The cost of climate change, air pollution and public health impacts must be considered in forming energy policies and in evaluating new energy projects. B.C. needs to develop and implement policies that reduce energy demand, save consumers money and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and other harmful pollutants.

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The following recommendations from the David Suzuki Foundation provide the basis of an energy policy that would deliver province-wide economic and environmental benefits.

Regularly review and update standards for major appliances and industrial equipment

• Provincial governments are responsible for regulating the efficiency of approximately 25 per cent of the appliances in Canada. Updated standards remove the disadvantage against innovation and technological improvement and encourage constant upgrading, thereby cutting energy waste and the costs of that waste.
   

Improve the energy efficiency of residential and commercial buildings

• Ensuring that B.C.’s homes and businesses become 35 to 40 per cent more energy efficient will result in major economic savings as well as environmental protection. This will not only help reduce the need for new fossil fuel fired electrical power plants, but will also reduce demand for natural gas. In addition, B.C. can encourage efficiency in the residential, commercial and institutional building sector by providing support for retrofit projects throughout the province, providing real security against volatile energy prices and creating new jobs in every community across B.C.

Use the ‘polluter pay’ principle

• As a means of encouraging the adoption of renewable energy sources by utilities and other fossil fuel users, the federal government should implement economic policies such as a carbon tax or an enforced national cap on overall greenhouse gas emissions. This would help begin the process of integrating the environmental and health costs of fossil fuel pollution into the market price for energy and thereby eliminate some of the unfair advantage currently enjoyed by fossil fuels. The provincial government can play a role by changing B.C.’s tax policies to penalize pollution and to reward efficiency.

• In order to support the renewable energy industry, the B.C. government should encourage large-scale development of low impact renewable sources of energy such as wind, solar and micro-hydro. The best tool for this is the development of a renewable portfolio standard that requires a fixed percentage of electricity to be from renewable sources. This is already in place in many North American jurisdictions. The drive for cleaner and more efficient energy use also means more opportunities for new industries. B.C. currently has a "voluntary" commitment from government for 50 per cent of new electricity but it needs to be mandatory.

• Net metering allows electricity customers to use renewable technologies to generate power for their needs and feed any excess power back to the utility when producing more electricity than is needed. This would allow the electric meter to run backwards, reducing the customer’s electricity bill. Net metering is already in place in many U.S. states including Washington, Oregon and Montana. Summary of state net metering programs

• The source of 40 per cent of B.C.’s greenhouse gas emissions, transportation must be actively reformed in order to meet our Kyoto targets. For example, reducing the road transportation of freight and encouraging the use of railroads will reduce road expansion costs, road damage and air pollution. Increased funding for public transportation, improving automobile fuel efficiency and reducing urban sprawl will also help cut greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks.

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