For starters, Trudeau added “climate change” to the title for his new environment minister.
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Paige MacPherson of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation says many consumers will pay more to drive and to heat and power their homes. The new government has “a different ideology”, that includes a commitment to addressing climate change, explained Kathryn Harrison, a professor who tracks environmental policy at the University of British Columbia.
He criticized the previous Conservative government’s track record on climate change, but has refused to set new targets for emissions, reiterating that will happen in consultation with the provinces. While renewables are becoming more reliable and cost-competitive, they will probably never provide the baseload power we need to keep the lights on.
In Alberta, NDP Premier Rachel Notley just launched an ambitious plan to bring in an economy-wide carbon tax, phase out coal-fired electricity and cap activity in the oil sands at current levels.
“We’ll demonstrate that we are serious about climate change”, Trudeau said following a four-hour working dinner with provincial and territorial leaders.
Alberta’s NDP government is facing accusations that the broad guidelines for its multibillion-dollar proposed carbon tax will change that tax from a climate-fighting levy into an all-purpose slush fund. Rather, he quickly ceded the stage to Notley, giving her a national podium from which to tout Alberta’s new climate plan, which he called “historic” and “a strong positive step in the right direction”.
Notley described her province as the front liner in the fight against climate change.
“I’m convinced that the oil sands CEOs understand that you can’t be the high cost, high carbon producer in the world anymore”, said Ed Whittingham, executive director of the Alberta-based Pembina Institute. He will need to negotiate with other world leaders, as well as contend with his provincial counterparts in assembling something resembling a national strategy on carbon reductions.
The meeting also allowed first ministers to come together in the nation’s capital “to speak the truth about climate change, to stop denying that there is an issue and to begin doing our part instead”, she said. That price will increase to $30 the following year.
As one of Canada’s leading per capita emitters of greenhouse gases, Saskatchewan is quickly running out of wriggle room now that our fellow laggard to the west is adopting a carbon pricing system that leaves behind the rhetoric and confronts the global warming challenge head-on.
While a two-degree target may still be attainable, the globe is already 65 per cent of the way to the associated carbon limit, they said, and global emissions must peak before mid-century.
The plan, which the Canadian Press reports is the result of months of study and public input, will introduce a broad-based carbon tax that will apply across the economy and will help Alberta shift to 30 per cent renewables, also by 2030.
In the meantime, Alberta’s new plan gives the Canadian delegation something concrete to trumpet at the Paris summit.
Alberta’s plan, released Sunday, also features a phaseout of coal-fired power in the next 15 years, a 10-year goal to almost halve methane emissions, as well as incentives for renewable energy.
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Canada’s political leaders are now “lifting the curtain on Canada’s success to show the world. And that is a big change for us”, she said. That’s because while Trudeau has talked a good game on the environment, thus far it’s not clear what he will do about it. He says the environment and economic growth go hand in hand, but hasn’t said how that will happen.
