The federal government has streamlined environmental assessments and rejected carbon pricing for the sake of economic growth, but this approach to climate change will do long-term harm to the energy sector’s reputation, say industry leaders.
“I think that a lot of people in industry would say that we do need to some how come down with a price signal on carbon,” former Syncrude CEO Eric Newell told The Hill Times last week. “By avoiding it, I don’t think the federal government’s policy will allow for the range of options that we need to be successful.”
Mr. Newell, who headed Syncrude for 14 years, chairs Alberta’s Climate Change and Emissions Management Corporation (CCEMC). CCEMC takes revenues generated by the province’s carbon tax and invests them in a variety of projects aimed at reducing the province’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions.
Since 2007 major emitters in Alberta producing 100,000 tonnes or more of greenhouse gas annually are required to purchase carbon offsets or pay $15 per tonne of emissions.
Five years into the program, CCEMC has invested more than $300-million in projects aimed at deploying renewable energy, improving energy efficiency, and developing clean technologies such as carbon capture and storage in Alberta’s major emitting sectors.
“It’s a very direct model, and I think it does foster innovation and technology. We’ve proven that in our short existence, so I would respectfully disagree with the federal government’s [position] that you don’t need a price signal on carbon, and that you can just do it by setting tough regulations and expecting industry to rise to the occasion,” said Mr. Newell.
B.C. and Quebec also use some form of carbon pricing, but the federal government has flatly ruled out using carbon pricing as a policy measure to reduce the country’s carbon footprint.
The National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy has advocated for a carbon pricing plan, whether it be a tax or an international emissions trading system. The federal government eliminated the advisory group and it’s $5-million budget under Bill C-38, the Budget Implementation Act. In an interview with Postmedia last week, former NRTEE president and CEO David McLaughlin said the government’s approach to climate change is “polarizing” and that the feds need to integrate solutions to climate change and energy issues with the economy.
“You can’t say ‘energy’ without saying the word ‘environment,’ and you can’t say the word ‘environment’ without saying the word ‘economy,’” said Mr. McLaughlin, a former senior Conservative staffer who worked as chief of staff to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty before being appointed to the NRTEE. “There is a sense out there now that the way the country is pursuing some of these projects is leading to a polarization of views. … It’s a worrisome trend that I think we need to take note of, before it goes too far.”
Environment Minister Peter Kent (Thornhill, Ont.) said that federal carbon pricing was “off the table” in July.
“The various forms of carbon pricing do not guarantee a reduction in absolute GHG emissions,” Mr. Kent said. “[It’s] just the price of doing business for emitters. It’s going to do nothing to reduce the GHG megatonnage.”
The federal government has instead taken a sector-by-sector approach to reducing emissions in Canada by regulating sectors selectively, most recently introducing new fuel standards for the aviation industry aimed at improving energy efficiency by two per cent annually until 2020.
“Regulation tends to deal with the laggards and bring them up to the good performers. What it doesn’t do is foster the innovation and technology that we’re going to need,” said Mr. Newell, who testified before the Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment, and Natural Resources last fall.
Mr. Newell was one of many experts on energy and the environment whose testimony contributed to the committee’s final report on the state of Canada’s energy sector, Now or Never: Canada Must Act Urgently to Seize its Place in the New Energy World Order, which was released in July after more than two years of hearings.
Alberta Liberal Senator Grant Mitchell, who served as vice-chair during the study, said that there was overwhelming support from industry representatives to introduce some form of carbon pricing as a way of reducing emissions.
Sen. Mitchell expressed concern that the federal government’s approach to climate change and recently enacted measures to expedite federal environmental reviews were undermining Alberta’s oil sands industry at home and abroad.
“The fact of the matter is that we’re not going to get to build projects like Keystone or Gateway, which are critical to Canada’s economic development, unless we can demonstrate to the world and to Canadians the credibility to get the social licence to do it,” Sen. Mitchell said. “The key feature of getting that credibility is dealing with the environmental issues, including climate change.”
The federal government’s budget implementation bill, Bill C-38, overhauled the federal environmental assessment regime by giving provincial reviews equivalency to federal reviews for all but the largest industrial projects. The bill also imposed a 24-month timeline on joint panel reviews, and a 12-month timeline on standard federal environmental assessments.
The changes have resulted in a drastic decline in the number of environmental reviews being conducted by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. In 2010 nearly 3,000 projects were under federal environmental review. Today only 70 proposed projects are currently under federal review.
David Runnalls, acting executive director of economic think tank Sustainable Prosperity, said that while he agreed that the environmental assessment process was in need of reform prior to the introduction of Bill C-38, the government’s polarizing approach to selling the changes has damaged the industry’s credibility.
He pointed to Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver’s (Eglinton-Lawrence, Ont.) characterization of environmentalists as foreign-funded extremists as particularly harmful to industry’s ability to secure public support.
Mr. McLaughlin said that’s why the NRTEE is needed. “The symbolism of the roundtable were that we were innovative, we pushed the envelope and you shouldn’t get pushed out for pushing the envelope,” he told Postmedia. “What people came to us for, why I was able to get environmentalists and oil sands executives around the same table is because we were neutral, we were respected, we dealt with the facts, we were not outrageous and over the top with our prescriptions. We were radical centrists in the sense that if it’s radical to bring people together and talk about a solution, then call me radical. I thought that’s how the country worked. It is how the country works still.”
Mr. Runnalls said he expects the ongoing opposition to Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline in British Columbia to re-emerge around other industrial projects that will be fast-tracked by the new federal environmental assessment process.
“There will be an accelerated approval process for other projects, and there will be public outcry. I think a lot of companies are beginning to wonder whether this isn’t in part a poison chalice,” observed Mr. Runnalls, who sits on Sustainable Prosperity’s steering committee with former Reform Party leader Preston Manning, among others.
Despite the federal government’s reluctance to get involved in carbon pricing, Mr. Runnalls predicted that the gradual emergence of provincial carbon pricing regimes could force the government’s hand in standardizing carbon pricing across the country.
“The private sector isn’t going to be at all happy if Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta and B.C. each have a different carbon tax. You’re going to see real pressure on Ottawa to do something about harmonizing these,” Mr. Runnalls said. “I think you will get this kind of crazy quilt of provincial regulations, and at some point the private sector is going to start coming to Ottawa and saying ‘This is nuts, we can’t do this.’”
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: CHRIS PLECASH
“I think that a lot of people in industry would say that we do need to some how come down with a price signal on carbon,” former Syncrude CEO Eric Newell told The Hill Times last week. “By avoiding it, I don’t think the federal government’s policy will allow for the range of options that we need to be successful.”
Mr. Newell, who headed Syncrude for 14 years, chairs Alberta’s Climate Change and Emissions Management Corporation (CCEMC). CCEMC takes revenues generated by the province’s carbon tax and invests them in a variety of projects aimed at reducing the province’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions.
Since 2007 major emitters in Alberta producing 100,000 tonnes or more of greenhouse gas annually are required to purchase carbon offsets or pay $15 per tonne of emissions.
Five years into the program, CCEMC has invested more than $300-million in projects aimed at deploying renewable energy, improving energy efficiency, and developing clean technologies such as carbon capture and storage in Alberta’s major emitting sectors.
“It’s a very direct model, and I think it does foster innovation and technology. We’ve proven that in our short existence, so I would respectfully disagree with the federal government’s [position] that you don’t need a price signal on carbon, and that you can just do it by setting tough regulations and expecting industry to rise to the occasion,” said Mr. Newell.
B.C. and Quebec also use some form of carbon pricing, but the federal government has flatly ruled out using carbon pricing as a policy measure to reduce the country’s carbon footprint.
The National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy has advocated for a carbon pricing plan, whether it be a tax or an international emissions trading system. The federal government eliminated the advisory group and it’s $5-million budget under Bill C-38, the Budget Implementation Act. In an interview with Postmedia last week, former NRTEE president and CEO David McLaughlin said the government’s approach to climate change is “polarizing” and that the feds need to integrate solutions to climate change and energy issues with the economy.
“You can’t say ‘energy’ without saying the word ‘environment,’ and you can’t say the word ‘environment’ without saying the word ‘economy,’” said Mr. McLaughlin, a former senior Conservative staffer who worked as chief of staff to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty before being appointed to the NRTEE. “There is a sense out there now that the way the country is pursuing some of these projects is leading to a polarization of views. … It’s a worrisome trend that I think we need to take note of, before it goes too far.”
Environment Minister Peter Kent (Thornhill, Ont.) said that federal carbon pricing was “off the table” in July.
“The various forms of carbon pricing do not guarantee a reduction in absolute GHG emissions,” Mr. Kent said. “[It’s] just the price of doing business for emitters. It’s going to do nothing to reduce the GHG megatonnage.”
The federal government has instead taken a sector-by-sector approach to reducing emissions in Canada by regulating sectors selectively, most recently introducing new fuel standards for the aviation industry aimed at improving energy efficiency by two per cent annually until 2020.
“Regulation tends to deal with the laggards and bring them up to the good performers. What it doesn’t do is foster the innovation and technology that we’re going to need,” said Mr. Newell, who testified before the Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment, and Natural Resources last fall.
Mr. Newell was one of many experts on energy and the environment whose testimony contributed to the committee’s final report on the state of Canada’s energy sector, Now or Never: Canada Must Act Urgently to Seize its Place in the New Energy World Order, which was released in July after more than two years of hearings.
Alberta Liberal Senator Grant Mitchell, who served as vice-chair during the study, said that there was overwhelming support from industry representatives to introduce some form of carbon pricing as a way of reducing emissions.
Sen. Mitchell expressed concern that the federal government’s approach to climate change and recently enacted measures to expedite federal environmental reviews were undermining Alberta’s oil sands industry at home and abroad.
“The fact of the matter is that we’re not going to get to build projects like Keystone or Gateway, which are critical to Canada’s economic development, unless we can demonstrate to the world and to Canadians the credibility to get the social licence to do it,” Sen. Mitchell said. “The key feature of getting that credibility is dealing with the environmental issues, including climate change.”
The federal government’s budget implementation bill, Bill C-38, overhauled the federal environmental assessment regime by giving provincial reviews equivalency to federal reviews for all but the largest industrial projects. The bill also imposed a 24-month timeline on joint panel reviews, and a 12-month timeline on standard federal environmental assessments.
The changes have resulted in a drastic decline in the number of environmental reviews being conducted by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. In 2010 nearly 3,000 projects were under federal environmental review. Today only 70 proposed projects are currently under federal review.
David Runnalls, acting executive director of economic think tank Sustainable Prosperity, said that while he agreed that the environmental assessment process was in need of reform prior to the introduction of Bill C-38, the government’s polarizing approach to selling the changes has damaged the industry’s credibility.
He pointed to Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver’s (Eglinton-Lawrence, Ont.) characterization of environmentalists as foreign-funded extremists as particularly harmful to industry’s ability to secure public support.
Mr. McLaughlin said that’s why the NRTEE is needed. “The symbolism of the roundtable were that we were innovative, we pushed the envelope and you shouldn’t get pushed out for pushing the envelope,” he told Postmedia. “What people came to us for, why I was able to get environmentalists and oil sands executives around the same table is because we were neutral, we were respected, we dealt with the facts, we were not outrageous and over the top with our prescriptions. We were radical centrists in the sense that if it’s radical to bring people together and talk about a solution, then call me radical. I thought that’s how the country worked. It is how the country works still.”
Mr. Runnalls said he expects the ongoing opposition to Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline in British Columbia to re-emerge around other industrial projects that will be fast-tracked by the new federal environmental assessment process.
“There will be an accelerated approval process for other projects, and there will be public outcry. I think a lot of companies are beginning to wonder whether this isn’t in part a poison chalice,” observed Mr. Runnalls, who sits on Sustainable Prosperity’s steering committee with former Reform Party leader Preston Manning, among others.
Despite the federal government’s reluctance to get involved in carbon pricing, Mr. Runnalls predicted that the gradual emergence of provincial carbon pricing regimes could force the government’s hand in standardizing carbon pricing across the country.
“The private sector isn’t going to be at all happy if Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta and B.C. each have a different carbon tax. You’re going to see real pressure on Ottawa to do something about harmonizing these,” Mr. Runnalls said. “I think you will get this kind of crazy quilt of provincial regulations, and at some point the private sector is going to start coming to Ottawa and saying ‘This is nuts, we can’t do this.’”
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: CHRIS PLECASH
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