PRENTICE: PROVINCE ‘OFF GAME’
CRITIQUES POLICY ON CLIMATE CHANGE
The Alberta government has been “off its game” for years when it comes to climate change policy, Tory leadership candidate Jim Prentice said Wednesday as he dismissed carbon capture and storage as a science experiment and called for a beefed-up environment department.
On Tuesday, auditor general Merwan Saher issued a scathing report that found under Alberta’s climate change plan, the government is missing its greenhouse gas reduction targets, hasn’t regularly monitored the plan’s results and has yet to publish a single document on its outcomes.
Saher’s report noted that carbon capture and storage projects — a centrepiece of former premier Ed Stelmach’s plan unveiled in 2008 — are anticipated to contribute only 10 per cent of the reductions originally expected of them, despite more than $1 billion committed by the province.
In a meeting with the Herald editorial board, Prentice — a former federal environment minister — suggested there would be no future dollars forthcoming for carbon capture and storage (CCS) if he becomes premier after September’s vote of Progressive Conservative party members.
“I’d move away from those investments. It’s not a panacea, it’s a science experiment,” he said.
“It has not progressed at the pace that people have thought. It’s still important and we should not abandon it. But we should be very careful of large public investments in carbon capture and storage.”
Alberta’s climate change plan was launched as the province attracted worldwide attention for the carbon footprint of the oilsands. Opponents have thrown up roadblocks to projects aimed at shipping Alberta bitumen out of province, such as the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
Prentice said Alberta’s environment department must be bolstered and supported by the premier.
“You can’t advance an environmental agenda but more to the point, you can’t defend yourself either domestically or internationally. That frankly has been the position Alberta has been in for many years,” he said.
“We’ve not had the strength inside Alberta Environment, the scientific strength, the monitoring capacity or the regulatory regime to defend ourselves internationally as protecting the environment.”
Echoing comments made by Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith a day earlier, Prentice said Alberta’s prime area for achievable greenhouse gas reductions lies in the electrical generation sector, which relies extensively on coal and is roughly equivalent in emissions to the oilsands.
Prentice has said since he launched his campaign, he would only agree to raise Alberta’s $15-pertonne carbon levy on large emitters in concert with the federal and United States government.
On Wednesday, he said if the province did move “unilaterally” on the levy, “I would expect we’re going to get something for that from somebody.”
But one of Prentice’s leadership rivals, Thomas Lukaszuk, said the province must be prepared to increase the carbon levy if it wants to win the social licence needed for projects such as Keystone XL to go ahead.
The Tory investment in CCS has been fiercely criticized by Smith — who has called for the government to cancel funding for carbon capture projects — and Lukaszuk said he was surprised to hear Prentice’s comments on the technology.
“Is he running for the leadership of the PC or the Wildrose Party?” said the Edmonton-Castle Downs MLA.
Lukaszuk said the carbon capture investment was “the right thing to do” and can play a key role in Alberta’s development as a centre for research and development related to the energy industry.
The third candidate in the PC leadership race, Ric McIver, could not be reached for comment.
On Wednesday, Premier Dave Hancock defended the province’s environmental record and described CCS as a major element in the government’s plan.
“We already can say to the world, we have some of the strongest environmental regulatory frameworks for oil and gas extraction,” he said.
“We’re doing more on CO2, carbon capture and storage and other issues. We don’t have to apologize to anyone for the strength of our system.”