Alberta Premier Jason Kenney
The Alberta government’s inability to begin charting a shift off fossil fuels can only leave the province at risk of further economic mayhem, according to two news analyses published in the week leading up to a federal Throne Speech that largely cemented Ottawa’s embrace of a low-carbon transition.
While Toronto Star contributing columnist Gillian Steward points to Premier Jason Kenney’s “denial of oil’s gloomy future”, CBC writer Robson Fletcher asks whether Alberta can embrace the transition sweeping the global energy sector, rather than just bracing for it.
Steward opens her analysis by pointing to the big picture trends that are laying waste to Kenney’s vision of his province’s future. “Demand for oil has dropped like a stone since the pandemic hit,” she writes. “Renewable energy is gaining ground around the world. Forests in the western U.S. are burning up because climate change means warmer, drier weather: yet another urgent call to reduce carbon emissions as fast as possible.”
Yet Kenney “can still hardly bring himself to utter the words ‘climate change,’ ‘energy transition’ or, God forbid, ‘green plan’,” she notes. “Instead he refers to ‘green plans’ as ‘pie in the sky ideological schemes.’ Instead he establishes an inept ‘war room’ to fight environmentalists who he says are wrecking Alberta’s plans to keep producing oil.”
The Slow Painful Death of Fossil Fuels
Premier Jason Kenney like to blame the down-turn in oil on the pandemic. After-all, he was elected on a promise of jobs, pipelines and a better economy. It can’t be blamed on the pandemic. May 03, 2019 there was close to 31 companies close to going insolvent. Dec. 29, 2019 Mr. Kenney claimed he was looking forward to the new year. He promised more jobs and more pipelines. But it didn’t happen. Read The Slow Painful Death of Fossil Fuel