Alberta Government Emissions Cap Stance a Predictable Waste of Taxpayer Money

Alberta government wasting taxpayer money to spread misinformation on the cap so wealthy corporations can try to avoid emissions fairness hurts national unity – quotes and interview information below.

Media Statement: For Immediate Release, Tuesday, November 26, 2024

At a time when national unity is most needed the Alberta Government is still wasting time and energy attacking reasonable climate policies like the emissions cap says Sierra Club Canada. Their continued attempts to stall the emission cap come weeks after survivors of climate disasters, like wildfires and floods, travelled to Ottawa for a second time and met with MPs to make the case for the emissions cap to be implemented without delay: https://www.hilltimes.com/story/2024/11/04/each-of-our-voices-matter-disaster-survivors-call-for-greater-climate-action-in-ottawa-advocacy-push/440002/

For many oil and gas companies the emissions cap can be met through further cheap methane efforts and there are still cost-effective options that are ripe for the picking (Pembina Institute, November 14th, 2024). Oil and gas corporations have failed to cut emissions, there is no credible evidence that the cap will hurt production or competitiveness, other countries are taking action, and the cap is necessary to spur green innovation (as detailed below).

“The Alberta Government has already wasted millions in taxpayer money attacking the emissions cap through spreading misinformation, now they intend to waste more provincial resources on what will ultimately amount to a frivolous legal battle,” says Gretchen Fitzgerald, National Programs Director with Sierra Club Canada. “It’s a sadly predictable next step for a government which has chosen to deny the scientifically proven link between emissions and climate change and it accomplishes nothing as the emissions cap is not going to have the negative consequences they are claiming exist.”

Comments concerning plans to obscure the emissions reporting process are equally concerning, but unsurprising. If oil and gas corporations, and the Alberta Government, have no intention of hiding anything from the public then there should be no issue with independent and government analyses of emissions outputs, Sierra Club Canada states.

“Other sectors of the Canadian economy are already regulated in a myriad of different ways to prevent pollution and have cut emissions,” says Taylor Farrugia, Communications Officer with Sierra Club Canada. “If highly profitable oil and gas corporations, which are Canada’s biggest polluters, get a free pass to pollute then what we are actually saying is that individual Canadians and other sectors should be forced to pick up after the slack of oil and gas corporations. That’s hardly a ‘team Canada’ approach.”

The federal government has already been regulating air and water pollution in many other sectors for decades as staff lawyers with West Coast Environmental Law, Anna Johnston and Andrew Gage, pointed out in The Globe and Mail recently. The federal government also has a role to play in combating climate change through pollution reduction policy as upheld previously by the Supreme Court: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-an-oil-and-gas-pollution-cap-is-a-no-brainer/

“In talking to the survivors of climate impacts in Canada one thing becomes clear, they’re tired of these useless delay tactics that only serve to benefit a few very rich corporations,” says Conor Curtis, Head of Communications at Sierra Club Canada. “An emissions cap means oil and gas corporations have to do their fair share on emissions, at a discount I might add.”

“Climate denial, driven by corporate misinformation, is a big part of what empowers the coming U.S. Administration and it’s a lead cause of our current issues with them. It’s sad to see these corporations do everything they can to divide us, for profit, here in Canada and it’s sad to see a provincial government endorse U.S.-style climate denial here.”

Quick facts update:

• Oil and gas corporations, while only 5% of Canada’s economy, are Canada’s most polluting sector causing around 30% of national emissions. Between 1990 and 2022, emissions from oil sands production grew by 467% and conventional oil production by 24% – since 2005 emissions overall increased 11%. Per-barrel emissions from oil sands also increased since 2018. Meanwhile, other sectors, and individual Canadians, cut their emissions.
• Oil and gas corporations have also seen huge profits while individual Canadians by contrast are facing hard economic times: Four companies alone (Suncor, CNRL, Cenovus, and Imperial) had combined total profits of a staggering $10.4 billion in the first half of 2024.
• As of 2023 for every additional dollar of inflation in Canada, 25 cents of that has gone to oil and gas and mining extraction profits.
• Average world incomes will drop by almost a fifth within the next 26 years as a result of the climate crisis, and the costs of damage will be six times higher than the price of limiting global heating to 2C.
• The heavy lifting under a cap is done by methane reductions and “the IEA has shown that nearly half of the global oil and gas industry’s methane emissions can be reduced at no net cost…. Oil and gas companies in Canada can eliminate 75 per cent of their methane emissions at an average cost of only $11 per tonne.” There are also other cheap ways to lower emissions.
• As stated, many oil and gas companies can meet the emissions cap through further cheap methane efforts and there are still cost-effective options that are ripe for the picking (Pembina Institute, November 14th, 2024): https://www.pembina.org/blog/many-oil-gas-companies-emissions-cap-can-be-met-through-further-efforts-methane
• The emission cap is NOT a production cap.
  
• Many other countries are in fact taking action on climate change. News broke today that the UAE is even considering an EU-Style plan to penalize polluters for the first time.

An analysis of the problems in the emissions cap claims of the Alberta Government can be found here: https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/10/17/opinion/alberta-emissions-cap-math-advertising-campaign

More facts about the emissions cap can be found here: https://www.sierraclub.ca/scrap-the-cap/

Our podcast with climate survivors who are calling for an emissions cap can be found here: https://www.sierraclub.ca/emissions-cap-climate-impact/

More information on the survivors’ exhibit of climate artefacts from their homes and businesses can be found here: https://www.protectwhatwelove.ca/

Our podcast with an economist, detailing why the emissions cap will not hurt the Canadian economy, can be found here (it also contains a breakdown of all the problems and faulty reasoning contained in the Deloitte and S&P Global analyses of the emissions cap): https://www.sierraclub.ca/emissions-cap-economy/

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For interviews please contact: Media@sierraclub.ca