The Livable Blog

http://www.climateactionsecretariat.gov.bc.ca/attachment/CAT_FINAL_REPORT_July_23_2008.pdf

Well, Campbell’s Climate Action Team (CAT) has finally released a report of sorts. And, well, there are some good things in it. For example, a recommendation to make significant investments in walking and cycling infrastructure in order to "Double the transportation mode share of cycling and walking in BC" p 32

There are also some good context statements such as:

“British Columbia will not be able to achieve its long-term (2050) goals by adding mitigation (and adaptation) measures to an essentially unsustainable underlying development path. Instead we need to change direction” p. 30

“Paying attention to the underlying development path offers the potential for the kinds of transformative changes in emission-causing activities that will be required to achieve climate-change goals” p 31

“Unfortunately, far too often, development patterns result in urban sprawl that creates an unnecessary increase in transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions.” P 32

After all this, you might expect something significant under the heading Infrastructure Funding, after all Campbell is planning to spend $billions inducing sprawl with his Gateway freeway megaproject. Nope, the recommendation is to tell local governments that they won’t get provincial money if they do what the province does:

“Take steps to ensure that federal and provincial infrastructure funding for communities is directly tied to demonstrated progress towards achieving complete, compact and energy efficient communities.” p 33

All the ingredients are there for a good report, but not enough heat has been applied – it gets very mushy when you get to the recommendations.

However, the section on freight movement is somewhat better done but still very mushy. The context statements include:

“The greater use of marine and rail transportation and the more efficient operation of B.C.’s major ports also offer the potential for significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from goods movement.” p 19

“A considerable amount of freight moves directly from ocean-going vessels to rail and then to destinations across North America. However, there may also be opportunities to increase the use of rail, possibly through the development of an inland container port.” p 19

From this section the recommendation is to

"Enhance the role of rail in moving freight in B.C.” p 20

But it gives no indication of how this should be done. Also, there is no recommendation for an enhanced role for marine shipping even though it is in the context statement. Perhaps the conflict with the South Fraser freeway is too obvious?

And another recommendation might be a hint that the Deltaport expansion and SFPR should be cancelled, but who can tell what such mush means:

Remove barriers to improve the efficiency of port operations, such as shifting traffic to off-peak hours, reducing the number of one-way truck movements, and optimizing theuse of the Prince Rupert and Vancouver Ports. p 20

You could read the whole report at:
http://www.climateactionsecretariat.gov.bc.ca/attachment/CAT_FINAL_REPORT_July_23_2008.pdf

But your time might be better spent writing a letter, see http://www.2020vision.bc.ca/