Premier Gordon Campbell won international praise when he announced in 2007 that he would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 33 percent by 2020.

Campbell stood side-by-side with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who proclaimed that they were going to show national governments "the way" to achieving ambitious environmental targets.

Fast forward to today. How has the premier's climate change agenda weathered the economic storm?

In an interview with CTV News, Campbell, who is scheduled to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, said he believes the province is on track to meeting those targets.

"We're starting a major push in terms of clean energy, in terms of bio energy. We could easily become a major regional source of clean, carbon-neutral energy," he said.

But others aren't so sure.

"Certainly, B.C. has been a leader, but we're starting to backslide," said Ian Bruce of the David Suzuki Foundation.

Home rebates

A hugely successful rebate program that offered homeowners thousands of dollars for green renovations was scrapped in August.

The province launched the $60 million LiveSmart BC program in May 2008 with the expectation that it would run over three years.

But officials said demand exceeded expectations, and the province reached its target of 40,000 home energy assessments in only 15 months.

The province said it would no longer be providing incentives, and directed homeowners to federal energy program incentives.

Companies that do environmental audits of homes could barely keep up when the provincial rebates were around.

But not anymore.

"We've definitely seen a significant reduction in energy assessments across the province," said Peter Sundberg of Green City Solutions.

"Every single other province has a program matching federal grants."

Transportation

The biggest source of emissions is vehicle traffic.

To tackle that, the province announced in early 2008 that it was investing $14 billion in a public transit plan to be completed by 2020.

Under the plan, the province said, transit use will double.

The province committed a third of the funding with the rest coming from the local and federal governments.

But those who've been monitoring the climate action plan say the province's contribution has fallen woefully short.

TransLink is scrambling just to maintain existing service levels, let alone a major expansion.

"It's unfortunate," Bruce said. "There's lots of new projects around the province -- new buses, new light rail lines that aren't going forward because of that lack of funding."

Campbell said TransLink has been unwilling to tap other revenue sources.

Carbon tax

The government gets kudos from environmentalists for the carbon tax - but it's too early to tell if taxing pollution is changing people's behavior.

But it has had an impact on some businesses and larger institutions, including UBC. The school is phasing out the use of natural gas to heat its buildings and moving to renewable energy.

"That's one example of where the carbon tax gave them a nearly $20 million incentive to switch to cleaner technology," Bruce said.

Mark Jaccard, an environmental economist, who has studied how the carbon tax worked in Sweden over the past 18 years, said the economy in that country has grown by 40 percent in that time period and emissions have dropped 10 percent.

Two years after B.C.'s green promise, Jaccard feels B.C. is still heading in the right direction if the government continues to put a price on emissions.

"That's how you get change to happen, that's the only way," he said.

But it will likely take at least a decade, he said, to see if the policies are really working.

With a report from CTV British Columbia's Mi-Jung Lee

Watch CTV News at Six tonight for a full report including reaction from Premier Campbell on B.C.'s environmental targets.