Alberta and Ottawa remain far apart on energy, climate policies after meeting | 24CA News
There isn’t any line within the sand between his authorities and Alberta over power and local weather insurance policies however there’s additionally nonetheless plenty of daylight of their respective visions, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson mentioned Monday.
Wilkinson was in Calgary with Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc for a face-to-face assembly with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. It was the primary Alberta-Ottawa sit down since Smith’s United Conservative Party was re-elected final month.
The two governments have had a rocky relationship amid considerations in Alberta about Ottawa’s climate-change insurance policies and plans for a transition to a net-zero emissions economic system.
Before the assembly Smith mentioned Ottawa’s plan for an emissions-free electrical energy grid by 2035 and a cap on oil and fuel sector emissions that could possibly be introduced earlier than the top of June aren’t real looking for her province with no huge price to the economic system and jobs. She mentioned she was drawing a line within the sand that Ottawa can both get on board Alberta’s plan for attending to net-zero emissions by 2050, or it will possibly get out of the way in which.
“I put forward our emissions reduction and energy development plan for a reason, because I’m sending the message to Ottawa that we are going to chart our own pathway to meet our national commitment of being carbon neutral by 2050 and they’ve got to come into alignment with us,” she mentioned at a news convention.
Following the assembly Wilkinson mentioned they didn’t “fully get to a meeting of minds.” But he was open to attempting to grasp what Alberta’s considerations are and “to see the extent to which we may be able to address them.”
“I think it’s a mistake for anybody to be drawing a clear line in the sand saying, you know, we’re not willing to compromise on anything,” mentioned Wilkinson.
“I’ve never been somebody who takes those kinds of polar positions. You know, we clearly are interested in moving forward with electricity regulations to see a clean grid, because we think that underpins the economy in the future. We have committed to a cap on oil and gas emissions. But there are lots of different ways to do that. There are flexibilities and how you design it.”
He didn’t say whether or not that might imply adjustments to the timelines for these insurance policies.
Net-zero is the time period used for when any greenhouse-gas emissions remaining are captured both by way of nature or expertise, in order that they don’t find yourself within the ambiance and contribute to extra international warming.
Both Canada and Alberta are concentrating on to be net-zero by 2050. Canada nonetheless has a number of earlier targets alongside the way in which, together with a 2030 goal that desires to see emissions from the oil and fuel sector reduce by greater than 40 per cent.
One space of rivalry that appears to have been resolved is the federal sustainable jobs laws, which Wilkinson tabled final week. Last winter Smith got here out swinging in opposition to the promised invoice, saying it was Ottawa’s intention to make use of the laws to kill Alberta’s power sector.
She mentioned scrapping the roles transition plan was a “non-negotiable condition” of Alberta investing extra for carbon seize and storage within the oilsands.
The invoice itself is a comparatively bureaucratic bundle of advisory councils and reporting necessities for the federal government to indicate a plan each 5 years for shielding and creating power jobs because the nation and world transition to an economic system with out emissions.
Initially referred to as the “just transition” plan, the invoice has been renamed “sustainable jobs” which the federal government says higher displays its intention.
On Monday Smith’s considerations about that invoice appeared to have largely vanished, together with due to the title change. She mentioned calling it a simply transition “set the expectation of phasing out oil and natural gas workers completely.”
“We told them that’s not on, we are going to be phasing out emissions, we are not going to be phasing out oil and natural gas jobs. And they seem to have acknowledged that with their legislation that came forward, that includes opportunities for us to invest in carbon capture, utilization and storage, hydrogen, LNG export, and those are the things that I think we can find in common.”
Wilkinson mentioned the assembly included a prolonged dialogue of carbon seize, a creating expertise to lure carbon emissions from massive industrial crops like electrical energy producing stations and oil and fuel extraction operations, after which funnel them again underground.
He additionally mentioned Ottawa may be very considering working with Alberta on deliberate hydrogen and net-zero petrochemical crops.
“Certainly, you know, there are some areas where we have differences, and we’re going to need to work our way through those differences,” he mentioned. “But in general, I think it was a good faith opportunity to both sort of share aspirations that we agree on, and to put on the table some of the things that we don’t and to talk about how we might move those things forward.”
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