On May 21, 2002, the government of Alberta released "Albertans & Climate Change: A Plan for Action". The plan "is designed to provide a practical alternative to the Kyoto Protocol," to achieve "meaningful, long-term emissions reductions" and "can serve as the basis for an effective, collaborative, equitable national approach to climate change . . . while contributing responsibly to solve global issues."
These are bold claims that demand scrutiny. This report is a detailed assessment of how well the Alberta climate change action plan lives up to those claims. The main findings in brief are as follows:
- The plan's overall target to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions intensity by 50% by the year 2020, while initially seeming impressive, does not represent a particularly large deviation from business as usual.
- The Alberta climate change action plan is actually a plan to increase emissions significantly, not reduce them.
- Canadians will rightly regard any non-legally binding alternative to the Kyoto Protocol with scepticism.
- The plan proposes that, Alberta, whose emissions per capita far outstrip those of any other of the most populous provinces, be allowed to keep its total emissions far above its 1990 level for decades to come.
- The plan implies a belief that consumers should pay for pollution created by industry.
- Of the 48 distinct actions contained in the plan, only 22 (less than half) are both clearly committed to and have some chance of directly resulting in GHG emission reductions.
- On in six actions fall into categories potentially capable of Kyoto-level emission reductions.
- Overall, the plan contains few actions capable of achieving significant emission reductions any time soon.
- For some of the largest GHG emission sources, the plan omits a large number of key policy measures.
