It’s quite simple really. Global warming is primarily caused by burning fossil fuels. So climate action must start with reducing our fossil-fuel dependence.

But no, B.C.’s climate plan chooses to start elsewhere, with a burning desire to export liquefied fracked gas.

The plan the B.C. government revealed today is not a climate plan, it’s a climate fraud. It’s little more than a Trojan horse designed to provide cover for the government’s destructive LNG obsession.

And for the health and welfare of future generations and the natural world, it borders on a criminal betrayal.

B.C.’s plan fails on virtually all counts, with abandonment of emissions targets, abdication of responsibility for carbon pricing, and business as usual when it comes to energy project approvals.

Instead, the government offers a promise that tree planting will come to the rescue, like a knight in shining armour.

But this is not a fairy tale. And to have any chance of living happily ever after, we need proven measures, based on science.

The proposal to plant a lot of baby trees is a climate con job. Don’t get me wrong, there are very real benefits to planting trees, but as a climate change antidote it won’t pay real dividends for many decades. Forests need to mature before they can capture significant amounts of carbon.

We don’t have that time to wait.

Without urgent, effective measures to reduce fossil-fuel use, B.C. cannot lay any claim to climate leadership.

The only viable path to a climate-friendly, postcarbon economy is to phase out our dependence on fossil fuels as quickly as possible. Step one is to not approve fossil-fuel projects.

But instead, B.C.’s so-called climate plan is designed to protect fossil-fuel interests and pave the way for the troubled liquefied fracked gas industry.

This is appallingly out of step with other leading jurisdictions such as Ontario, which are focusing on cutting fossil-fuel use. If B.C. doesn’t transition to a postcarbon economy, we’ll lose our competitiveness. We will face more severe climate impacts in the form of sea-level rise, droughts, wildfires, and pest epidemics, to name just a few.

To reduce fossil-fuel emissions, a comprehensive climate plan would establish a steadily escalating price for carbon, a mandatory climate test as part of environmental assessments, and stricter, binding emissions targets. This plan does none of those things.

Seedlings in the ground are no substitute for keeping fossil fuels in the ground.

A program of tree planting will not make up for exporting billions of tonnes of emissions overseas via tankers laden with liquefied fracked gas.

While planting trees will create jobs in the short term and may deliver mature, healthy carbon sinks in the longer term, this is not the timing and scale of climate action needed.

It can take 200 years or more for newly planted trees to store as much carbon as the harvested trees they replaced. Effective climate action could be achieved much more easily and efficiently by protecting existing old-growth rainforests—and planting new second-growth trees.

In addition, will young forests be able to adapt to the rapidly increasing temperatures, the more frequent and severe droughts, and wildfires that climate change is bringing to B.C.? That’s a huge question hanging over this initiative.

In the short term, protecting old-growth rainforest and allowing forests to grow older will do far more good for our climate than planting new trees.

B.C.’s old-growth coastal rainforests store up to 1,000 tonnes of carbon per hectare, one of the highest rates on earth.

When mature trees are industrially logged, 75 to 85 percent of the carbon they store is lost to the atmosphere. This happens through the burning or decomposition of organic material in the form of wood waste and through emissions from transportation and processing. Only 15 to 25 percent is stored in wood products, which themselves have a limited lifespan.

The combined effects of destructive logging practices, wildfires, and the mountain pine beetle epidemic (itself a result of climate change) have transformed our forests.

From 1993 to 2002, B.C.’s forests absorbed 441 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. From 2003 to 2012, they emitted 256 million tonnes of carbon dioxide—four times B.C.'s 2013 official emissions of 63 million tonnes.

Reducing emissions from forests is key to stabilizing the climate. The government’s commitment to reducing emissions from slash burning is a good first step. But it’s far from enough.

Not a single one of the Climate Leadership Team’s 32 recommendations were adopted in full by the government. And LNG exports remain the government’s abiding obsession.

The B.C. government has failed its own claim of leadership, failed its citizens, and failed our planet with this fraudulent plan.