AUDITOR GENERAL SLAMS ALBERTA’S LACK OF ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Saher finds province failed to monitor performance Six years after unveiling its strategy to combat climate change, the Alberta government has failed to meet its targets, hasn’t regularly monitored its results and has yet to publish a single public document on its outcomes, the province’s auditor general said in a scathing report released Tuesday.
Auditor General Merwan Saher concluded that four years after the Alberta government’s 2008 Climate Change Strategy was unveiled, the environment department still hadn’t established a method of consistently measuring whether the policy was working.
Saher’s audit found “no evidence” the department regularly monitored the strategy’s results against its targets between 2008 and 2010.
“For the government to essentially remain silent in that period is troubling,” Saher said Tuesday.
The province has also failed to publish any detailed reports of the strategy’s effectiveness.
“There should have been public reporting. It didn’t happen,” Saher said. “There hasn’t been yet — and I think this is amazing — we’re in 2014 and there hasn’t yet been a public report on the success or otherwise of the 2008 strategy.”
Saher’s audit noted work on a draft report of the strategy is still ongoing.
An implementation plan drafted in 2012 “lacked the information necessary to monitor performance of actions and the government’s overall progress,” Saher wrote. While the province drafted the plan with an intention to update it annually, Saher found that never happened, rendering it ineffective.
The province’s climatechange strategy set out targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 megatonnes per year by 2020, mainly through a carbon levy and capture efforts. But in 2012 the province admitted it was on track to miss those targets considerably. The regulation establishing Alberta’s $15-per-tonne carbon levy is up for renewal this September.
Saher’s 2008 audit of the strategy included several recommendations for clearer monitoring of outcomes, which the province has been slow to implement.
“This pace does not reflect the significance that effectively managing climate change has for the economy and environmental performance in Alberta and in Canada,” Saher wrote.
Saher repeated recommendations that the province establish clear criteria for taking action on climate change, create and maintain an implementation plan to meet targets and ensure those efforts are working.
The province has begun work on updating its current strategy, but it’s not yet clear when it will be revealed.
“Hopefully the government will treat its new strategy with better monitoring and reporting,” Saher said.
Simon Dyer, with the environmental think-tank Pembina Institute, said it’s not surprising Alberta’s climate change strategy is failing. “We don’t need a new strategy so much as we need policies that are strong enough to actually make the emissions reductions that are required,” he said.
Credibility on the climate file is becoming increasingly critical to the province’s future, he added.
Environment Minister Robin Campbell said in a statement he generally accepts Saher’s recommendations.
“We agree the process used to decide on and evaluate actions to address climate change can be improved,” Campbell said.
The province can “better monitor the actions Alberta is taking on climate change, and will do so on an annual basis,” he added.
A separate followup audit of the province’s bioenergy grant program found the government had successfully implemented recommendations to ensure grant recipients demonstrate that their bioenergy products produce lower emissions than conventional energy products.