Despite the fact that 90% of the participants in the government sponsored Climate Change Consultations have asked for real reductions in CO2 emissions, Minister Renner still isn’t convinced on the issue.  90% sounds like a pretty good concensus to me.

As I’ve said just recently on the blog, the Alberta Liberal Caucus Plan is to cap emissions by 2012.  We would ratchet up the intensity targets over the next four years and then in 2012 overall emissions would actually start going down.  Although this still isn’t meeting Kyoto targets in the province, it’s a challenge for industry but one that’s achievable.  We need to achieve an 80% reduction by 2050 – that’s over 2% per year – and with all the dithering over the past 20 years this plan at least sets the wheels into motion.

So it is not clear when and if ever this Conservative government will cap emissions -but you know where the Alberta Liberals stand and that’s at 2012.

Minister faces climate change quandary; There’s no ‘magic consensus’ on cutting emissions
The Calgary Herald
Wed 23 May 2007
Page: B9
Section: City & Region
Byline: Renata D’Aliesio
Source: Calgary Herald

Alberta Environment Minister Rob Renner says he finds himself in a bind.

Climate change is top of mind these days. In a round of provincewide public meetings and online surveys, the vast majority of Albertans — nine in 10 — told the government they want real reductions in greenhouse gases, not just a slowing of their rate of growth.

But the country’s energy capital spews more greenhouse gases than any other province.

Even with newly created intensity-based targets for big industrial projects, the province’s emissions are pegged to be 17 per cent higher in 2020 than they are today, largely due to the surging — and lucrative — oilsands.

And thus the quandary for Renner as he leads the province’s effort to retool its five-year-old climate change plan. Should he heed the wishes of Albertans and do more, or should he continue the province’s cautious, and some would argue deliberately hesitant, approach?

“One thing that is absolutely certain is there is a whole lot more that are concerned today than three years ago,” Renner said Tuesday after a climate change meeting in Calgary.

It certainly makes my job on one hand a lot easier as environment minster because I know that increasingly this situation, this issue, is top of mind for Albertans. “But on the other hand,” he added, “the downside of that is that there is expectation that we act and we do so both effectively and immediately, and that is complicating the issue.

“We want to avoid knee-jerk reactions.”

Albertans will learn this summer how its government plans to react to climate change and whether the province intends to set a deadline for making overall cuts to its greenhouse gases.

In a two-month consultation process this spring, 2,603 Albertans filled out government surveys on climate change and nearly 700 attended meetings across the province.

On Tuesday in Calgary, Renner and Alberta Environment officials met with a cross-section of organizations, including representatives of industry, environmentalists and municipalities. Today, a similar meeting takes place in Edmonton.

“We still have not reached that magic consensus, and I don’t know that we ever will,” Renner said.

“The issue comes down to what is the timing that makes it feasible, reasonable” to make absolute emission cuts, “and how are we going to get there?”

Next month, the province plans to continue its consultation with a panel of experts gathering in Kananaskis.

Calgary Ald. Bob Hawkesworth, president of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association, believes climate change is one of the most pressing issues facing the province.

“This is probably . . . amongst the most important work that’s taking place in the Alberta government today,” he said. “This has probably the most far-reaching consequences for the future of our province because we are engaging in an issue that has international and national implications.”

rdaliesio@theherald.canwest.com