climate

My latest Economy Lab Post: Emissions: Peter Kent’s 178 millon-ton challenge

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It may be his most important task, and setting Canada’s GHG policy course for the next four years will not be an easy one for Environment Minister Peter Kent. By his own admission, meeting Canada’s GHG goals will be a daunting challenge and will require stringent regulations on oil and gas, electricity generation, transportation, and … Read more

Tory platform’s dirty secret – my latest Economy Lab post

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There’s a hole in the Conservative platform…a hole so big, you could fit Canada’s oil and gas sector or every single one of our fossil-fuel power plants into it. The hole is projected to get bigger, and will be large enough to fit every single car, truck, SUV, train, bus, and ATV in Canada into … Read more

An evening with Jack

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Last night, I decided to head downtown the NDP campaign launch to hear Jack Layton speak, to local NDP candidates, and their supporters. (I was also caught on tape by Gloria Galloway of the Globe and Mail) For those of you who know my politics, you will likely be surprised to hear that went to NDP event at all. I was little surprised too.

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Time to come clean on CCS

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By now, most people with any connection to the energy sector in Alberta are familiar with carbon capture and storage (CCS) – the proposed technological solution to Alberta’s growing greenhouse gas emissions. When the Government of Alberta tabled ts Climate Change Strategy in 2008, the goals (shown in the figure below) were to achieve 200 Mt/yr of emissions reductions, relative to business-as-usual, by 2050 and CCS was tapped as the technology through which 139Mt/yr of emissions would be prevented from reaching the atmosphere, and perhaps more importantly from reaching our GHG inventories.

The Government has failed to address what I have called 4 hard truths about the implementation of CCS in Alberta. First, CCS is expensive and so the existing $2 billion CCS fund will only deliver, at best, 4Mt/yr of emissions reductions, getting us about 3% of the way to our long-term goal.  Second, technological improvement does not mean that the average cost of new CCS projects will decrease over time. Third, there is only one exit strategy for the government from long-term CCS funding, and that is the implementation of more stringent GHG emissions policies. Finally, significant changes in energy markets suggest that CCS may no longer be the most cost-effective option for significant GHG emissions reductions in the province.

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Reflections of an oil sands visionary

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Last night, I was given a wonderful opportunity by some of our students to present my views on the oil sands in front of an interested and engaged audience here at the University of Alberta as part of the Oil Sands Visionaries speaker series.  Given the flack I have taken from some of my colleagues for being labeled as such, I best stop using the title after this post.

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Something remarkable happened this week…but you probably missed it

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Peter Kent has already done something as Environment Minister that few others who have held the same position over the last 10 years have had the courage to do.  He stood up, in front of a group of business leaders no less, and stated that Canada’s current greenhouse gas emissions policies would not be sufficient to meet our targets, and that we needed much broader regulation. He went on to say that, “Climate change is one of the most serious environmental issues facing the world today,” and that, “Canada… is determined to do our part for the planet.”  In fact, while President Obama did not say “climate change” once while delivering the State of the Union, Minister Kent uttered the phrase at least 9 times in a luncheon address.  Minister Kent then committed to a, “systematic approach of regulating GHG emissions sector by sector,” to meet the goal of 17% below 2005 emissions by 2020.  It’s no wonder Peter Kent and his advisers were miffed at the ENGO responses which centered on the fact that today’s policies aren’t enough to meet our goals. In his shoes, I would have been hard-pressed not to scream too.

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The Tories bring their free market approach to climate policy

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Canada’s Environment Minister Peter Kent announced today that the Federal Government will continue to pursue a sector-by-sector, regulatory approach to meeting it’s climate change goals. This is baffling. I thought that conservatives (and even Conservatives) were supposed to believe in smaller government and the power of the market to drive innovation. If the Liberals were proposing such an approach, the Conservative economic brain-trust would be screaming that there was no need for the government to be getting involved in decisions about which type of insulation should be installed in a new gas processing facility in Peace River.

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The Liberals’ Cap(at what?)-and-(allocate to whom? and)-trade program

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This week, lost in the media circus caused by the resignation of Premier Stelmach and Finance Minister Morton, the announcement of the Alberta Government’s Oilsands Panel and the David Suzuki CBC documentary on the oilsands was a very important announcement in advance of the next Federal Election.  The Liberal Party of Canada committed themselves to a cap-and-trade regime, but they kept many of the key details of this system under wraps.

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Why Rescuing the Frog?

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Hello all,

First off, thank you for reading. I know there are many climate/energy/economy blogs out there so I am happy you have taken the time to visit mine. With this first post, let me tell you why I chose the title and what I hope this blog accomplishes.

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