Notley’s 2016 goal: A cooler political climate
After being treated as a hero in Paris, Notley needs a few miracles at home
The least popular aspect of (Notley’s) plan— the carbon tax — will start showing up in next spring’s provincial budget while the ultimate reward — more pipelines — won’t happen for years, if ever. Graham Thomson
In Paris she was feted as something of a hero, almost a miracle worker.
Here was a premier from Alberta, home to the much vilified oilsands industry — or, as singer Neil Young describes it, Hiroshima 2.0 — showing up at an international conference on climate change.
Not only that, Rachel Notley had brought along an outline of the province’s new climate-change strategy that includes phasing out all coal-fired power plants and putting a cap on greenhouse-gas emissions from those notorious oilsands.
Quoi?
Delegates to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21) couldn’t have been more delightedly dumbfounded if Notley had travelled to Paris by walking.
“It was a little bit surreal because we were in airplane hangers being rushed from pillar to post with jet lag and 18-hour days,” says Notley as she tries to explain what her four-day whirlwind trip to Paris two weeks ago was like.
She’s in her office doing the obligatory personal year-end interviews with a never-ending line of journalists who troop in one after the other hoping to poke and prod something newsy from the premier. For Notley it must be like jet lag all over again.
“It’s really hard to describe my impressions but what was definitely clear was people were very impressed for the most part,” she says. “Generally speaking there was a tremendously warm reception to the action that we’re taking, the fact that we’re moving forward the way we are, and that allowed me to talk to a bunch of different organizations. I also spent not a small amount of time talking to international media in part to not only promote our plan but ... to say Alberta will be the home of a progressive energy producing industry and that people should see it that way. We are doing our part on climate change.”
Alberta’s climate-change strategy has received applause from Prime Minister Trudeau and other premiers who made up Canada’s delegation to the conference. They weren’t suddenly breaking out the shovels to start laying new pipelines to get Alberta’s energy products to market, but they weren’t slamming doors in Alberta’s face, either. Even Al Gore had nice things to say about Alberta, for once.
From Notley’s perspective Paris had been a success. And then she went into her first post-Paris news conference with Alberta’s news media.
In a 25-minute question and answer session, not one question about her trip. It was all about the angry backlash to the government’s farm safety legislation, Bill 6. Well, actually there was one question posed as an afterthought as Notley was exiting the room. “How was Paris?” asked a reporter who presumably wanted to at least acknowledge the premier had been away. Notley just smiled and shrugged. She knew that to most Albertans, Paris and COP 21 were a world away while animated antiBill 6 protests were happening right outside the front door of the legislature.
Notley insisted she would push ahead with Bill 6 (and she did, the bill being passed by the government on Thursday).
And she insists she will push ahead with her climate-change strategy despite complaints from the opposition as well as a publicopinion poll indicating two-thirds of Albertans don’t like the plan, especially the new carbon tax that will have everyone paying more to run their cars and heat their homes. It’s expected to generate about $3 billion a year.
Notley says she’s not worried about the poll, pointing out she’ll make sure people who can’t afford to pay more in taxes won’t have to.
“We’re looking at a rebate for low- and middle-income families and for businesses,” says Notley. “It’s my belief that that rebate needs to get out the door before the carbon price is imposed because this is not a time when money needs to be pulled out of the economy. So, I’m even more committed to that notion now given the state of the price of oil.”
Notley still says the carbon tax is “revenue neutral” even though it’s not neutral like British Columbia’s carbon tax where you might pay more at the pump but you get a break on your income tax. Here, “revenue neutral” means the money will be pumped back into the economy to kick-start green energy projects and transition electricity generation from coal to, for example, wind. And it will fund rebates to approximately 60 per cent of Albertans.
Notley is convinced Albertans will support the strategy when they realize most won’t be paying more and that reducing our greenhouse gas emissions isn’t just the right thing to do, it makes sense environmentally and economically. For example, phasing out coal will reduce carbon emissions plus get rid of a source of particulate pollution, the kind you can see.
Putting a cap on oilsands emissions won’t do anything to cut back production in the industry for a decade or more, but it does send a signal to the world that Alberta is doing something to combat its “dirty oil” slur other than ramping up the public relations machine.
The coal industry isn’t doing cartwheels and there are some players in the oilsands industry grumbling about the cap. Notley’s response is to say Alberta couldn’t keep ducking its responsibility to reduce emissions while arguing it deserved to get more pipelines built. And that’s the ultimate reward in this carrot-and-stick approach to climate change: getting more pipelines approved.
“We can’t guarantee it will help,” says Notley. “We think it’s part of a strategy to improve our capacity to campaign as a province for better access. It’s not the only answer and it’s not a silver bullet but it’s part of it.”
Therein lies a problem for Notley. The least popular aspect of her plan — the carbon tax — will start showing up in next spring’s provincial budget while the ultimate reward — more pipelines — won’t happen for years, if ever.
Then there’s the possibility that when the provinces get together with the federal government in the New Year to work out a national strategy, Alberta might be asked to do even more. Notley says she’d fight any such move, pointing out Alberta should be given credit for finally moving after years of Progressive Conservative inaction.
Bill 6 might be a hot political potato right now but in 2016 there will be few issues generating as much heat as the government’s new climate-change strategy (with the exception perhaps of a new royalty rate regime expected in January).
Notley is betting that Albertans will come to appreciate her new climate strategy is the right thing to do — just as she expects farmers will come to appreciate Bill 6 is not an attack on the family farm.
If she can do both next year, in the face of predictably fierce opposition attacks, forget Paris — she’ll be seen as something of a miracle worker right here in Alberta.
Rachel Notley knew that to most Albertans, Paris and COP 21 were a world away.