Alberta’s climate change attitude problem
Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife
A new report issued jointly by the Pembina Institute and the David Suzuki Foundation has enraged Alberta’s Premier and federal Conservatives. The report speculates that the Alberta and Saskatchewan would suffer most if the federal government’s goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020.
From the Globe and Mail:
Either through direct taxation or by capping emissions and forcing companies to buy allowances, the federal government would receive approximately $46-billion or more in revenues, which it would redistribute through spending and personal tax cuts.
In that event, Alberta’s economy would be 8.5 per cent smaller in 2020 than projected under an unconstrained scenario, though it would continue to lead the country in growth through the decade, and the province would provide as much as $5-billion more in revenue than it would receive back.
The reaction from Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach was predictable:
There won’t be another wealth transfer to Ottawa under my watch… The money stays in Alberta.
The federal reaction wasn’t much better. Environment minister Jim Prentice called the report “irresponsible,” and suggested that because it didn’t take into account a joint, North American greenhouse gas reduction strategy that would be developed with the United States, it was inaccurate.
But rather than being a death knell for the Alberta economy, the report suggests that the opposite might be the case. As Graham Thomson writes in the Edmonton Journal, the report suggest that if Canada opted for a do-nothing strategy, that the nation’s economy would grow by 27 per cent in the next decade. Conversely, he argues,
By following the federal government’s moderate plans to reduce emissions, the GDP would grow by 25 per cent. If Canada got serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions and aimed for more stringent, internationally recognized goals, our GDP would grow by 23 per cent.
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According to the report, if we continued with business as usual, we’d see 1.8 million jobs added between 2010 and 2020.However, that number would jump by 60,000 jobs to 1.86 million if we aimed for the more stringent goals.
But it’s doubtful any of that really matters. The important thing for Ed Stelmach and the federal Tories (whose devoted base is in Alberta) is that the argument is framed in a West vs. the Rest dichotomy. It simplifies everything, and solves exactly nothing. Stelmach’s argument is valid in a sense, but it suggests that emission reduction legislation ought to be on Alberta’s terms, not anyone else’s. That’s silly.
Stelmach – most likely unwittingly – pointed to the very heart of the problem in his quote about a wealth transfer to Ottawa. Since the National Energy Program of the 1980’s, the sense of entitlement that Alberta feels to the natural resources that just happen, by chance, to be located within the province’s boundaries, has become dangerously entrenched in the provincial psyche. So much so that it blinds the province to things like national goals. The thing about emission reductions in the face of climate change (whether you’re on the human-caused bandwagon or not), is that they take a position of a greater good. A more sustainable use of resources is hardly beneficial only to Canadians who live in Ontario, but that’s what Stelmach’s quote suggests – that Albertans will somehow lose in the bizarro, now meaningless conflict between the regions.
As Thomson’s analysis of the report points out, Alberta will hardly suffer in the long run, even if the 20 per cent reduction by 2020 were to be implemented as suggested by the Pembina Institute. Suggesting otherwise, and frightening the voting masses of Alberta only entrenches a useless feud between provinces. The Pembina report was only really divisive in that it highlighted something everyone probably already knew: that Alberta, as an oil producing province, would be the biggest target of greenhouse gas reductions. The further divisiveness by Stelmach and Prentice is a harmful political side-show, and probably one that Canadians can do without.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jenn Prosser, colin horgan. colin horgan said: Alberta has an attitude problem. A new climate change report highlights it well: http://bit.ly/3ZHt8C #yeg #yyc #ableg #AB [...]
The thing no one seems to bring up, because they get overwhelmed by the buzz-topic ‘Climate Change’, is that reducing the emissions, whether it does anything to help the global situation or not, will certainly help the health and well-being of the local populations. That would, in turn, remove a strain on the health-care system, saving money. Or am I being too optimistic?
In a round-about way, yes, but I don’t even think we need to be that specific. It just seems to make sense. But during a recession, and at a time when Alberta – a province accustomed to having massive surpluses – is running a deficit, long-term goals take a back seat to short-term economic prosperity. Couple that with the general sense of annoyance in Alberta toward any Eastern encroachment on “their” resources, and things get a bit more complicated. Government legislation is difficult to implement when there’s no backing at the polls. It’s a chicken and egg thing, but eventually someone has to make a move – it seems reasonable that it would be the provincial government.
Culturally Alberta (relative to the rest of Canada) has much in common with the feeling-based paranoid superstition of the southern United States. They fear the evil federal government, they fear their children being forced to become gay, etc. Lacking a coast or a metropolis full of immigrants and new ideas, Alberta is destined to be slightly more behind the times than Ontario, Quebec, or British Columbia.
This isn’t just an Alberta thing, of course, but a human thing.
The Maldives’ recent PR stunt demonstrates once again that governments (and their electorates) are driven by selfish interests. The island nation is going to sink due to climate change, so their self-interest requires something to be done. Alberta is in the middle of nowhere, far from water, so sea levels aren’t something on their minds at the moment. Perhaps circa AD 2100 Albertans might be worried about this sort of thing, like after mountain rivers in South Asia have long dried up, coasts have vanished, and hundreds of millions of people are displaced within a region with three border disagreements between three nuclear powers… etc.
For now, though, the average Albertan sees no pressing reason to do anything. Something about not seeing past the end of one’s nose. A decade of growth is more important than a foggy apocalyptic tragedy that might happen to our children’s generation.