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“We are pretty much back to where we started,” said Jens Wieting, senior forest and climate campaigner at Sierra Club B.C.

“There’s a very small difference. We must be very concerned because the way climate change is unfolding means that if we don’t act today we are not getting another kick at the can in 10 years.”

Photo by NICK PROCAYLO / PNG

The 2017 figures predate the NDP government’s new CleanBC climate plan introduced in December, said Karen Tam Wu, B.C. director of the Pembina Institute.

“These numbers represent what’s happened in a climate where any policy on climate action has been stalled,” she said. “It’s not a surprise to see an increase.”

It’s important to monitor whether B.C. shows a future uptake in heat pumps, electric vehicles, the electrification of the upstream oil and gas sector and other GHG-reducing initiatives, she said.

Environment Minister George Heyman said his CleanBC plan — which promotes energy efficiency, retrofits and a move toward electric vehicles, among other measures — won’t start too far behind because it largely predicted the 2017 increases.

“We didn’t know what the numbers would be but we were certainly expecting a result something like this,” Heyman said Monday.

“I don’t necessarily expect (a decrease) to happen next year either. We’re just at the beginning of implementing a range of measures over the next three years, which we funded significantly in the B.C. budget, and which will take some time to bear fruit. But we are were determined to see emissions start ramping down in the near future and continue down on a significant trajectory between now and 2030, and 2040 and 2050.