Alberta’s energy minister has promised people will be able to say “no” to coal mining in the Rocky Mountains during upcoming consultations.
“Albertans will tell us how they want to see coal development—if they want to see coal development—and, if they want to see coal development, where it will be,” Sonya Savage said Tuesday.
Savage was responding to questions from NDP Opposition critic Kathleen Ganley during a meeting of the standing committee on resource stewardship, The Canadian Press reports.
The story appeared a day after the NDP put forward legislation to ban coal mining in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains. A day later, Environment Minister Jason Nixon was “reassuring rural municipalities in the province’s dry south that their water supply isn’t threatened by industrial development such as coal mines,” CP adds.
“Alberta continues to have some of the most rigorous water licence rules [and] environmental rules when it comes to the protection of water,” he told a Rural Municipalities Alberta convention.
The province’s United Conservative government has promised consultations on Rocky Mountain coal development will begin March 29. They were announced in February in response to public outcry over the government’s decision to revoke a policy that had protected the summits and eastern slopes of the Rockies from surface coal mines since 1976.
Exploration leases on thousands of hectares were sold on formerly protected so-called Category 2 land. Those leases remain active, although new sales have been halted.
No details about the consultations have been released. Critics have wondered if the consultations will give Albertans the option of telling the government not just under what circumstances they would accept mines, but whether they want them at all.
The land in question includes the headwaters for much of the province’s drinking water.
Savage said Tuesday that details are to be released shortly. She suggested their scope will be broad.
“We’re going to hear the views of Albertans,” Savage said. “We’re going to listen to them before we take any next steps with respect to what can or can’t be developed on Category 2 lands.
“You’re trying to suggest that…those leases are going to stay after the coal consultations and that coal mining will be permitted in Category 2 lands, which is as far from the truth as possible,” Savage told Ganley.
Savage also promised talks with area First Nations.
“There will definitely be government-to-government direct consultations with Indigenous communities,” she said. “That will run parallel with consultation that will start on the 29th.”
If the government wanted to assure Albertans its mind was really open on the issue, it could start by stopping any further work on exploration leases already sold, Katie Morrison of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society told CP’s Bob Weber.
“I would have more confidence if they cancelled the exploration permits…pending the outcome of these consultations,” she said in an email.
“If they really have no predetermined outcomes, then companies should not be able to continue to damage these landscapes and incur costs that could be subject to compensation from Albertans later.”
Morrison said the further along coal companies get, the harder it will be to implement land use plans and the more expensive it will be to reclaim damage caused by exploration activities such as drilling and road-building.
Elements of this report by The Canadian Press were first published March 15-17, 2021.
Why a net-zero future depends on the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon
Two people walk their bicycles along a flooded street on the waterfront of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., as Hurricane Irma passes through on Sept. 10, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson
Most of us growing up along Canada’s East Coast never worried about hurricane season. Except for those working at sea, we viewed hurricanes as extreme events in remote tropical regions, seen only through blurred footage of flailing palm trees on the six o’clock news.
Today, a warming ocean spins hurricanes faster, makes them wetter and drives them towards Atlantic Canada and even further inland. Hurricanes, winter storms and rising sea levels will continue to worsen unless we slow climate change.
The lifeblood of coastal economies and societies has always been the connection between land and sea, and that’s become more evident with climate change. But this isn’t just a coastal story anymore.
The oceans moderate the world’s climate through the absorption of heat and carbon. And just how much carbon the ocean will continue to absorb for us remains an open question. Whatever we do, it must be grounded in our growing wisdom of the deep connections between life on land and in the sea.
As Canada commits to a net-zero future and plans its post-COVID economic recovery, innovations and investments could backfire if they reduce the ocean’s ability to absorb our excesses.
Links between land and sea
The ocean has always directly affected the climate on land. The well-being of communities across the globe is directly linked to the ocean’s capacity to continue its regulating role of heat and carbon cycles.
Drought in the Prairies is tied to water temperatures in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. When temperatures are most extreme, they signal the possible arrival of a “megadrought.”
In Australia, the occurrence of below-average rainfall, lasting several years, can be predicted by high Indian Ocean temperatures. This dries soils and lowers river flows, resulting in major community impacts such as water restrictions, declines in agricultural production and increased frequency of bushfires.
Fire burns in the grass near Bumbalong, south of the Australian capital, Canberra, on Feb. 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
The success of Canada’s climate policies will therefore hinge on understanding how ocean processes are changing and society responds. The opportunity is at hand: Canada has committed to net-zero carbon in 2050, and to economic recovery once the COVID-19 pandemic has passed.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses the nation after the throne speech on Sept. 23, 2020.
The federal government’s throne speech in September highlighted the oceans as critical to economic recovery post-COVID. The “blue economy,” mentioned in the throne speech, includes fisheries, aquaculture and offshore wind energy.
These two commitments are fundamentally linked: economic recovery and carbon neutrality both depend on the ocean’s ability to continue to regulate climate through heat and carbon absorption.
But the development of national policies on climate change, both in Canada and internationally, has generally ignored the ocean in climate calculations. Scientists lobbied intensely before the Paris Climate Agreement just to make sure the ocean was mentioned.
Ocean carbon and heat absorption also provide a critical natural timescale against which we can measure our effectiveness in battling climate change. Fluctuations in the ocean “carbon sink” — the amount of carbon the ocean can remove from the atmosphere — will change the urgency with which we need to act.
Hurricanes and winter storms will continue to worsen unless we slow climate change. Hurricane Lorenzo hit the Portuguese island of Faial in October 2019. (AP Photo/Joao Henriques)
For example, a waning carbon sink shrinks our window to curb land-based carbon emissions. But a growing sink might give us more time to enact difficult but necessary carbon policies that will have disruptive economic consequences.
There is no time for delay, and rewards come quickly; strong scientific evidence demonstrates that ocean processes controlling this absorption can either weaken or strengthen measurably in just a few decades.
Heat is absorbed physically from the atmosphere and mixed through the ocean on the scales of millennia. But carbon is absorbed through a complex network of chemical and biological processes, including coastal ecosystems such as kelp, mangroves and seagrasses that sustain local economies. Plankton (the tiny plants and animals that feed everything from mussels to whales) store carbon, so their behaviour and biology become a critical factor in the climate discussion.
We urgently need better observations of the ocean’s continued role as our heat and carbon sink.
Shifting carbon sink
The North Atlantic Ocean is the most intense carbon sink in the world: 30 per cent of the global ocean’s carbon dioxide removal occurs right in Canada’s backyard. If we extend Canada’s net-zero calculation to our exclusive economic zone (waters within 200 nautical miles of our coast), our net carbon emissions could change significantly.
Current estimates suggest including the oceans would reduce net emissions and help us get to net zero faster, but what happens if that changes? We must understand fully the processes controlling the “sink” to make the right climate policy choices.
This recalculation could shift our thinking on how to rejuvenate the Canadian economy. Investment in controversial industries such as deep-sea mining, which can supply materials needed for renewable ocean-based energy technologies like those used in offshore wind, can at the same threaten the very ocean ecosystems and food systems on which we depend. Formulating effective policies in the face of these uncertainties is a major challenge. Our path forward must build on our growing understanding of the deep connections between societal and ocean well-being.
Canadian researchers, including those at the Ocean Frontier Institute where we are based, are poised to address the fundamental questions about the ongoing role of the ocean in absorbing carbon, and to help develop appropriate policies. These conversations cut across traditional academic boundaries. In the past, ocean research was separated into the natural and applied, the social and human sciences. Now, we all need to work together.
The role of the ocean has been neglected for too long and must be drawn to the centre of the carbon discussion as we plot our trajectory to net-zero carbon in 2050. Canada’s carbon policies can lead the way internationally if they are grounded in strong, and strongly integrated, natural and social sciences. It is time for the research community to step up in their support.
A large floating platform with six underwater turbines was launched Monday near the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, marking the latest high-tech bid to generate electricity by harnessing the bay’s powerful tides.
Sustainable Marine Energy Canada started testing a smaller but similar catamaran-style platform near Nova Scotia’s Brier Island in 2018, The Canadian Press reports. The bigger, second-generation platform is expected to undergo testing this winter and spring in the same area, known as Grand Passage.
It will be towed later this year to the bay’s Minas Passage, near Cape Sharp, NS, where it will be permanently installed in a test area that experiences the world’s highest tides. The company describes the 420-kilowatt PLAT-I 6.40 platform as Canada’s first floating tidal energy array. It is expected to produce 50% more power than its predecessor.
The turbines look like inverted windmills and are designed to flip up for maintenance like a boat’s outboard motor, CP says. The platform includes a turret that will allow it to align itself with the tidal flow. It was built by A.F. Theriault and Son Ltd. in Meteghan, NS, the site of Monday’s launch.
Sustainable Marine, whose Canadian office is located in Dartmouth, NS, says its Pempa’q In-stream Tidal Energy Project will eventually include two other platforms and produce a total of nine megawatts of electricity—enough energy to supply 3,000 homes. Pempa’q is the Mi’kmaq word for “rise of the tide.”
The federal government contributed C$28.5 million to the project in November. Sustainable Marine’s parent company is based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Its major shareholders include the Canadian government, Schottel GmbH of Germany, and Scottish Enterprise, based in Glasgow.
“This tidal technology is the result of a tremendous international effort combining world-class scientific and engineering expertise from our German, Scottish, and Canadian teams,” Jason Hayman, CEO of Sustainable Marine Canada, said in a statement released Monday. “(It) is the culmination of a decade of research and development.”
The Bay of Fundy has been the site for several tidal turbine demonstration projects over the years. In 2009, an in-stream prototype turbine that sat on the bottom of the Minas Passage was torn apart by the bay’s powerful currents, which can move at 18 kilometres per hour.
In November 2016, a larger turbine built by Cape Sharp Tidal was hooked up to Nova Scotia’s electric grid—a historic first—but the turbine was later removed for inspections and servicing in June 2017.
In July 2018, Cape Sharp Tidal successfully connected a massive, two-megawatt in-stream tidal turbine to the grid. But the venture collapsed a day later when one of its owners, Dublin-based OpenHydro, was forced into bankruptcy proceedings.
In November 2018, court documents revealed the turbine had been damaged beyond repair only two months after it was deployed on July 24, 2018. The inoperable turbine is still sitting on the floor of the bay.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published February 1, 2021. It has been reprinted with permission from The Energy Mix.
Turbine Noise Killing Herring in NS?
In the discussion forum there is an article from December 2016, written by Cathy Belliveau, of Fall River, Nova Scotia. She lays out the problems the province had with this project’s predecessor. It’s a great article.
Doubts are being raised about the Alberta government’s decision to restore a policy that protects the Rocky Mountains from coal mining.
Energy Minister Sonya Savage on Monday brought back a 1976 policy that keeps open-pit coal mines out of most of the Rockies and foothills. University of Calgary resource law professor Nigel Bankes says the ban doesn’t apply everywhere, despite Savage’s assurances that mountaintop removal mines are prohibited, The Canadian Press reports.
That means Benga Mining’s proposal for such a mine, now before a review panel, could still go ahead.
Bankes also points out exploration already permitted can still go ahead, so hundreds of drill sites and kilometres of roads could still be built despite return of the policy.
Environmentalist Kevin van Tighem calls bringing back the coal policy a “bait and switch.”
He says the energy minister’s letter to the Alberta Energy Regulator still allows for the possibility of open-pit mines.
Last November, APTN News reported concern about the C$800-million project on the part of the Kainai First Nation south of Calgary, also known as the Blood Tribe, despite previous support it received from the mainly Blackfoot bands in southern Alberta that make up Treaty. “This Grassy Mountain Coal Project will cause irreversible damage to our traditional territories, including the mountains, rivers and natural landscapes,” said Kainai member Latasha Calf Robe. “These mountains that our people have occupied since time immemorial will be gone and will never be able to be replaced.”
Calf Robe added that “no community-level consultation has been done on the Blood Tribe, and as far as I know, has not been done with any of the communities in Treaty 7.” So letters of support from Treaty 7 “were issued without community-level consultation in any of these communities.”
Ian Urquhart, conservation director with the Alberta Wilderness Association, said the project “raises important questions about climate change—both for the globe, and also for the federal government to try to meet its commitments under the Paris Accord.”
Coal “is a huge carbon polluter,” he told APTN, and “the steel sector that’s going to use the coal that Benga wants to produce is the largest single industrial source of (carbon and greenhouse) emissions on the planet.”
Benga is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Australian coal developer Riversdale Resources, APTN says.
Norway’s Prime Minister Erna Solberg greets Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the G7 leaders summit in La Malbaie, Que., in June 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
As major oil and gas producers and exporters, Norway and Canada share a particular responsibility for confronting the planet’s existential climate threat. However, their different political, economic and cultural features have resulted in major differences in their climate policy track records.
Overall, Norway is a leader on climate change performance and Canada is a laggard. The 2021 Climate Change Performance Index ranks 61 countries on their progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption, renewable energies and climate policy. Norway ranked eighth overall, while Canada was near the bottom in 58th place.
Both countries face epic challenges in weaning themselves from petroleum dependence — and putting an end to exporting carbon emissions. Canada is a long way from winding down the oil and gas industry and implementing a green and inclusive recovery.
One of the advantages Norway holds is the high degree of equality and inclusivity in the policy process, which translates into a healthier democracy than Canada’s. This is something Canada can learn from and improve upon.
Norway’s exit ramp from oil dependence is bumpy. Despite some contradictory climate actions, Norway’s progress exceeds that of virtually all petro-states, with Canada trailing behind.
Canada recently introduced legislation to meet or exceed a 30 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 compared to 2005, in part by boosting its carbon tax, but continues to heavily subsidize fossil fuel production. Since early 2020, Canada has allocated US$14.6 billion to support fossil fuel energy and an equivalent amount on clean energy.
Norway also spends a lot on its fossil fuel industry — at least US$11.76 billion since 2020. And with an economy that runs largely on renewable energy, it allocated only US$382 million to renewables.
The good, the bad and the ugly
Neither Canada nor Norway has achieved absolute emissions reductions. Industry in both countries downplays this reality, choosing to focus instead on their progress in reducing carbon intensity — emissions per barrel of oil.
Neither country has committed to a production endgame either. Denmark is the first major oil-producing country to commit to terminating state-approved oil exploration in the North Sea and ending all oil extraction by 2050.
Climate change performance index (2021). The first three positions are blank because no country scores high enough. Canada is ranked among the worst performing countries and fell three spots in 2021. (Germanwatch 2020)
Canadian carbon emissions increased 20.9 per cent between 1990 and 2018, mostly driven in turn by a five-fold expansion of oilsands emissions. Canada’s energy regulator predicts oil production overall will grow 41 per cent from 2018 to 2040.
Norway is a unitary state giving the government uncontested jurisdictional authority over climate policy. As a federal state with divided jurisdictions, the Canadian federal government is in a much weaker policy-making position.
There is a high degree of political stability on climate action in Norway. Even the right-wing Progress Party acknowledges the climate threat and supports the government’s climate plan. In Canada, wide swings on climate policy over the past 40 years have thwarted sustained advances. While a majority of Canadians now support decisive action on climate change, there are splits along party lines and geography, with most Conservative provincial governments opposing a carbon tax.
Governing the decentralized Canadian federation is complex. This puts more weight on political leadership in all parties, in all regions, to acknowledge the truth about the climate crisis and build the necessary consensus to meet the challenge.
Political leadership is the art of persuasion: learning from the past, building coalitions, taking bold action. As a major carbon emitter, Canada must fulfil its global responsibility in helping to stop this runaway train.
Denial, delay and division are no longer an option. Leadership that fails avoid a cataclysmic future will be judged harshly by our descendents.
Alberta’s energy minister has promised people will be able to say “no” to coal mining in the Rocky Mountains during upcoming consultations.
