Today, Sightline is publishing a new report tallying the various fossil fuel export projects that have targeted the coast of Cascadia in the past decade. It finds a great majority of them canceled thanks to a combination of local opposition, see-sawing energy prices, and regulatory hurdles: 40 of an initial 55 proposed schemes are dead.
The report also provides the first comprehensive accounting of the projects’ total carbon emissions impacts, calculating that if all had gone ahead, they would have spewed the equivalent of 2,095 million metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere annually. That’s roughly 30 percent of the entire annual greenhouse gas emissions of the United States and nearly three times the annual emissions of Canada. Instead, Cascadia averted 1,717 million metric tons of annual greenhouse gas emissions.
Communities across the region have reason to celebrate. But their work is not complete. Nine projects are not yet canceled, eight of them in British Columbia, including the climate bomb Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion. It will take the lessons and inspiration of prior victories to defeat these remaining projects and honor Cascadia’s world-leading climate commitments.
Read the full report and find accompanying resources, including free-use graphics and a map of remaining export projects:
