WILLIAMS LAKE, Secwepemc Territory – Andrew Gage, Staff Lawyer at West Coast Environmental Law, made the following statement in response to Resolution 21, passed today at the North Central Local Government Association (NCLGA):
“We applaud Resolution 21’s affirmation of the importance of governments, industry and individuals in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and decarbonizing our economy. The Resolution calls for support for industry (and we would hope by extension their workers) in transitioning to a low carbon economy, while affirming the importance of resource industries to BC. We welcome NCLGA’s support for climate action.”
“Resolution 21 was framed by Mayor Lori Ackerman of Fort St. John as a critique of action taken by twenty-one BC communities to ask fossil fuel companies to pay a fair share of their local climate costs. However, the Resolution as passed* does not actually oppose such climate action taken by BC municipalities, and the delegates did not debate such actions in the course of passing the Resolution.”
“We agree with Mayor Lori Ackerman that climate action by our communities is urgent and needs to be ambitious. However, we disagree that taking responsibility for our own role in causing climate change means letting global fossil fuel companies off of the hook.”
* NCLGA delegates only consider the Resolution itself; the pre-amble, which contained language critical of fossil fuel company accountability actions, was not debated or voted on.
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For more information, please contact:
Andrew Gage| Staff Lawyer, West Coast Environmental Law
250-380-8207 (cell), agage@wcel.org