Canadians shouldn't expect a change in government will bring major changes to Ottawa's policies on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, experts say.
David Keith, Canada research chair in energy and the environment at the University of Calgary, says he isn't optimistic environmental issues will receive much attention under the Conservative minority government.
"My guess is a Conservative minority won't do much, that they'll make grand noises about a made-in-Canada policy, but they won't pull one off," says Keith.
Marlo Raynolds, executive director of the Pembina Institute for Sustainable Development, hopes the Tories will take a hard look at the Liberals' Kyoto plan and pick out the pieces they feel they can move forward on.
"Maybe they can do a better management implementation on actually taking action on the plan," says Raynolds. "I do not suspect that they would pull out of Kyoto, because strategically it doesn't make sense given that the earliest they could technically pull out would be February 2008. So given a minority government, why would they open themselves up to that?" The U of C's Keith agrees, noting that newly-elected Prime Minister Stephen Harper has already made clear his party's five main platforms, and climate change isn't one of them.
"I'm not too optimistic about what will happen, but I don't regard pulling out of Kyoto as the central issue," he says. "The central issue is actually reducing emissions ... both in the present and building sustainable regulatory/incentive systems in the long run. I think the Liberals did a very poor job of that, so there's lots of room to do better here."
Pierre Alvarez, president and CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), concedes that the new government will likely limit itself to moving on four or five key items that are likely to receive broad support in Parliament, while keeping climate change farther down on the agenda.
On the other hand, he says, "Canada has only really scratched the surface. There's a lot of work that needs to be done to achieve our overall climate change policy."
During the election campaign, the federal Tories said it wasn't realistic that Canada could hit its Kyoto targets during the 2008-2012 period set out in the international agreement.
Instead, the Conservatives said they favoured a different plan of attack, relying more on incentive-based options to address both air pollution and carbon-dioxide emissions. Innovation such as clean-coal technology and the capture and storage of carbon dioxide could also play major roles.
Alvarez says his association's position on climate change policy has always been clear, and in some ways coincides with what the Tories have been saying, especially around the role technology will play.
"If you're going to reduce emissions, you've got to deal with consumption (of fossil fuels), and if you're talking consumption, immediately the technology is just not available," Alvarez says.
"If you're going to see the Third World move ahead on electrification and industrialization, (we need to) have a technology breakthrough - something like carbon capture and storage, which is something we could do at home."
The CAPP president wants to see energy efficiency initiatives - especially transportation - receive more attention, including more industry-government co-operation around research and development that "went off the table" because energy was so cheap for so long.
Alvarez says Canada must also seriously consider the policy implications international developments will have, such as the Asia Pacific Partnership - which sees China, India, the U.S., Australia, Japan, South Korea and Indonesia seeking alternatives to Kyoto.
Wayne Hillier, co-ordinator of strategic environmental initiatives at Husky Energy Ltd., told a recent CAPP seminar that the main problem policymakers confront is that while most of the public favours a strong stance on climate change, few are willing to pay for it - "and most people will seek others to point fingers at and make responsible for," most often the petroleum industry.
He said there are fundamental principles that both the Canadian public and all federal parties ought to agree to on climate change:
* Canada's Kyoto targets cannot be met without a significant purchase of international credits. "Stephen Harper has said ... that's a fundamental principle," Hillier says.
* International co-operation is vital. "U.S. co-operation is vital, this is a global issue and no single company or single country can do this alone."
* Innovative technologies will ultimately be the key to success in mitigating climate change, "and we need a number of different breakthroughs in a number of different areas."
"We also have to recognize that a climate change policy, while originally an environmental policy, is actually an energy policy and you cannot separate the two - they are linked," Hillier added.
He noted that being anti-Kyoto does not equate to being anti-climate change. "The Conservative party has been branded as anti-Kyoto but that doesn't mean they're anti-climate change, and I happen to know some staunch environmentalists who happen to be anti-Kyoto but pro-climate change."
Canada's GHG emissions continue to grow, and the current trend reveals that by 2012, when the country is expected to cap its emissions at 560 million tonnes - six per cent below 1990 levels - output will reach 830 million tonnes.
Hillier cited different reasons why Canada's "Kyoto Gap" has spread. Canada's population has grown by 25 per cent since 1990 while the Gross Domestic Product has increased even faster. Natural gas exports to the U.S. have tripled since 1990, and oil exports have grown, too.
"We have an emission-intensive product and resource base that we exploit around the world. We incur emissions here in Canada, (but) the importers of our goods and products do not incur those emissions," Hillier said.
Under the current climatechange framework, the Climate Fund is the "workhorse" of federal government policy, Hillier said. The Liberal's 2005 budget earmarked $1 billion for this fund, with the expectation that it would eventually grow to around $4 billion.
"This is where the federal government will finance Canadian projects to reduce emissions, will purchase Canadian (emission) credits, or if necessary, buy international credits to meet our targets."
Another important component is the Partnership Fund, which would see the federal government partner with any province for infrastructure projects that contribute to lowering Canada's GHG emissions.
Meanwhile, oil and gas producers must keep an eye on developments with large final emitter (LFE) regulations, which aim to reduce emissions from Canada's 700 large industrial emitters, including Alberta's petroleum sector.
Presently, regulations only require facilities that emit 100,000 tonnes per year of carbon dioxide report, a number that is expected to eventually drop as low as 200 tonnes per year. Emissions from individual wells won't have to be tracked for compliance purposes, but any facility larger than a single well will, Hillier said.
(John Ludwick can be reached at ludwick@businessedge.ca)
