What Does Alberta Wildrose Acceptance of Climate Change Mean?

If you weren’t paying close attention to news reports out of Alberta a couple weeks ago, you could easily have missed an interesting development on the climate change front.

Danielle Smith, leader of Alberta’s Wildrose Party, told reporters covering her party’s annual meeting in Red Deer, Alta., on Oct. 25: “I accept that climate change is a reality, as do our members. I accept that there’s a human influence on it.”

During the 2012 Alberta election campaign, Smith was famously booed when she told an Edmonton audience “there is still a debate” in the scientific community about manmade climate change.

Smith’s position on climate change is considered one of the key reasons many Alberta voters turned away from Wildrose in the final days of the election. The Progressive Conservatives, who warned that Alberta would be laughed off the international stage if the province refused to acknowledge climate science, won in a surprise landslide.

Smith said her new stance emerged after Wildrose members voted to approve two policy motions calling for action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

However, the 129-page document of 2013 policy resolutions considered at Wildrose’s annual meeting doesn’t include any actual mention of climate change.

Two resolutions mention greenhouse gases. The first calls on the party to “reduce greenhouse gases by advancing, implementing, and cooperating on technology, research, conservation, and alternative renewable energy sources.”

The second calls on the party to “ensure Alberta’s goals and objectives are on par with national and international greenhouse gas and air pollution protocols and standards.”

Delegates approved both resolutions by wide margins (however, the Globe and Mail reported long-time member Milan Matusik fought against them, saying “global warming is the biggest scam in human history.”)

It’s the second resolution that could have teeth. Canada is committed to reducing total greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels by 2020.

Matt Horne, climate change director for the Pembina Institute, said the resolutions, although vague, are a positive step.

“Until they actually articulate what policies they’re going to implement, there’s not a lot to hold them to,” he said.  “The unfortunate reality is that in the recent past Canada, as well as other jurisdictions, are not doing a good job at living up to the commitments they make … I’d like to see the policies they’re prepared to implement as opposed to the goals they’re prepared to set.”

In the days preceding the Wildrose leader’s about-face on climate, Alberta Environment Minister Diana McQueen took Smith to task for not clearly recognizing the threat of climate change. However, the Alberta government has long been criticized for allowing the province’s greenhouse gas emissions to increase, especially from oilsands development. Without new rules, oilsands emissions are projected to triple between 2005 and 2020, in the process wiping out all the projected reductions from all other sectors across the Canadian economy.

 “I don’t accept a lecture from a do-nothing environment minister like Diana McQueen,” Smith said. “If you look at our neighbours in Ontario and Quebec, they’re already below their 1990 levels (while) Alberta has increased its greenhouse gas emissions by 46 per cent.”

It’s an interesting twist to see Alberta’s politicians duking it out for the strongest position on policy actions to address climate change.

Smith’s shift comes only months after much of southern Alberta, the heartland of the Wildrose party, suffered from devastating floods. Smith’s riding of Highwood, home to Okotoks and High River, was particularly hard hit.

This summer’s flooding started an overdue conversation in Alberta about adapting to a new reality — for instance, are there areas where it’s not safe to build any more? Cleanup and reconstruction costs have been pegged at $5 billion and are expected to take a heavy toll on the province’s budget for the next five years.

With scientists predicting more extreme weather and flooding in a destabilized climate system, it’s about time Alberta politicians of all stripes accept it’s time to take action to curb the pollution driving the problem.