulfill
British Columbia’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) aspirations will
make it impossible for the province to meet its climate change
commitments. Yet, the province says it still intends to
“maintain leadership on climate change and clean energy.” Having
trouble squaring that circle? You wouldn’t be alone. Climate
leadership means meeting commitments to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions. That will be a problem if the province goes ahead
with LNG; even in a best-case scenario, the targets will become
unachievable. Climate leadership also means contributing to
global solutions. The LNG plans fall short here too because it
feeds a natural gas-hungry world that will likely be 3.5 degrees
warmer by century’s end. Natural gas might be cleaner than coal
(a popular refrain of LNG proponents), but burning it still
moves the planet closer to dangerous and irreversible climate
change, that is, until ther