Under Alberta Climate Plan, Energy Industry Gets Ten Years Before Any Emission Limits Are Imposed

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CALGARY -- Alberta will let greenhouse gas emissions rise for more than a decade before emission cuts take hold in a new climate change plan that includes no new restrictions on industrial emitters. The government of Premier Ed Stelmach said Thursday it expects to bring carbon emissions 14 per cent below 2005 levels by 2050, mostly through capture and storage of the gases blamed for global warming.

But emissions in the province -- where more than $100 billion of oil sands projects are planned -- will rise until around 2020 as oil output triples, according to the plan. Stelmach said Alberta cannot risk harming its reliability as a key oil supplier to the United States or damaging its own economy. Any new barriers to investment would threaten Alberta's $74 billion of annual exports to the United States, he said.

"It would be very difficult to bring in real reductions, immediate reductions, without devastating the economy and the quality of life of Albertans," Stelmach told reporters.

The goals are less stringent than Canada's obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, or even the current federal government's lesser targets. Under the Kyoto Protocol, Canada is supposed to slash emissions to six per cent below 1990 levels in the next four years. It's almost certain the country will miss that goal, with Alberta's growth elevating provincial emission levels by more than 40 per cent since 1990.

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http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=e97103c8-1f8d-4afc-a171-a4d26568c9d4