Local Responses to Regional Mandates: Assessing Municipal Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Targets in British Columbia

Introduction Scholars increasingly emphasize the critical role that municipal governments can play in climate-change mitigation through the adoption and implementation of policies and actions aimed at reducing greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions (Bulkeley & Betsill, 2003; Brody et al. 2008). While all levels of government can potentially make valuable contributions to mitigation (Collier, 1997; Betsill, 2001), untenable climate-change impacts are likely without the widespread involvement of municipal governments (Betsill, 2000; Lindseth, 2004). This work stresses the particular importance of municipal urban planning for climate-change mitigation, given the traditional role that such planning has played in managing public and private land-use and transportation decisions (Pitt & Randolph, 2009).In British Columbia (BC), Canada, the provincial government has recently committed to reducing GHG emissions by 33% from 2007 levels by 2020 and 80% by 2050 (Parliament of the Government of British Columbia, 2007a). To help achieve these reductions, the province enacted Bill 27 (also known as "The Green Communities Act" and referred to here as GCA), which mandated that every municipal government in BC incorporate GHG emissions-reduction targets into their official community plans (OCPs) by the end of May 2010 (Parliament of the Government of British Columbia, 2007b). While this directive is unprecedented by North American standards in that it requires all municipalities in the province to set emissions-reduction targets, it does not specify target levels, target years, or base years to which municipalities should adhere; nor does it indicate whether targets should focus on aggregate or per capita emissions. This lack of specificity makes it possible that municipalities could comply with the letter of the law but not its intent. Conformance with GCA requires adopting targets that may ultimately entail such small reductions in GHG emissions that, even if met, would be insufficient to mitigate potentially harmful climate-change impacts. Even worse, the legislation allows the possibility that a municipality could reduce its per capita emissions while actually projecting and planning for an increase in aggregate emissions. Beyond a modest carbon tax rebate program, GCA provides little disincentive against token compliance.1In this article, we examine the nature of GHG emissions-reduction targets adopted by a subset of BC municipalities in response to this legislation. In doing so, we address the following question:To what extent do municipal GHG emissions-reduction targets represent a cohesive response that might lead to regional achievement of provincial emissions targets in BC?We first review the barriers that municipalities can expect in reducing local GHG emissions. The following section describes our variables, data-collection process, and the analytical techniques. We then present our findings and conclude with a discussion of the overall effectiveness of the local-government response to the provincial legislation.Reducing GHG Emissions at the Municipal Level Municipal governments are primarily responsible for overseeing a large number of activities that affect GHG-emissions levels, including controlling land use and development through zoning regulations and official plans; issuing building permits and approving major developments; controlling parking supply and rates, roads, and public transit; owning and/or regulating municipal power and natural gas utilities and district-heating systems; coordinating waste management; and managing parks and recreation services (DeAngelo & Harvey, 1998; Robinson & Gore, 2005). A number of scholars have shown that automobile emissions from low-density suburban developments are a particularly important source of GHG emissions (Brownstone, 2008; Ewing & Rong, 2008; Marshall, 2008) and that compact high-density development supported by reliable public transportation is a clear pathway to reduced emissions (Brown & Southworth, 2008; Ewing et al. …