What the premiers agreed to do includes:
The end result, the creation of four committees under the leadership of provincial ministries focused on energy with a goal to report to the premiers in 2016 on progress around the following four themes:
This is the best the meeting of Canada’s sub-jurisdiction political minds could come up with regarding the dual challenge of energy production in the midst of a world facing increasing climate change – a meeting to create committees to conduct further meetings. More talk, and a kicking of the can, called climate change, down the road.
One premier of note, Saskatchewan’s Brad Wall, came to the meeting in a fighting mood. Currently with his province besieged by drought and countless wildfires (climate change in action) and with thousands evacuated from their homes, Wall proudly proclaimed that “oil is not a four-letter word.” For Wall, whose province has oil to harvest, the meeting was about getting pipelines built to move his province’s resource to export markets. Whether the pipelines go north-to-south, east-to-west, or west-to-east, Wall doesn’t want any other province getting in his way by holding up projects. Kathleen Wynne, premier of the province of Ontario, conceivably one of the people who could get in his way, stated she recognized the value of the energy sector but acknowledged “we’re running out of time” on the climate change file.
Calling building pipelines a “no brainer” is a phrase most associated with Canada’s Prime Minister, Steven Harper. Words, no doubt, that Wall would happily repeat and words that the oil and gas industry proclaim frequently. But continuing to mine and pump fossil fuels without a significant investment in both mitigation and adaptation to deal with the consequences of rising carbon dioxide and methane greenhouse gases didn’t seem to be at the forefront of the premiers’ minds if you read the Canadian Energy Strategy.
Where New York City, Boston and the federal government in the United States have drafted plans for the climate change future and are beginning to make the necessary investments in infrastructure, in moving away from carbon-based fuels, in developing distributed power generation through micro-grids, and in encouraging residential solar, all we got this week in Canada is more talk and a limp document.
Not to say we haven’t made progress. We have British Columbia’s carbon tax. We have Quebec, California and soon, Ontario, part of a North American cap-and-trade system. But what we don’t have is a real climate action plan within a comprehensive energy strategy that plans for the low-carbon transition. We don’t have dollars and cents committed to this transition because we haven’t described or mapped it anywhere. And we don’t have money allocated to hardening infrastructure for the next series of ice storms, floods, wildfires and other bizarre weather events that our warming atmosphere will continue to inflict upon our provinces, cities and citizens across the country. Isn’t that what should be in a strategy and a plan?
Talk is cheap. And the kind of talk that occurred here in the last week by our sub-jurisdictions heads of state appears to have been the cheapest of all. The premiers asked in their last point that they be given an international voice to address both energy and climate change. Doesn’t that seem hilarious when all the premiers can do is come up with a document more backward than forward thinking. What possibly can they “voice” in front of countries and jurisdictions who are already experiencing the consequences of a changing climate? Deregulate pipeline construction?
