Whether or not Premier Danielle Smith and her enabler and office manager Rob Anderson carefully planned their freeze on renewable electricity generation last week or just came up with it on a whim, it’s now turning into a three-alarm international dumpster fire.
On Wednesday the British-based Guardian news site and newspaper published a major story on the seven-month moratorium, which caught the markets and commentariat by surprise when Utilities Minister Nathan Neudorf announced it last Thursday.
The Guardian’s story was not a friendly update of the sort typically filed by local media in Alberta. “Fury as Alberta cuts renewables during Canada’s worst fire season ever,” the headline shouted, pointing to an obvious irony.
The decision, the story began, “has prompted disbelief among environmental groups and economists.” (Well, they’re not as familiar with Ms. Smith, Mr. Anderson, or their United Conservative Party as some of us here in Alberta, so I suppose their astonishment is understandable, if not justified.)
“The move comes as the country struggles with its worst fire season on record,” the story continued, “a situation that experts agree is worsened by the climate crisis and a reliance on fossil fuels.” (Emphasis added.)
“The decision to halt renewables has baffled economists, environmental groups and business executives, whose companies are now questioning hefty investments in the province,” The Guardian’s reporter noted dryly.
As it happened, the day The Guardian published its story, Hawaii was also making international headlines with its worst fire season on record and at least 50 people dead as a result, a situation that is also being blamed on global climate change.
And don’t worry, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other respected foreign publications are sure to follow with Alberta stories of their own soon enough.
Like it or not, believe it or not, the world is taking notice of planetary climate change and is going to act on it, whatever Ms. Smith and Mr. Anderson think.
Negative international coverage of Alberta is even more likely after yesterday’s childish and irresponsible vow by Ms. Smith that Alberta will refuse to implement Ottawa’s just-released and still-proposed net-zero electricity generation regulations, which she aspirationally described as unconstitutional.
“If implemented in Alberta, these regulations would endanger the reliability of Alberta’s power grid and cause massive increases in Albertans’ power bills,” Ms. Smith said in a tendentious statement published on the Government’s website. “They will not be implemented in our province – period.”
Parroting the premier at a news conference yesterday, Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz also said the proposed federal regulations “will not be implemented in our province, period.
“They can’t,” she went on. “We are beginning our talks with the federal government and if we can’t get alignment, Alberta will chart its own path to ensure we have reliable and affordable electricity for the people we serve.”
Alberta will continue to pump the tires of the natural gas industry, she implied – if not exactly in those words. That was presumably the purpose of last week’s moratorium on new clean energy projects as well.
All this is meaningless hyperbole, of course, since none of the regulations will come into effect for a dozen years.
And as University of Calgary law professor Martin Z. Olszynski explained yesterday on social media, “Until successfully challenged in court, saying the proposed Clean Electricity Standards ‘won’t be implemented in Alberta’ is vacuous. It means *nothing*. Under our constitution, their implementation does not depend on provincial consent.”
What’s more, they can’t be challenged in court until there’s something in law to challenge – so there’s no need to trot out Alberta’s own unconstitutional legislation, the ludicrously named Sovereignty Within a United Canada Act, to see how it fares before a judge. (Prediction: Not well.)
“The primary meaning in that statement” is that Premier Smith “puts herself above our constitution & the rule of law,” Mr. Olszynski observed.
Nevertheless, while yesterday’s tantrum puts on a reassuring show for the most extreme elements of the UCP base, this rhetorical dumpster fire can both hurt Alberta business and investment opportunities and hand Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his federal Liberals a useful cudgel with which to hammer federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who lately has been enjoying a bump in the polls.
What will Mr. Poilievre have to say about all this? Surely someone will ask him that question soon, leaving him between a traditional conservative rock and an environmentally aware hard place.
Meanwhile, as the rest of the world starts really paying attention to Alberta – international businesses already are – Ms. Smith and her strategic brain trust may have just frittered away what’s left of the “Alberta Advantage” and the silly notion of “ethical oil” to cozy up to the UCP’s Take Back Alberta faction.
The renewables industry, which had been doing famously well until the UCP brain trust struck last week, expressed “complete shock” in The Guardian’s story. A spokesperson warned that if the Alberta Government would do that to them, it would do it to other industries as well.
“The government’s sudden announcement of an unprecedented moratorium on the lowest-cost new electricity available in Alberta puts 91 projects and $25-billion of investments and associated jobs for Albertans and revenues for municipalities at risk,” the Calgary-based Pembina Institute calculated last Thursday.
“Accelerating the deployment of wind and solar energy in a responsible way is an essential part of the solution to the climate crisis,” Pembina Electricity Director Binnu Jeyakumar said in a news release, which appears to reflect the conventional wisdom throughout the world as the effects of climate change become more obvious.
Also yesterday, an op-ed in The Globe and Mail by an analyst in Pembina’s electricity program noted that last year was the first year in history that investment in renewables caught up to investment in fossil fuels – $1 trillion US! “To remain a prosperous country while also meeting its climate change commitments, Canada needs to attract a larger slice of that pie, which will only grow in the decades ahead,” wrote Grace Brown.
No matter how much Ms. Smith and Mr. Anderson hate renewables and think they’re a scam – and the record shows that they do – this is how the world is coming to see the situation.
They can talk about defying Ottawa and ethical oil till they’re blue in the face and that won’t change a thing.
The only person who can be really happy about yesterday’s opera buffa in Alberta is Justin Trudeau.
An excellent piece. The Pembina number on renewable investment is staggering. $25 billion. Governments have been toppled for less.
When ‘this’ $25 billion is added to annual multi-billion dollar reductions in corporate tax rates under the kenney/ucp and the $20 billion gift (by the current premier) to oil and gas companies in order to bribe them to do what they originally agreed to do on their own dime………………….what can a person say anymore? And they really think that also destroying the health system in Alberta will ‘encourage’ hundreds of thousands more people to come to Alberta?
I had a neighbour who moved from Quebec to Alberta in order to be closer to his family – he told me it took 30 years for his property to recover most of it’s original value before the separation question was settled.
Unfortunately, in Alberta, blind faith of the UCP, denial of science, truth and common sense probably means nothing will happen to the Smith, Anderson and the UCP.
They’ve demonized the NDP so much, and the NDP did not address energy, resources and the like adequately last spring.
There was a brief moment after the election when it seemed like Smith and her party might tone down the partisan rhetoric and come to some sort of uneasy working relationship with the Federal Liberals. Sort of like Klein did with Chretien, but alas these are not your fathers conservatives who at times tried to appear reasonable and progressive.
This will only reinforce the worst image others elsewhere have of Alberta, a place reluctant to do much about climate change and interested in helping only the fossil fuel industry. Of course it also makes no sense that as electricity prices increase we should be delaying the supply of more electricity.
Yes, this will probably end up blowing up on Poilievre as he tries to excuse or defend what his provincial colleagues here are doing. Much as his predecessor was doing fairly well in the polls until the inaction of the last Alberta conservative premier dealing with COVID caused people to wonder about him.
When it comes to politics, wearing the I’m with stupid t-shirt is never a good choice. Unfortunately Poilievre is stuck with Smith and crew, who seem to be reverting to doing crazy and unpredictable things again now that the immediate pressure of a provincial election is off.
Smith and her Svengali, Rob Anderson, have entered Ron DeSantis territory.
As for Utilities Minister, Nathan Neudork, the man is a squalid nuisance.
Speaking of dumpster fires: what is happening with the investigations Ms. Smith said she was ordering to find all the arsonists who were starting wildfires in Alberta? The UCP’s denial of reality is astounding.
Gillian: There’s no point me asking. This government doesn’t respond to my emails very often any more, and when they do they soon fall silent when they realize what I’m asking. Maybe the Toronto Star could ask? DJC
Thanks for another great piece, David, and spending the time you do on digging through all those news sources.
CBC ran a story yesterday about a $3 million ad campaign the CPC is running to rebrand Pierre Poilievre as a warm and loving guy. There are 3 ads; two are backgrounded with soothing music and feature Poilievre, or his wife, giving a reassuring message, while the third ad is an attack on the carbon tax.
I really have to question the political thinking behind promoting the CPC’s tacit policy of ignoring climate change, especially given our current fire situation. (It brings to mind how Jason Kenney had to cancel the press conference he had long looked forward to, to announce his government’s termination of Alberta’s carbon tax. Kenney had to cancel the presser because the skies were orange with forest fire smoke.) I find it hard to believe there are any voters who could be convinced to change their vote to CPC because of a promise to end the carbon tax – carbon tax haters are already planning to vote CPC.
I can, however, easily visualize someone being influenced by the other 2 feel good ads, and considering voting CPC, turned off by the promise to do nothing about climate change.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservative-ad-campaign-2023-1.6931440
Nice to see the Guardian take time out from its regular Putin-bashing to give little old Alberta a scolding. Meanwhile in the UK they’re wondering where has the summer gone. July has been cloudy, cool and wet with temps mired in the low 20’s. Put that in your climate change pipe and smoke it.
Speaking of climate change the new head of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says if the global temp should rise by 1.5c it’s nothing to get your knickers tied up in a knot fretting about.
https://www.dw.com/en/climate-change-do-not-overstate-15-degrees-threat/a-66386523
From the article ronmac has gifted us with, this quote:
[quote begins:] “We should not despair and fall into a state of shock” if global temperatures were to increase by this amount, [Jim Skea, newly appointed head of IPCC] said.
In a separate discussion with German news agency DPA, Skea expanded on why.
“If you constantly communicate the message that we are all doomed to extinction, then that paralyzes people and prevents them from taking the necessary steps to get a grip on climate change,” he said.
“The world won’t end if it warms by more than 1.5 degrees,” Skea told Der Spiegel. “It will however be a more dangerous world.”
Surpassing that mark would lead to many problems and social tensions, he said, but still that would not constitute an existential threat to humanity. [end of quote]
Not exactly a “don’t worry be happy” message, ronmac. The problem with IPCC reports is that they summarize the previous six years of climate-change research—and they’ve consistently understated the speed of climate degradation. Hence constant warnings that various tipping points, e.g. an ice-free Arctic Ocean, the collapse of the Atlantic circulation pattern, the collapse of the Amazon rain forest, and the collapse of Antarctic ice sheets are all happening faster than predicted previously.
Mr. Skea is far from the first to warn that climate doom-and-gloom messages might depress people so much that they give up on fixing the problems. Skea saying the world will be “a more dangerous place” is understatement. I suggest you ask folks in Hawaii how they feel about slow-playing the net-zero transition.
It’s not about knickers, ronmac, although I encourage you to do whatever you want with yours. It’s about the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC. The AMOC has gone amok.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/25/gulf-stream-could-collapse-as-early-as-2025-study-suggests
Now before you say it’s happened before during the ice ages, please read the article.
Also, despite the rest of Canada experiencing temperatures way above normal this year, including several records broken in the arctic (well not so much broken as obliterated) the east side of Baffin Island was colder than normal! Any other places on the planet you want to cherry pick, Ronmac? I’d tell you what I really think of your tiresome climate denialism in the face of catastrophe after catastrophe but Mr Clemenhaga runs a civilized blog and I respect him for that.
I really don’t like the term climate denier, American Friend, it seems so negative. As an alternative, can I suggest ‘unicorn’, the creatures extensively studied by the eminent group of Irish scientists known collectively as the Rovers. You probably remember what the Rovers taught us about unicorns; they laughed and played silly games while the climate around them changed, and they all died.
You’re misrepresenting what IPCC chair said.
Geeze ronmac: ever finish an article? He did NOT say the 1.5C target is not important. He warned that despair over missing that target might lead to inaction. Let’s also take a pull quote from the same article which is pertinent to today’s topic:
“Every measure we take to weaken climate change helps,” he said, adding that measures were also becoming “ever more cost-effective.” The new head of the IPCC “said that one short-term focus should remain expanding renewable electricity to reduce emissions from fossil fuel electricity generation and from internal combustion engine vehicles.”
Until Dani and her loons came along, Alberta was on the way to having a renewable electrical grid in spite of the efforts of the UCP and the dying fossil fuel industry to hold back the technological tide.
Alt-rights are not interested in facts or logic. They are knee jerk contrarians.
A recent headline from the New York Times really scared me. “Prevalence of icebergs due to warm arctic winter,” the headline said. “According to experts mild weather in Greenland caused fragments of glaciers to break away and float southwards in unusually large numbers.” The article notes the temperature hit a staggering 95F on the west coast of Greenland the previous summer. Scary stuff indeed…Oh wait a minute this is from 1912!
Summer of 2023 say hello to the summer of 1911. Much of the northern hemisphere was engulfed in a heat wave.
https://www.hefner.energy/articles/europes-record-heat-wave-that-wasnt
Also in the 1912 news, in case you missed it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic
FYI:
https://www.nist.gov/nist-time-capsule/nist-beneath-waves/nist-reveals-how-tiny-rivets-doomed-titanic-vessel
The band played on. What they played did not change the outcome. Details matter. Wait for a catastrophic implosion or see the truth and take evasive action now? Some people want to believe so hard that they head straight for the icebergs. I’ve been in the Atlantic during glacier calving season, ronmac. You can’t fool me.
You’re allowed to delude yourself with nonsense all you want, your biggest delusion is that anyone agrees with you or is swayed by your dumb comments. Just because you’re gullible doesn’t mean everyone else is, yah?
“Always attack, never defend” is the tenet of the cult of scientology. Funny how alt-rights invariably follow that too. Alt-rights seem to complain most about what they, themselves, are guilty of. Also the same as that Hubbard scam.
My favourite thing about this is you forgot which term you’re supposed to use to bash climate realists and people who don’t want their last days to be breathing in the smoke of 10,000 wildfires while they bake in their apartments and the electrical grid (the one the UCP refused to upgrade) sputters and fails.
You’re supposed to say “global
Warming” when you’re talking about places where there is unprecedented cool weather or massive rainstorms (like those which took out a good chunk of southwestern BC) because if you say “climate change” everyone can see it is obvious, THE CLIMATE DONE BEEN CHANGING FOR A WHILE NOW.
If you were really on your talking points, and let’s be honest, you never are: you would state what leaders in the field are now, climate change mitigation is incompatible with capitalism, So to fight those dirty reds we must light our communities on fire, or drown them, or leave them to drought and blight, whatever the climate is supposed to be doing, it isn’t. Climate change mitigation may be incompatible with capitalism, but capitalism is incompatible with growing food on a dead planet, not to mention horribly exploitative, and hopelessly corrupt.
Once again those bomb throwing anarchists at *checks notes EXXON MOBIL were the first
Ones to discover this problem, WELL over 50 years ago. You sound ridiculous and everyone hates it, we don’t have time for folks to be playing vacuous nonsensical logic games.
And one more for the “climate change isn’t a big deal file”
“Biocrusts currently cover approximately 12% of Earth’s terrestrial surface, and we expect them to decrease by about 25% to 40% within 65 years due to climate change and land-use intensification,” said team leader Estelle Couradeau, Penn State assistant professor of soils and environmental microbiology. “We hope this work can pave the way to understanding the microbial functions supporting biocrust resilience to the rapidly changing climate patterns and more frequent droughts.”
https://www.newswise.com/articles/soil-s-microbiome-earth-s-vital-skin-endangered-by-climate-change
Mark your calendars, friends. 3 Augusts 2023 is the beginning of the Zombie Era for Alberta oil and gas industry. (You can make a case for the rollout of the R-Star pilot program, though that’s only gonna waste $100 million, not billions. Wait till the full-on giveaway of billions for that.) Danielle Smith, Protector of the Oilpatch, will defend them to our deaths by fire, flood or drought (whichever comes first).
For someone with a degree in economics, Danielle Smith is remarkably incompetent about the economic effects of her politics. Did she—or ANY of her keepers—wonder how this vindictive-looking “pause” would look outside Alberta? Calling this a short-sighted reaction is like calling Edmonton’s winter weather “less than tropical.”
Once again, the Kingdom of Oilberduh proves our Republican-wannabes can screw up better than anyone except their American role models.
RW Albertans don’t care if Danielle and her crew act like spoiled teenagers acting out against authority. The bar has gotten progressively lower and the apologists will defend anything short of (and maybe including) murder on the legislature floor. ‘Anything is better than the NDP and liberal socialists’ don’t ya know?
When asked the characteristics of opera buffa, wno.org.uk says it “involves the predominant use of comic scenes, characters and plot lines in a contemporary setting.” The blogger knows of which he speaks.
Danielle Smith and her mirror might have thought this would be like the $10 child care they opposed so vigorously. Surely they’d come out smelling like a rose.
Not this time. The world’s on fire. Not everyone has children. Everyone does breathe air. Maui holds a special place in the hearts of many Albertans who visit frequently. Such is the love for Hawaii among Albertans that an airline here encouraged travel to the island paradise during Covid travel restrictions and government members broke those restrictions to go there.
https://www.sprawlcalgary.com/alberta-hawaii-travel-pandemic
Are they hoping no one will notice what happened to the historic Banyan tree? Wrong. How can they walk this back now? No doubt they’ll double down. Government wasn’t in session when this decision was made, so there was no debate. Smith will go full bore on this. It should be her undoing and the end of her career in politics for real this time. Even stupid people know that burying your head in the sand when the beach is on fire and people are jumping into the ocean to survive is guaranteed self-extinction.
https://youtu.be/ejorQVy3m8E
Your well written reply brought ‘Beds Are Burning’ by Midnight Oil to mind.
The fires in Canada and the conflagration in Hawaii are enough to make me weep for planet earth and our progeny. Human kind has decided to revere greed and avarice over the very air we breathe and water we drink. I’m almost glad to be 65 and approaching my last few decades, because unless Dani and others like her wake up, mankind will kill ourselves off and take most innocent critters with us.
I’m sure the TBA crowd is quite happy. Ignorance is bliss, after all.
People ask what conservatives’ plan for climate action is, or if they even have one. They do. It’s called “making poor countries sacrifice so we don’t have to”.
They have this notion that we export liquid natural gas to developing nations, displacing high-emitting coal in their power grids with lower- (but not zero-) emitting natural gas.
All the costs of converting coal-fired power plants to burn our LNG would fall on the populations and tax bases of those countries, while we — one of the highest per capita emitters, and one of the seven richest economies on the planet — get rich on the profits and spend next to nothing to reduce our own emissions, because “we only account for a small proportion of global emissions”.
The gall is sickening.
The conservative climate change plan – Jesus is gonna be back any day now and if the trees aren’t stumps, the oil isn’t pumped, the women aren’t pregnant and barefoot, and everyone isn’t white, he’s gonna be real pissed off!
As a grain farmer I am compelled by the Government of Alberta to give up my land for fossil fuel development I do not want. Now I am told by the same government that I cannot have a renewable energy project on my land even if I do want it.
The Government of Alberta has effectively seized the ownership of private farm and ranch land to prevent renewable projects, just as they seized ownership for the benefit of the fossil fuel gang. None of this is for the greater public good, it is all about a captured and illegitimate state privileging the oil and gas barons.
Good work, Dave. This is a really cogent post. You nailed it.
I think we could say that poor unstable Danielle Smith just murdered the Alberta Advantage.
Let’s face it, the UCP are becoming a national embarrassment. Actually, an international embarrassment. People were warned in advance.
Becoming? We’ve been there for 5 years.
5 years? We’ve been there for a couple decades at least. Since the goofball Klein took the helm.
In defiance of clear evidence (and investment dollars) that renewal energy is king in Alberta, Danielle Smith/UCP/TBA have decided that it’s better to block this on going trend and give fossil fuels even more chances to survive. Claiming this is for purposes of an audit (financial, safety, whatever) this is clearly another effort to own PMJT. Okay. Go ahead. Meanwhile, Skippy Pollivere is screaming that Canada can’t take anymore of Trudeau, until he’s reminded that the next election is another two years away. Short of calling for the overthrow of the government, and the installation of himself as generalissimo, Pollivere, as well as Smith and Scott Moe, have spent all their time on X endlessly rage farming. But to what end? To show that they are in desperate need of medication?
Kicking Trudeau while he’s down, what with his marital troubles and all, has revealed that the right-wing trolls are determined to knock that bar even lower. Of course, Trudeau throws them some sweet troll bait in the form of him taking two of his kids to see two very hot movies. Having little in the way decency or brains, the usual suspects on Team Pollivere went nuts. In one instance, there was the claim that Trudeau’s son was Trudeau’s bf — kind of playing to the Infowars claim that PMJT is bisexual — to a shot by one of the more prolific trolls, declaring that Trudeau’s fourteen year old daughter was no more than a sex worker. (A more colourful term was used, however.) The resulting furor over the latter, not to mention that wild denouncements of one of their own, as well as the pleading mea culpas, just proves how deeply Trudeau lives inside their heads. Meanwhile, Pollivere has taken to releasing web ads of himself with his wife and kids at a playground. Look, Skippy can still play on the monkey bars!
The silly days of summer are here, even while Hawaii goes up in flames.
Ads like Poilievre’s new ones would be embarrassing to someone with self awareness.
Well said. I largely ignore the far right scum, except to mock them. They’re violent and spew hate, lowering the bar every time in the hopes of gaining some attention. And I don’t worry about the polls, for even though PP and the CONS may go up here and there, depending on the issue of the day, the numbers are never large enough to defeat the progressive vote which is split between the Liberals and the NDP.
“Look, Skippy can still play on the monkey bars!”
Mr. Peepers’ buffoonery brings out the best in Just Me.
The entire province of Alberta could burn to the ground and the desperate UCP base would still vote in their petro-party, denying any climate change at all. The raging fires in BC, Alberta and the burning to the ground of Fort Mac stand as an example of how dystopian Alberta has become and how little the base has learned, especially the rural base who doesn’t realize that they and their communities would not exist if it wasn’t for the provincial and federal governments who put out these raging fires year after year. Let these desperate luddites continually shoot themselves in the foot, but let’s stop the federal subsidy to fight fires in Alberta when they are contributing to the problem.
Since this hold on renewable project developments was announced I wondered how many employees/employers/land owners are impacted by this? How many of the employees/employers previously worked in the oil patch and retrained for what appeared to be a major opportunity in renewables? How many of the above voted for the UCP in the last election? I wonder how they will vote the next time …
Why does Rob always look like he’s talking out of the other side of his mouth? From Commercial Drive, back in the day! https://youtu.be/anCA_XXO9tM?t=5
Given most things in life are driven by a few things, such as greed, hate, etc. I’d suggest the about face by Smith could well be about greed. Some one must be benefitting from her about face on renewables.
If the laws of Canada state a particular things and a province doesn’t agree and violates that new law, I guess they could use the “opt out clause” Perhaps Smith is looking to be awarded the statue for most anti science Premier in Canada. No matter what Smith says, she can’t deny the continued fires in B.C., the tornados in Ontario, along with the floods, the disasters in the Maritimes are happening. She may not agree on what is causing it all, but it is happening. We have a fairly good idea why all this change in climate is going on so we ought to at least try to “fix” things.
Smith may be part of the aging baby boomer crowd so by the time things get even worse, we’ll be dead. It won’t matter and the corporations will have made their money.
The thing is, although I’m an aging baby boomer, the area I live in has a whole lot of young children, the toddler type, the baby in diapers type, the teenager type with skate boards, etc and they will be 75 in about 74 years. If the next 74 years are like the last 74, there will be nothing for those children/adults. I’m rather fond of them. They’re highly entertaining at that age and I’d like to think they will have the same type of life I had in this country.
For the past 10 years I’ve reduced the use of my vehicles to once a week, most weeks.
Interestingly enough, Fraulein Schmidt, being born in 1971 is actually a part of the Gen-X group (1965-1980), a generation not exactly known for embracing neofascist ideology. Schmidt however has decidedly gone “all in” as it were so I think it’s more fair to say she’s a baby-boomer wannabe. Her generational peers must be so proud….
Can someone find Anders a suit that fits at least ? He looks like a youth pastor wearing his dads hand me downs
Well there’s always space lasers for back up power and book burnings for local heating needs.