CALGARY —Canada’s future as a climate-competitive nation is hanging in the balance as climate and energy talks with Alberta have reached an impasse, according to a new public letter from the Alberta-based Pembina Institute.
Executive director Chris Severson-Baker wrote to Prime Minister Mark Carney three weeks after the April 1 deadline for the Alberta-Ottawa talks, initiated by a November 2025 memorandum of understanding, passed without an agreement. Carney also recently secured a parliamentary majority following three byelection results.
The Pembina Institute’s analysis indicates that $40 billion of industrial investment depends on the two governments reaching an agreement on industrial carbon pricing.
“Failing to significantly cut Canada’s carbon emissions would mean robbing future Canadians of the quality of life we enjoy today, not only by increasing the severity and frequency of fires, floods, storms, droughts, and heatwaves; but also by depriving people of prosperous careers in rapidly expanding low-carbon industries,” Severson-Baker wrote.
“We know through your numerous public statements and published works that you understand the importance of regulations that catalyze private and public investment in clean energy and low-carbon industries, sectors that will underpin the health of economies and populations long into the future.
“This is what effective industrial carbon pricing, good faith efforts to grow clean electricity, and ambitious methane regulations can do — but neither the climate nor investment will wait indefinitely for Canada and Alberta to come to the table.”
In the letter, Severson-Baker lays out an effective path forward on each of these issues. Industrial carbon pricing in particular is an essential ingredient for building the Pathways Project carbon capture facility, which Carney has made a precondition for building a potential new oil pipeline.
[30]
Contact
Benjamin Alldritt
Senior Communications Lead, Oil & Gas, Pembina Institute
587-328-1955
