Today the Government of Alberta announced that it would spend $4 billion to address climate change, with $2 billion each earmarked for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology and "green" transportation initiatives. The announcement comes at a time when Alberta is increasingly in the international spotlight and is facing criticism about its rapidly growing greenhouse gas pollution from oilsands development.
"Alberta needs to clean up its greenhouse gas pollution, particularly from coal-fired power and oilsands development," said Dan Woynillowicz, Acting Director of Alberta Energy Solutions with the Pembina Institute. "Using Albertans' money to kick start things is an important contribution, but it should be in the form of a public investment that delivers a reasonable return to Albertans, not a handout to companies that are making billions in profits. Ultimately the polluters need to pay, even if Albertans give them a helping hand to get things started."
However, the Pembina Institute remains concerned about the gulf between the overall ambition of Alberta and Canada's climate change plans and the scale of reductions required based upon climate science. The Government of Alberta must do more to ensure that industrial polluters move quickly to invest and deploy CCS technology, and to ensure it is done safely and responsibly.
To compel industry to invest in CCS, the government should amend its regulations to increase the existing carbon levy for companies that don't meet their greenhouse gas intensity targets from $15 per tonne to at least $30 per tonne. Alberta should also commit to increase the levy to at least $75 per tonne by 2020. Ensuring the safe implementation of CCS also requires that the government introduce new legislation and regulations that address disposal rights, long-term liabilities and monitoring and verification.
"Addressing greenhouse gas pollution from industry and from transportation represents progress," said Woynillowicz. "An important next step is for the government to make an equal or greater investment in diversifying Alberta's energy production to take advantage of the incredible opportunity Alberta has to produce low impact renewable energy."
"Premier Stelmach has committed to investing Albertans' money to move ahead in addressing climate change," noted Marlo Raynolds, Executive Director of the Pembina Institute. "It's only fair for Albertans to expect industrial polluters, which account for 72 per cent of Alberta's greenhouse gas emissions, to move from talking about solutions to actually investing in and competing for solutions."
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For more information contact:
Dan Woynillowicz
Acting Director, Alberta Energy Solutions
Cell: 403-888-6272