In a political moment where voters across the globe are in the mood for change, Premier David Eby’s government, after days of dramatic recounts, was returned to office for a second mandate. Recognizing these are challenging times for incumbents, the premier was quick to announce the reorganization of the government he inherited from former premier John Horgan just two years earlier.
Major changes were made to both the organizational structure of the natural resource ministries and the people in charge of it. The new ministry of energy and climate solutions is a smart move, where accountability for all things energy and climate rests with Minister Adrian Dix, a seasoned political veteran with a reputation for getting things done.
The new ministry reflects the reality that the world now invests almost twice as much in clean energy as it does in fossil fuels. In 2024, global energy investment is set to exceed US$3 trillion, with US$2 trillion going to clean energy technologies and infrastructure. Spending on renewable power, grids and storage is now higher than total spending on oil, gas and coal, with clean energy employment surpassing that of fossil fuels globally in 2021. Creating a combined energy and climate ministry reflects an important fact: climate and energy are two sides of the same coin.
Similarly, the creation of the new ministry of mines and critical minerals acknowledges the province’s mineral wealth and ability to both mine and process these materials in B.C. Helping meet clean-energy-driven demand for critical minerals is a major economic opportunity for the province. Indeed, the global battery market is set to triple in size from US$120 billion in 2023 to US$330 billion in 2030.
What’s yet to come, however, are the minister’s mandate letters that will spell out the government’s detailed agenda.
It will be tempting to look south of the border at the incoming Trump administration and the political winds of change blowing here in Canada as indicators of where the global economy is headed. But the Eby government must not lose sight of the global picture, where countries around the world are accelerating the deployment of clean energy and technologies.
In fact, even the incoming Trump administration is being lobbied by the automotive and fossil fuel industries to keep the U.S. in the Paris Climate Agreement and maintain U.S. President Joe Biden’s clean energy tax credits and EV incentives. Combine this pressure with state-led leadership from California and others, and it’s unclear whether “drill, baby, drill” will indeed become the U.S.’s prevailing economic narrative.
Fortunately, the Eby government took some bold first steps in its previous mandate to align B.C.’s economy with this new reality. During his two years as premier, Eby has taken the province’s clean energy future seriously, implementing a number of important changes, such as increasing energy infrastructure investments and providing a credible vision for how the province can best leverage its clean energy advantages.
What’s required now is largely the implementation of Eby’s first-term commitments, including the development of an oil and gas emissions cap and support for household clean technologies that help drive down both home energy bills and emissions (often adding cooling to homes that now need it). The new government also needs an action plan to implement the government’s energy strategy, Powering Our Future, to ensure B.C. has sufficient clean electricity for the years ahead. It should prioritize streamlining permitting and regulatory processes for clean energy projects while advancing Indigenous reconciliation and environmental protection.
B.C. is poised to prosper. The province’s clean technology sector — currently home to seven of the world’s 100 most promising cleantech firms — will be in high demand as the global market for solar, wind, EVs, batteries, electrolysers and heat pumps is set to rise from US$700 billion in 2023 to more than US$2 trillion by 2035, which is close to the value of the world’s crude oil market in recent years. This, again, is where the world is headed even without further speeding up the clean energy transition.
What’s more, analysis from Clean Energy Canada shows that, in a world where Canada and B.C. remain on track to net zero by 2050, over 400,000 clean energy jobs would be created in the province, up from some 83,000 in 2025, representing an annual growth rate of six per cent.
Eby has set the province on a path to an affordable, prosperous future, but the journey has only just started. Developments south of the border provide an opportunity for B.C. to step up and fully align its economy with where the global market is headed.
Mark Zacharias is the executive director and Evan Pivnick is the clean energy program manager at Clean Energy Canada, a think tank at Simon Fraser University’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue.
