Why $4 Billion Doesn’t Mean Much

Issues – 2 + 2 = 5

Why Alberta’s $4 billion greenwash doesn’t add up to much of anything

RICARDO ACUÑA / ualberta.ca/parkland

It seems lately that the role of government in Alberta has become more and more about image and spin than about actually doing anything concrete and positive in the public interest. The attitude seems to be that it doesn’t really matter if you are actually doing anything positive, as long as you can convince people that you are.

Given this priority set, the Alberta government is currently facing two significant image problems that it has to deal with. The first is the fact that a growing number of people and jurisdictions around the world are concerned about the environmental costs associated with extracting Alberta’s bituminous sands.

Alberta Gets Failing Grade on Climate Plan

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=c8dac315-bfd6-4bb8-95cd-fdbe5f7a9858

Flunking grades for Alta. on climate change

Marianne White ,  Canwest News Service

Published: Wednesday, July 16, 2008

QUEBEC – British Columbia is leading the pack of Canadian provinces on climate change plans with its carbon tax while Alberta is the laggard, a report released Wednesday by the David Suzuki Foundation says.

As the premiers gathered in Quebec City for the Council of the Federation, where climate change is one of the hot topics, the conservation group issued a report card assessing the efforts of each province.

The report gives a good rating to Quebec, Manitoba and Ontario for their policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Not surprisingly, Alberta – which has no plan to cut back on emissions – rated the worst, with Saskatchewan not far from the bottom.

Green isn’t Suncor’s colour

BRUCE COX

executive director, Greenpeace Canada

June 25, 2008

Suncor CEO Rick George is correct that being green is good for a company (It’s Not Easy Being Green, But It’s Good Business – Report on Business, June 23).

Unfortunately, Suncor isn’t even close to being an environmental leader. Recently, it released its “progress” report. Some progress: It showed that Suncor’s absolute greenhouse gas emissions and its overall emission intensity had increased in 2007 from 2006. Suncor’s emissions are projected to double between 2007 and 2012, for a whopping 520-per-cent increase since 1990. That will make the tar sands, and Suncor in particular, a major factor in Canada failing dismally to achieve its Kyoto emissions-reduction target.

Budget falls short on climate, water problems: critics

By JEREMY LOOME, LEGISLATURE BUREAU

Alberta will spend nearly $1.4 billion over the next three years to address climate change and water issues, but critics say the plans accompanying that spending will leave the province playing catchup.

“We will pursue a leading role in responding to climate change through carbon capture and storage, saving energy, and greener energy production,” said Finance Minister Iris Evans.

Program spending will double in 2008-2009 to $403 million, from $183 million. Much of the total spending, however, isn’t in direct program delivery but in research to develop new technologies such as carbon capture storage. The government will put $155 million of that into the climate change technology fund and $300 million over three years into its water strategy. Direct climate change strategies will receive about $30 million in the coming year.

There is nothing in the budget to suggest the government is moving away from its much-criticized plan to slowly phase in carbon emission reductions over the next 42 years, with carbon capture and storage underground starting somewhere around 2015.