Days before she lost the 2017 provincial election, BC Liberal Premier Christy Clark asked Justin Trudeau to join with her to ban export of American thermal coal from British Columbia.

…Thermal coal is the most carbon dioxide-intensive form of conventional fossil fuel energy production and has an emissions intensity level that is nearly twice that of natural gas. Banning its transport through Canada would be consistent with the efforts of both British Columbia and Canada to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

As you may know, over the past five years, every proposed coal export facility on the West Coast of the United States has been rejected or withdrawn, typically as a result of ecological or environmental concerns…

BC Government News

Four and one-half years later, feeling heat in the 2021 election, federal Liberals promised to stop thermal coal exports by 2030. Weeks later, Trudeau repeated the pledge at COP26.

As usual, hollow promises by politicians are worthless. Thermal coal continues to be exported from British Columbia and capacity to handle this dirty fossil fuel has been significantly increased.

Kathryn Harrison, a political science professor at the University of British Columbia who studies climate policy said:

We know [through modelling] that in a 2 C world — even more so in a 1.5 C world — that coal disappears very quickly. The vast majority of coal reserves have to stay in the ground.

Canada is weaning itself off thermal coal but keeps shipping it elsewhere

Derrick O’Keefe reported this week in Ricochet that Jim Pattison, the wealthiest British Columbian, is doubling down on the dirtiest fossil fuel.

British Columbia continues to expand its exports of the dirtiest fossil fuel on Earth. And even though Canada’s federal government has promised to end thermal coal exports by 2030, B.C.’s richest person keeps increasing his investment in Canada’s busiest coal export terminal.

Last year Westshore Terminals in Delta, B.C., located on Roberts Bank near the mouth of the Fraser River south of the City of Vancouver, exported over 16 million tonnes of thermal coal, part of a dramatic shift towards thermal coal at a facility that until 2021 had primarily exported metallurgical coal used in the production process of steel.

B.C.’s dirty little secret

That 16 million tonnes of coal will produce more than 100 billion pounds of carbon dioxide when burned. Ending Westshore’s export of thermal coal would be equivalent to taking 3.5 million automobiles off the road.

The Green Party says it is time to get rid of this climate killer:

Thermal coal – the kind burned to make electricity – is the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel. It creates half the world’s carbon emissions and the pollution it creates kills more than 800,000 people every year.

Speak up to ban thermal coal now!

Perhaps Jim Pattison wants to ensure more patients for healthcare facilities that prominently display his name.