After decades of insufficient or insincere attempts to address emissions from Canada’s fastest growing source of climate pollution, a new government-sponsored oilsands advisory group may help resolve political gridlock surrounding the nation’s most contentious natural resource by bringing together industry, environmental and indigenous stakeholders.

The Oil Sands Advisory Group (OSAG) is tasked with helping the province implement a new emissions cap for the oilsands that limits greenhouse gas output to 100 megatonnes per year and will also advise on reducing the overall environmental impacts of production, according to a government statement released Wednesday.

According to Tzeporah Berman, the group's co-chair and a well-known environmentalist, the composition of the advisory group represents a notable shift in the political landscape.

“Let's be clear: under previous governments environmental leaders had very little access and were outright ridiculed by many ministers and departments,” Berman told DeSmog Canada. “First Nations leaders were simply shut out. Climate change was denied.”

“A lot has changed in a year in Alberta and it is opening up new conversations.”

Alberta announced new climate legislation last fall that for the first time in the province’s history put an end to the notion of endless oilsands growth. Upon release of the new plan, Premier Rachel Notley, flanked by leaders of industry, prominent environmental organizations and local First Nations, said, “This is the day we stop denying this is an issue, and this is the day we do our part.”

The climate plan marked not only a new era of climate leadership (it was called a “pigs fly” situation) but a fresh approach to resolving the political gridlock that for years has pitted climate advocates and environmental groups against a seemingly entangled block of government and industry.

Berman, who stood with Notley during the climate plan announcement in November, said she’s optimistic that, working together, these strange bedfellows can make real change to a stagnant climate leadership environment and “move past the polarization of the oilsands.”

“The fact that the government just appointed people like me, who have been fierce critics shows its resolve to face and solve the hard stuff,” she said. “So instead of trading opinions through the media, those of us who have been 'adversaries' will be sitting down with a common purpose and a shared mandate.”

Dave Collyer, group co-chair and former president of Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, echoed the sentiment: “It is the diversity of this group and its problem-solving focus on emissions leadership, local environmental performance and innovation that will help de-escalate conflict and contribute to the ongoing success of this important industry.”

According to the Conference Board of Canada, Canada ranks among the worst in the world for per capita greenhouse gas emissions, following the U.S. and Australia. Although Alberta accounts for only 11 per cent of the population, it contributed 36 per cent of national emissions in 2013.

The oilsands are Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions and those emissions are projected to grow enough to nullify emissions reductions in other sectors and jurisdictions across the country.

“The simple fact is Alberta can’t let its emissions grow without limit,” energy minister Margaret McCuaig-Boyd said in a statement, “but we can grow our economy and our market by showing leadership, including reducing our carbon output per barrel.”

Simon Dyer, member of the new advisory group and director of the Pembina Institute in Alberta, said Alberta is finally treating oilsands environmental management and climate change “as they deserve to be treated: as serious public policy issues that need big change.” 

“I’ve been working on these issues for more than a decade and it was always traditionally framed as just a communications, PR air war,” Dyer told DeSmog Canada, adding the change in government engagement is “very welcome.”

There are still lots of issues in the oilsands that need to be resolved, Dyer said, “but they are only going to be resolved by a lot of people talking about them and the government making substantive changes.”

Alberta is playing catch up when it comes to environmental management and embracing renewable energy, Dyer said.

Earlier this week the government announced new incentives for enhanced oil and gas programs, something many in the environmental community were distressed to see. Equally distressing for some climate advocates is the province’s staunch support of building new oil export pipelines.

“I think what the government is trying to do is allay concerns they are anti-oil and gas and at the same time recognizing that a new economy is going to have to be based on renewables so we have to expand the clean economy,” Dyer said. “That’s the political reality in Alberta. It’s unfortunate but we’re behind and playing catch up.”

“That something like moving to 30 per cent renewables could be considered risky or out of step with the mainstream just shows how far behind Alberta has been and this government has to make big strides going forward,” Dyer added. “But they have to bring the rest of Alberta with them.”

#Alberta Brings Former Adversaries Together for New #Oilsands Advisory Group https://t.co/zzYjqLfAtJ #ableg #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/AXGeaio0HG

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) July 18, 2016

For years the oilsands have faced growing civil society opposition, especially with respect to expansion, impacts on First Nations treaty rights and the construction of new or expanded oilsands export pipelines.

Adam Scott from Oil Change International said his organization is encouraged the new body  “can help start a real discussion” about Alberta’s energy resources.

Although he cautions, “there is no acceptable climate scenario where Alberta would be allowed to grow the tar sands and build new pipelines like Kinder Morgan and Energy East.”

Tim Gray, one of the 18 members of the advisory group and executive director of Environmental Defence, said Alberta — as an oil-producing jurisdiction that has an interest in building new pipelines — faces some significant challenges.

“Industry — and the Alberta government to a lesser degree — has been adamant that they want to build more pipelines and they’ve tied the completion of those to a lot of economic promises and it’s not clear if those will be achieved or not even if they did build a pipeline."

Gray said he remains unconvinced pipelines are the best strategy for Alberta and that more work needs to be done to determine if any need for new pipelines will remain once the cap put on emissions is put into place.

He said his organization remains opposed to pipeline projects like Energy East.

But, he added, he is encouraged such questions are being put to the diverse group of people that comprise the oilsands advisory group.

“I think the fact that you have organizations around the table that have very divergent views on the necessity of pipelines and what is the best way forward for an oil jurisdiction that is interesting and will make for challenging circumstances for the development of recommendations,” he told DeSmog Canada.

“But I think it shows a level of maturity by the government that they’re willing to have people with those divergent opinions and trying to work through them and bring data to bear.”

Berman said the group will begin the immediate work of creating new rules to keep oilsands emissions under the 100 megatonne cap.

“This is one of the first times in the world that an oil jurisdiction has voluntarily set a limit and we are breaking new ground,” Berman said. 

“Our goal is recommendations in the fall and then we will move on to designing reviews for cumulative impacts on water, air and biodiversity.”

“Within two years we will have made recommendations on all of those issues plus developed proposals for developing a long-term pathway on climate leadership between now and 2050.” 

For a province that has consistently failed to implement meaningful climate regulations on the oil and gas sector, the task at hand is enormous — but it's encouraging to see Alberta's willingness to bring together strange bedfellows and tackle the thorny questions head on.

Image: Suncor/Flickr

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The release of a University of Victoria study calling for updates to Canadian charitable law created quite a stir last week.

The study, prepared for DeSmog Canada, was covered by the Toronto Star, Vancouver Sun, Victoria Times Colonist, Canadian Press, Macleans, The Tyee, Yahoo! News and CFAX.

The report called for the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to clarify rules around “political activities” — defined as any activity that seeks to change, oppose or retain laws or policies — and to provide a more generous limit on allowable policy advocacy in line with other common law jurisdictions such as Australia and New Zealand. It also called for the creation of a politically independent charities commission to remove the potential for political interference in audits.

The findings were raised in the House of Commons by Victoria NDP MP Murray Rankin, who stated the report “analyzes the alarming lack of clarity in the rules governing political activities for charities.”

Tim Gray, executive director of Environmental Defence, said the recommendations put “what’s going on in Canada in the context of what’s going on in other common law and western countries … It gives a sense of how far Canada is behind on these things.”

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Environmental Defence was one of 18 Canadian charities that called on the country’s politicians to enhance the ability for charities to engage in public policy debates earlier this month.

“The lack of a level playing field between business and citizens around public policy is particularly evident in the debate around climate and tar sands,” Gray told DeSmog Canada. “There’s massive spending going on by the oil sector to influence public policy and every dollar they spend on lobbyists in Ottawa or on television ads, they deduct from their gross income and therefore reduce the income tax that they pay to build roads and run hospitals.”[view:in_this_series=block_1]

Citizens who donate money to a charity only receive a 17 per cent tax benefit and charities are limited to spending 10 per cent of their resources on policy advocacy work, described as “political activity” by the CRA.

Fifity-two charities have been audited for their “political activities” under a $13.4 million audit program launched by the federal government in the 2012 budget.

“It’s already unfair and the rhetoric that’s out there right now is to say that that level of unfairness should be enhanced,” Gray said. “It would be a huge move to favouring involvement by corporations in public policy at the expense of citizens.”

Gray also said citizens are confused by the current talk around “political activities,” which many assume to mean “partisan activities,” which charities are banned from taking part in.

Bill Schaper, director of public policy and community engagement for Imagine Canada — which advocates for the charitable sector — said his group has been hearing more and more about re-thinking how we define charity over the last couple of years.

“It’s something that’s been percolating,” Schaper told DeSmog Canada.

But he also noted that there are risks associated with opening up charitable law for major changes. National Post columnist Andrew Coyne, for instance, has argued that we should get rid of charitable status altogether.

“As much as the grey zones are causing issues right now, sometimes grey zones are better than too much clarity because you might not like the clarity you get,” Schaper said.  

He noted that the charitable sector can do a better job of educating itself in terms of what constitutes “political activity” and said there would need to be much more discussion before Imagine Canada would push for specific changes to the law.

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This is a guest post by Tim Gray, executive director of Environmental Defence. It originally appeared on the Toronto Star.

It was troubling last week when Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau seemed to suggest that provinces could just do their own thing on climate action without much federal involvement other than hand holding. Government action addressing climate change is evolving quickly at the provincial level but that does not absolve the federal government of its responsibility to set a level playing field and spur action.

It would have been great had the federal government implemented a pan-Canadian climate change plan eight years ago — when it promised to. Or better yet 13 years ago, when the Canadian government ratified the Kyoto Protocol. But it’s not too late for the federal government to act, especially given the big advantages to doing so: fairness and effectiveness.

To ensure that carbon pollution from all sources and all provinces decreases over time, a multi-pronged approach is needed. To make such an approach coherent and effective will require the federal government to act in areas where it has jurisdiction and to set common standards for initiatives undertaken at the provincial level.

The federal role should ensure fairness, so that there is a level playing field for all sectors and all provinces. Allowing any sector to avoid reducing its carbon pollution will undermine the final result and the willingness of other sectors to do their fair share.

An effective climate change plan would address all the major sources of carbon pollution, including industry (manufacturing, oil and gas, and others), electricity, transportation, buildings (commercial and residential), agriculture, and waste. Carbon emissions from some of these sectors, like those from oil and gas, are increasing while those from other sectors, like electricity, are declining. The same is true for provinces. Some are increasing emissions while others are squeezing them downward.

Provincial policies to address carbon pollution are still at a nascent stage. And they vary widely. British Columbia’s carbon tax is really the only carbon pricing policy in Canada that could be said to be reducing carbon emissions. It is still too early to evaluate whether Quebec’s cap-and-trade agreement with California will be effective and its small carbon tax has generated some revenue for the government but experts agree that it is too small to reduce emissions.

Alberta’s policy to tax carbon emissions on a per-barrel of oil basis is also small, and since it applies to a small share of Alberta’s total emissions, is ineffective at stimulating pollution reductions. Ontario appears serious about putting a levy on carbon but no one knows yet whether that will be a carbon tax or whether Ontario will join an existing cap-and-trade system.

What would the role of the Canadian government look like? Setting a price on carbon that is roughly equivalent across the country would be a key policy leveller. It is the ingredient that market mechanisms like a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system need to have to be fair and effective.

A minimum carbon price could be set for the country, with provinces deciding whether they want to match or exceed that level through a carbon tax or a floor price for permits as part of a cap-and-trade system. Any province that establishes such a system would be able to keep the tax revenue.

The federal government would also continue to pass regulations in areas that it has jurisdiction, such as energy efficiency standards for equipment and appliances, fuel efficiency standards for vehicles and carbon pollution levels for electricity generating stations.

All of this could be administered through an approach similar to Canada’s health care system, where clear, minimum standards need to be met for the federal government to transfer resources from the federal budget. In this case, that money could be for clean energy development and sustainable infrastructure projects, such as public transit.

The provinces have taken the lead in Canada on climate change, given a federal government that has gone AWOL on the issue. However, the correct response from our federal parties is to commit to remedying this situation, not to suggest that they will wash their hands of the matter or stand by and whisper encouragement and hope that will be enough.

Image Credit: Justin Trudeau via Flickr

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In the ongoing battle to win approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, Canada has repeatedly justified its climate inaction by pointing to the fact that it shares similar emission reductions targets to the U.S. In August of last year, Prime Minister Stephen Harper even wrote a letter to President Barack Obama inviting “joint action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the oil and gas sector” if such efforts would help green-light the Keystone XL.

But this week’s announcement that Obama will use his executive authority to introduce a nationwide emissions reduction plan that targets more than 1,000 of the country’s most highly polluting power plants might leave Canada squarely in the dust.

Obama’s new plan — already being called the “most ambitious anti-global warming initiative of any U.S. president" — will introduce new standards by 2015 to decrease the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of power plants (responsible for 40 per cent of the country’s carbon pollution) by 30 per cent from their 2005 levels by 2030.

Cutting emissions and climate confusion

The new plan is expected to tackle emissions as well as contentious climate politics in the U.S. where political positioning on emissions standards and carbon tax schemes is often drawn along sharp lines.

“We see this as the pivotal battle on climate change,” Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) director of government affairs David Goldston said at a briefing last week. “For the first time, climate is going to be front and centre as the national issue. And what that means, we think, is that when this battle is over and the power plant standards are in effect, climate will have turned into an ordinary environmental issue.”

The NRDC has been pivotal in the creation of the new emissions standards and is leading a massive campaign this month to "demystify" climate change issues.

Oilsands trouble Canada’s emissions future

Such determination south of the border is bringing Canada’s stalled climate politics into sharper relief as the Harper government continues to hold GHG emissions regulations for the oil and gas sector at bay.

The federal government has promised to deliver strengthened emissions standards for several years but has consistently failed, especially to rein in emissions from the Alberta oilsands, Canada’s fastest growing source of GHGs.

Under the Copenhagen Accord, Canada committed to reducing GHG emissions 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020. But according to Environment Canada’s latest emissions report, Canada will fail to meet its own reduction targets using current measures.

Environment Canada data also shows emissions from the oilsands increased around 267 per cent between 1990 and 2011 despite a per barrel emissions decrease of a reported 26 per cent. The projected increase of oil production in the oilsands has emissions from the sector set to steadily increase for several decades.

“The EPA’s climate rules send a strong signal that the United States is serious about addressing its largest source of greenhouse gas pollution,” Simon Dyer, senior spokesman for the Pembina Institute, said in a statement. “In contrast, the Canadian government continues to resist action on addressing its major emissions growth problem — the rapidly increasing greenhouse gas pollution from oilsands production.”

“While Canada has the same 2020 emissions target as the U.S., our federal government has failed to produce a plan to meet its goal,” he said.

Tim Gray, executive director of Environmental Defence, echoed those sentiments, saying climate action in the U.S. demonstrates Canada’s need to rein in emission from the oilsands sector.

“It’s time for Canada to follow suit,” he said in a statement released Monday. “We should all celebrate this U.S. action taken for the sake of our shared climate…It’s high time for Canada to step up, do what is right, and stop the soaring pollution of the tar sands.”

“Canada,” Gray said, “can either lead or be dragged along in this global shift towards a safer, cleaner, low carbon economy.”

Canada lacks leadership

A study released by Globe International, which surveyed nearly 500 pieces of climate legislation in 66 countries, found Canada lacked any “flagship legislation” for climate despite being in the world’s top 20 emitters.

Political support for strong climate standards in Canada has dwindled under the Harper government, which withdrew from the international Kyoto Accord in 2011.

According to federal Green party leader Elizabeth May, Canada has a history of following the “bad behaviour” of the U.S. when it comes to climate policies.

“When Barack Obama came up with the 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020, Canada said ‘okay, we’ll take that target’ because it weakened our target [under Kyoto] even more,” she said in an interview last May.

A new international climate change regime is expected from the upcoming UNFCCC COP 21 meeting that will take place in Paris in 2015. Canada has been accused of acting as an "obstructionist" at international climate conferences for the last several years.

“Many Canadians,” May said, “don’t realize that the worst thing that Harper has done on climate, as bad as his domestic performance has been, has been undermining global negotiations.”

She added the most recent Environment Canada figures “make is absolutely crystal clear that there is no intention on the part of Stephen Harper for reaching the Copenhagen target either.”

Image Credit: Scout Turfankijan for Obama for America via Flickr.

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