The LNG Opportunity in BC:
Separating Rhetoric from Reality
– Part II
By Tom Syer, Denise Mullen, and Jock Finlayson
Editor’s note: In the second part of a two-part
feature published in the Business Council of
British Columbia’s Environment and Energy
Bulletin, the arguments suggesting that BC
should put the brakes on LNG development are
assessed.
Part II (Volume 6, Issue 4, July 2014) focuses
on concerns about climate change and other
environmental effects linked to LNG. Here’s an
abridged version of Part II, published with the
authors’ permission.
Environmental Consideration
The environmental critiques of LNG in British Columbia
centre largely around two clusters of issues:
1. reenhouse gas emissions and the impacts of LNG
G
development on the province’s climate change policies
and initiatives; and
2. he upstream impacts of natural gas development,
T
most notably the use of water in the extraction process.
Greenhouse Gases and LNG
To ground the discussion, a useful starting place is to be
clear about three facts:
1. reenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel use are
G
increasing globally and need to be managed to address
climate change;
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