Canadian Climate Policy

Liberals’ significant climate plan cloaked in silence

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My second Globe and Mail Economy Lab post on the new Liberal Platform is available here.  After this piece was posted, Liberal Senator Grant Mitchell posted a response to some of the questions I raised here. Rick Szostak posted another response detailing how revenues from the auction of permits would remain in Alberta here.

on retrofit subsidies, tax credits, and other expensive policies

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It’s easy for people to have a knee-jerk reaction and support policies like the ecoEnergy Retrofit Initiative or US Production Tax Credits for Wind Energy.  After all, we want people to have more efficient houses, and we want more renewable energy, don’t we? Well, yes, we probably do.  Environmentalists and fiscal hawks should agree that each dollar spent on programs targeting these changes in our energy production and consumption decisions be spent effectively.  Unfortunately, broad subsidies and tax credits do not meet that criterion very often.

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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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Globally credible GHG policy would help, not hurt, the oilsands

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While there are many environmental concerns with the oil sands, the issue of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) has the most potential to prevent Albertans from realizing the true value of the resource. The term dirty oil has clearly resonated with environmental groups both in the US and in Europe and will continue to be used by those who seek to limit our access to important markets.  Our governments, both federal and provincial, seem to think that we face a dichotomy – either we can have an oil sands industry or we can have a globally credible GHG policy.  Industry, with a few notable exceptions, has done little to alter this perception.  I disagree entirely. I believe that a globally credible GHG policy is the only way to ensure the continued success of the oil sands industry, but I believe that we must build the policy on our own terms, not using reference points which were chosen for the benefit of other regions.  An Albertan or Canadian policy, based on 5 modifications of the current Alberta GHG regulations, would send a signal to the rest of the world that Alberta and Canada are prepared to be part of a global effort but that we are not prepared to be taken for a ride.

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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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When it comes to carbon pricing, you have to take the good with the oil sands.

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Carbon pricing is hard, and not just because you need to know a lot of terminology or because it’s a political minefield. Supporting carbon pricing means that you hand control of who wins, who loses, and where emissions come from in the economy to the market.  True carbon pricing also likely means, sin of sins, that environmentalists might have to give the oil sands a pass.

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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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