Alberta green plan puts PM 'on the spot'.

This is from the Globe and Mail. It is really doubtful that this plan will cause many tears from the Harper crew. Harper is after all trying his hardest to catch up with and surpass the Liberal record of doing little or nothing about reducing emissions while himself emitting a lot of hot air about his environmental good deeds. That the critics are wrong is shown by the fact that John Baird the federal environment minister welcomed the plan!

The plan is so weak that even industry spokespeople support it.

Alberta green plan puts PM 'on the spot'
Stelmach lowballs Harper's emissions reduction targets
SHAWN MCCARTHY , BILL CURRY and NORVAL SCOTT
January 25, 2008
OTTAWA, CALGARY -- Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is at odds with the federal government and on a collision course with other premiers after the release yesterday of his long-anticipated climate-change plan.
On the eve of an expected election call, Mr. Stelmach promised that his province will freeze greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and reduce them by 14 per cent from 2005 levels by 2050. But that target is a long way from Prime Minister Stephen Harper's promises at international summits that Canada will reduce its heat-trapping emissions at least 60 per cent by this century's halfway mark.
With its booming oil industry and reliance on coal-fired electricity, Alberta is responsible for one-third of Canada's total emissions and shows the fastest growth in greenhouse gases.
Critics fumed yesterday that Alberta's plan will force the rest of the country to carry an unfair burden in the climate-change battle, while a senior adviser to Ottawa says the Prime Minister's targets will now be challenged.
"It puts Harper on the spot," said Robert Page, the Calgary-based vice-chair of the National Roundtable on the Economy and Environment, which advises the Prime Minister on climate change. "It just seems to me there is just this growing gap between Alberta and the feds."
Several premiers have been calling for aggressive action on climate change, and the issue will be a key agenda item when all 13 premiers meet in Vancouver next week.
Mr. Stelmach said his plan strikes the right balance between environmental action and protecting jobs.
"This delivers real measurable reduction in greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining [Albertans'] quality of life," he said. "It's a real plan for a real problem."
Alberta will now create a government-industry council that will look at implementing carbon capture technologies, in which the carbon dioxide produced from power plants and oil sands facilities is intercepted and injected back into the ground. Mr. Stelmach said the technology could deliver as much as 70 per cent of the 200-megatonne reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that Alberta is targeting by 2050.
Federal Environment Minister John Baird issued a statement yesterday welcoming Alberta's plan, but his spokesman insisted that federal regulations for industry coming out this year are separate from provincial measures.
"Any reductions taken by the provinces are complementary to what we're doing," spokesman Garry Keller said.
Industry leaders in Alberta responded favourably to the plan's focus on capturing carbon emissions.
"It's music to our ears," said Michael Smith, the director of environment for Epcor. The Edmonton-based firm's coal-fired power plants are some of Alberta's biggest emitters, but the company has made significant commitments to reducing emissions through technologies such as clean coal.
Liberal environment critic David McGuinty said Alberta's announcement proves the federal targets are not credible. He also said the rising emissions from Alberta's tar sands are the "elephant in the room" that Ottawa has yet to properly address.
Mr. McGuinty acknowledged that previous Liberal governments also lacked the political will to tackle the rising emissions from Alberta's oil sands, which are projected to double between 2004 and 2015.
"I don't know if we really had the resolve, because the big challenge facing Canada today if we are going to tell the Canadian people the truth, is that we have this huge greenhouse gas challenge while we continue to see a rapid expansion in the oil sands," he said. "What we're not seeing, now that we have a new government in the driver's seat, is a real honest negotiation ... that will reconcile those two competing interests."
The Bloc Québécois, representing Quebec ridings powered by hydroelectricity, has long criticized the Conservatives in Quebec for being too lenient on the oil and gas sector, while the NDP said the announcement proves the national targets are out of reach.
NDP Leader Jack Layton, who has a bill nearing the final stages in the Commons that would legislate a 2050 target of 80-per-cent reductions from 1990 levels, said Alberta must move toward renewable energy.
"This program put forward by the government of Alberta would be totally contrary to virtually any target that anyone has set anywhere," Mr. Layton said.
Emissions get personal
2005 provincial and territorial per-capita emissions in tonnes of CO2 equivalent per person
Quebec
11.77
Yukon Territory
12.89
British Columbia
15.48
Ontario
16.00
PEI
16.50
Manitoba
17.29
Nfld. and Lab.
20.43
NWT and Nunavut
21.35
Canada
23.13
Nova Scotia
24.25
New Brunswick
28.34
Alberta
71.09
Saskatchewan
71.62
SOURCE: THE PEMBINA FOUNDATION