Tag Archives: Clean Energy Canada
Canada’s Federal Liberal Party takes a Flexible Position on Carbon Pricing
Federal leader Justin Trudeau chose Calgary’s Petroleum Club on February 6 as the venue to announce that, if elected in October 2015, a Liberal government would set national targets for reducing carbon emissions but allow provinces to design and manage the policies to meet them. The Liberal party website provides text of the speech as well as a video. The Pembina Institute reacted to the announcement, as did Clean Energy Canada, which also provides a comparison chart of the positions of three of the four federal parties. There is no shortage of recent policy reports on the issue of carbon pricing, for example: Carbon Pricing and Mind the Hissing from Sustainable Prosperity (case studies of revenue allocation in the carbon pricing systems of B.C., Alberta, and Quebec); How to Adopt a Winning Carbon Price: Top 10 Takeaways from the Architects of British Columbia’s Carbon Tax from Clean Energy Canada; Will Nova Scotia Implement a Carbon Tax? by Brendan Haley at the Progressive Economics Forum. Even the World Bank’s Partnership for Market Readiness has a policy “wish list” in its business-oriented new report, Preparing for Carbon Pricing: Case Studies from Company Experience: Royal Dutch Shell, Rio Tinto, and Pacific Gas and Electric Company.
Clean Energy From Canadian Perspective: a Call for Renewable Policies in Canada and a Global Review
Citing the “wave of hope” generated by the People’s Climate March, on September 21, Clean Energy Canada released its first-ever annual review, called Tracking the Energy Revolution: Global Edition at: http://cleanenergycanada.org/2014/09/21/tracking-energy-revolution-builds-surging-wave-hope/. With maps, photos and infographics, it is loaded with statistics that reveal the extent of the global shift to renewable energy by governments and businesses.
Clean Electricity in Alberta Means Less Reliance on Coal
While the government of Alberta continues to develop its Alternative and Renewable Energy Policy Framework, a new report from the Pembina Institute and Clean Energy Canada argues that “With effective policy, the province could cut the percentage of grid electricity that is supplied from coal energy from over 60 per cent today to less than four per cent by 2033.” (p.1) According to the report, in 2013, coal power generation supplied 63.7 per cent of electricity in Alberta’s grid (compared to 39.1 per cent of the in the United States). And whereas total coal power generation in the United States decreased by 21.3 per cent between 2007 and 2013, it decreased by only 13 per cent in Alberta. (p.4). See Power to Change: How Alberta can Green its Grid and Embrace Clean Energy at http://www.pembina.org/docs/power-to-change-pembina-cec-2014.pdf with a backgrounder at http://www.pembina.org/docs/power-to-change-pembina-cec-backgrounder.pdf . Earlier in 2014, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment commissioned a survey which revealed that 80% of Albertans agreed that wind energy should be used to reduce reliance on coal-fired power in the province. See the CAPE Newsletter (Summer 2014) at http://cape.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/capenewsummer2014.pdf . And on May 23, a public opinion commissioned by the Alberta Energy Efficiency Alliance, in conjunction with the Pembina Institute, reported that 76 per cent of Albertans support the stronger greenhouse gas performance regulations for industrial facilities. See the Ipsos Reid poll at http://www.ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id=6509 .