Vancouver – While forest fires, floods and other climatic disasters cost billions each year to British Columbia, a new report offers a clear solution: to make their fair share for oil and gas companies most responsible for the climate crisis.
Published today, the report “Make polluters pay: a climate repair fund to rebuild British Columbia” Show how the province could become the first in Canada to adopt a law obliging oil, gas and coal giants to contribute to the growing costs of the reconstruction of communities and the protection of the population.
“When the NPD of the C.-B. canceled the carbon tax earlier this year, he promised that the big polluters were finally going to pay their fair share for the climate crisis. This report shows how to keep this promise, “explains Charles Latimer, responsible for the climate campaign at Greenpeace Canada, based in British Columbia.
British Columbia has already proven itself in terms of responsibility for polluting industries, in particular with pioneering laws to recover health costs related to tobacco and opioids. The report shows that similar legal tools could apply to fossil companies, as is already the case in American states such as Vermont and New York, which adopted laws called “Climate Superfund” in the past year (and which have been proposed in seven other states, including California and Washington State).
Each year, C.-B. communities and First Nations spend billions to combat fires, repair flood damage and prepare for extreme weather events. Meanwhile, the fossil industry has gone record profits, while unleashing the impacts it has caused. Impacts that scientists, and companies themselves have known for decades.
“No community affected should be left alone to get up. Reconstruction efforts must integrate resilience. The costs of prevention, repair and reconstruction must be shared with polluters, who create the risks, harvest the profits, but do not pay their fair share. »»
– Retired chief Patrick Michell, first nation of Kanaka Bar.
“British Columbia has all legal tools in hand, and experience to defend this kind of law. The cost of inaction has become too big to ignore it »add Charles Latimer.
The law proposed on climate repair would allow:
- Posting large fossil companies (such as Shell, BP, Chevron and Exxonmobil) depending on their historical part in climate pollution.
- Use these funds to rebuild housing, protect public health, prevent forest fires and strengthen resilience to climate upheavals.
- Make sure that local governments and indigenous communities receive the support necessary to adapt and get up – without passing the bill to taxpayers.
Download the report
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For more information, contact:
Patou oumarou
Campaign communications agent | Greenpeace Canada
+1 (418) 431-0263 | [email protected]
