Auditor general
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Four years after releasing its Climate Change Strategy, the Alberta government has failed to report on the progress it has made toward meeting emissions targets and hasn’t disclosed how much it has spent in dealing with climate change or reducing emissions.
Those are among the findings in a report delivered by Auditor General Merwan Saher on Thursday, along with complaints that the Department of Environment and Sustainable Resource Development has also neglected to act on recommendations from 2008 and 2009 to improve the reliability and relevance of its reporting methods.
The department did not report on targets it established for 2010 because its strategy was based on economic modelling done in 2002 that used data that are now out of date, the report said. In addition, the department used reporting methods in different years and over different time frames that weren’t comparable.
“Without clear public reporting of results in relation to comparable targets and costs, Albertans cannot assess progress toward Alberta’s climate change goals or determine whether the overall investment in climate change actions is yielding expected results,” the report said. “We recommended in our October 2008 report that the department develop a system for evaluating the effects of its climate change policies, and we plan to follow up on this recommendation in 2013.”
Both Wildrose critic Joe Anglin and NDP Leader Brian Mason attacked government, charging that the Progressive Conservatives are purposely withholding climate-change information.
“The auditor general brought issues to government once, and now it is reminding them,” Anglin said. “I I think the auditor general is being ignored. As far as the emissions targets they have set, we just don’t know what is happening.
“They are long on talk and really, really slim on results. If they were proud of what they have done, they would be telling us. They aren’t being transparent.”
“I don’t think they want to measure the targets that they set because they were unrealistic and they have no means of meeting them,” Mason said.
“I think the lack of information is totally deliberate.
“For them, it’s a gold rush and full speed ahead, with no controls.”
Environment and Sustainable Resource Development Minister Diana McQueen was unavailable to talk about the report, but will address it during question period on Friday, a spokesman for the minister said.
Bob Savage, the director of the government’s Climate Change Secretariat, said the department has agreed to issue a comprehensive report to the auditor general in 2013, and until now has been putting elements of its Climate Change Strategy in place.
“In some areas, we agree with the recommendations,” Savage said. “We have been reporting out on pieces of the strategy but we haven’t been reporting on it comprehensively. It is not a simple matter.”
Overall, there were 33 recommendations arising from the report, the most noteworthy of which included the climatechange measures, improvements to the inspection system for Alberta’s bridges, better IT governance to protect personal information, implementing key controls in ATB Financial’s banking system, and the requirement for more effective reporting of bitumen royalty information.
Accounting errors resulted in an overstatement of $454 million in one program, and an understatement of $125 million in another.
“The office found effective controls were lacking in the reporting of royalty information disclosed in financial statements which could lead to readers being misinformed,” the report said.
When it comes to climate change, the auditor general said the department has reported that Alberta’s absolute emissions declined between 2007 and 2010, but that the minister acknowledged in May that Alberta likely did not meet the 2010 target from its strategy.