Alberta moves on hiking carbon levy
‘ Modest’ plan sets stage for deeper discussion on climate later this year
Alberta’s long- awaited tweak of its regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions was seen Thursday as baby steps that must become much more ambitious to clear the major hurdles ahead.
While the fledgling NDP government was applauded by both industry and environmental groups for taking action to renew the Specified Gas Emitters Regulation — a program that charges large industrial facilities for greenhouse gas emissions above a baseline level — even the environment minister described the current regulations as obsolete.
Shannon Phillips noted the regulations were adopted in 2007 and never updated since, despite repeated assurances they would be by the previous Progressive Conservative regimes.
“They were a significant step in their day, but our regulations are now obsolete and do very little to either address the climate change issue or to earn us greater market access by being seen to be doing so,” Phillips said Thursday.
Phasing in an increase of the levy for heavy emitters — to $ 30 per tonne from $ 15 — as well as an increase in the percentage of required emission reductions — to 20 per cent from 12 per cent per unit of production — by 2017 will demonstrate that “we’re beginning to get serious about this issue,” Phillips said.
“Let’s be clear: No other jurisdiction and no energy market is going to accept that this constitutes an effective climate change policy,” she cautioned. “We need to do better.”
Premier Rachel Notley said Thursday the NDP government was limited in what it could do initially because it faced a June 30 deadline for the regulation’s expiration and had a duty to consult with stakeholders.
“So that’s why we got what we got.”
She said the PC government’s renewed climate change plan — which was never released — was “a little less ambitious than ours” with “similar numbers, but it was phased in over a longer period of time.”
“The problem with the previous government’s plan was that they had been talking about it for a very, very long time and they had put off making a decision over and over and over again,” the premier said.
Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark said that paralysis cost Alberta.
“I think, ironically, the previous government’s lack of action on climate change hurt Alberta and hurt our industry,” he said.
Notley said the lack of action on climate change hindered the province’s ability to access energy markets, particularly in the U. S. with regard to the long- delayed Keystone XL oil pipeline.
The premier described her government’s plan as “a modest change” to the regulations that sets the stage for a “much more comprehensive discussion” when a panel headed by University of Alberta economist Andrew Leach reports on the options in the fall.
The premier said she wants a concrete, realistic strategy in place before the next major climate change summit in Paris in December.
Ed Whittingham, executive director of the Pembina Institute, said he would have pushed the price and the stringency in the emitters’ regulation “a little higher to create more of an incentive to create the new jobs the minister is talking about.”
Alberta’s climate change policy must include a commitment to accelerate the phase- out of coalfired electricity with communities coming aboard as owners of new micro- generation renewable opportunities, he said.
Energy efficiency policies must also be created, he added.
“If we’re going to go to Paris — and if the premier is going to be there and hold her head high — we’ve got to have a good, robust comprehensive approach to a climate change and to do our fair share,” Whittingham said.
Former PC premiers Alison Redford and Dave Hancock promised to unveil a new provincial climate change strategy last year after government officials conceded Alberta missed its own 2010 targets to lower greenhouse gas emissions, but ended up just extending the deadline.
Successor Jim Prentice vowed to meet the province’s target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50 megatonnes per year by 2020 with a new climate change plan, but the PCs lost the May 5 election.
For the most part, Albertans were kept in the dark about the performance of the previous government’s climate change strategy. Last year, the provincial auditor general criticized the Tory government for failing to report publicly on the program.
Both Wildrose Leader Brian Jean and PC Leader Ric McIver expressed concern Thursday that the NDP climate change plan will kill jobs and hurt an oil industry already suffering financially as a result of the collapse of world oil prices.