It's only 16 pages long and hasn't yet been shared with the public, but Alberta's Integrated Energy Strategy, if adopted as currently drafted, could eventually leave a hefty fossil-fuel footprint on every Canadian business. Given that the federal government has no coherent energy plan of any kind, the province's document could simply fill the bill by default. And just what does Alberta, which supplies Canada with 70% of its oil and 80% of its natural gas, have in store for the rest of the country? Well, the answer is pretty much business as usual....There's no polite way to put this, so I'll just say it: If Marc Jaccard was really surprised that Alberta has no serious plan to deal with carbon emissions, then he's a moron. Alberta - the most Kyoto-hostile province, with the most Kyoto-hostile premier, and home of our Kyoto-hostile PM - is going to fight tooth and nail against any kind of regulation of their avarice.
Other experts found glaring omissions in the draft plan on the subject of climate change. Mark Jaccard, a professor of resource and environmental management at Simon Fraser University, and the author of "Sustainable Fossil Fuels"... was particularly struck by its almost total neglect of the province's exploding carbon emissions. Alberta industry now accounts for fully a third of the nation's CO2 emissions. By 2030, projects in the oilsands alone will produce as much carbon dioxide as all of the world's volcanoes combined. "I was surprised to see that global warming was not more prominent in their policy strategy, given that it's the major challenge of our energy system today," says Jaccard.
Jaccard should know this, if he has two eyes and a brain. Instead, his book (which for all I know could simply be an honest work of analysis) is going to be used by people like Ralph Klein, who think that coal and tar are the way of the future. For that, Jaccard deserves nothing more than the epithet "useful idiot."
(Link via The Oil Drum)
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