New book ‘102 Things to Do with a Hole in the Ground‘ spotlights global reclamation projects
Stories of reinvented coal mining regions, regenerated communities and rebuilt ecosystems are told in a new book published this month.
The new rules come at a difficult time for Alberta’s energy industry, which has already had to leave thousands out of jobs and shelve expansion plans across the oil patch, as a result of dropping crude prices.
Canada’s oil and gas sector is not pleased with the province of Alberta’s new plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and raise corporate taxes, as they consider the ruling quite costly for the industry, especially in the current environment of weak prices.
The move by Alberta, the heart and soul of Canada’s oil sands industry, aims to improve its image by showing it is committed to be a more responsible oil producer.
The announcement, however, comes at a difficult time for the province’s energy industry, which already has left thousands out of jobs and shelved expansion plans across the oil patch, as a result of dropping crude prices.
Tim McMillan, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, told CBC News he appreciated the phasing in of higher costs for greenhouse gas emissions. “But combined with higher corporate taxes, the industry is set to lose $800 million over the next two years,” he warned.
Environment minister Shannon Phillips, a former activist who recently took over the provincial legislature, argues that tougher regulations are needed to show Alberta is climate change leader.
“If Alberta wants better access to world markets (for its oil), then we are going to need to do our part to address one of the world’s biggest problems, which is climate change,” she told reporters on Thursday. “Nobody knows this better than the people who work in our energy industry.”
Phillips added that by 2017, large emitters will have to reduce the intensity of greenhouse gases by 20%, while carbon levies will double from $15 a tonne to $30 a tonne.
The province’s regulations currently price carbon at an effective rate of about $2 a tonne. The new rules will increase that cost to roughly $6 by 2017. By then, Alberta expects that the fresh regulations to have reduced greenhouse-gas emissions by 13 megatonnes a year. Under existing rules, an 8-megatonne reduction had been expected.
6 Comments
Magnum
global warming is a fallacy, actually the earth is starting to cool. Humans are so ignorant that they can change anything when there are so many things that contribute to the heat/cooling of the planet. NDP are going to lose the next provincial election.
DrJay1980
What’s next? Adding a levy to restaurants to show we’re a world leader in fighting global starvation? Adding a levy to chainsaw retailers to show we’re a world leader in fighting deforestation?
a real economist
Sorry folks, but this is what responsible leadership looks like. When you have 40+ years of one political party calling the shots, you get disastrous results. Like a drunken sailor, Alberta has pissed away more than 600 Billion dollars in oil revenue on phoney libertarian tax policies and subsidies in its main industry. It will take decades to repair this fiscal mess and hundreds of years to clean up the environmental disaster left behind. Stupid group think = fiscal ruin.
NiftyWilly
“You can’t legislate
the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person
receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
The government can’t give to anybody anything that the government doesn’t first
take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they don’t
have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the
other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is
going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any
nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”
This is the definition of the socialist NDP policies. What do you think will happen to the carbon revenues? Will they be fed into carbon research?
No, they will be entirely used for wealth distribution schemes
Bobby44
It is a difficult and unstable time right now. I fear having reactionary people in power BUT here is the thing… higher taxes are always paid by the consumers. The levy will get to farmers and transporters then the consumer. In other words the most vulnerable among us will pay the costs. Then the government will form an agency to calculate the costs and ‘payback’ the consumers by taxing yet again. Stop me if you have seen this movie before.
Do we need responsible growth? YES! But do we need the sabre rattling from our own government?
Ah Jaysus
NDP will destroy Alberta. They are completely out of their depth.