It’s hard to take Danielle Smith’s hysterical outburst at federal environment minister very seriously

At this point, the Liberals are far more concerned about ensuring it looks like major oilpatch corporations are paying attention to global climate change than actually doing anything about it.

The UCP, by contrast, is mired in open climate change denial, sovereignist defiance, and keeping its extremist Take Back Alberta faction sweet.

That’s a perspective from which any old fight with Ottawa is considered worth the effort, explaining Ms. Smith’s intemperate statement yesterday – which sure sounded as if it came out of the word processor of Rob Anderson, her office manager and ideological Svengali.

But from a policy point of view, the effect is much the same.

Ms. Smith and Mr. Anderson may calculate that if this helps elect Pierre Poilievre as prime minister, they’ll be able to get whatever they want from Ottawa anyway. That isn’t necessarily so, but you can see how they might reach that conclusion. |Read more https://albertapolitics.ca/2023/08/its-hard-to-take-danielle-smiths-hysterical-outburst-at-federal-environment-minister-very-seriously/|

#politics #ucp #DanielleSmith #StevenGuilbeault #suncor #environment

Suncor Abandoning Climate Shows Need for Oil and Gas Emissions Cap: Guilbeault

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Guilbeault called the August 15 comments by Suncor CEO Rich Kruger “disappointing,” particularly in the middle of a summer when “tens of thousands of Canadians” were forced to flee wildfires and global temperatures hit record highs in July.

He promised a “revised direction and tone” focused more on the immediate financial opportunities in the oilsands.

“To see the leader of a great Canadian company say that he is basically disengaging from climate change and sustainability, that he’s going to focus on short-term profit, it’s all the wrong answers,” Guilbeault said.

Kruger’s comments come almost a year after his company announced it would sell off its wind and solar power assets, ending its two-decade long foray into the renewable energy business. Earlier this year, Suncor expanded its oilsands operations when it bought the Fort Hills oilsands mine from Teck Resources and TotalÉnergies.

Draft regulations to eliminate emissions from Canada’s electricity sector were published earlier in August and are still in the comment period.

The oil and gas cap regulations were expected already, but Guilbeault acknowledged they have been delayed.

“It is a complex piece of regulation,” he said.

But the minister said they are coming, and industry has to do its part.

“I don’t think in 2023 you can be a good corporate citizen and not play your role,” he said.

The main body of this report was first published by The Canadian Press on August 29, 2023. |Read more https://www.theenergymix.com/2023/08/30/suncor-abandoning-climate-shows-need-for-oil-and-gas-emissions-cap-guilbeault/|

#ClimateChange #Cost #environment #world #cdnpoli #politics #emissions #suncor #regulations #Guilbeault #tarsands

The true cost of climate pollution? 44% of corporate profits

What if companies had to pay for the problems their carbon emissions cause? Their profits would plunge, according to new estimates, possibly wiping out trillions in financial gains.

These results, spelled out in a recent study in the journal Science, are based on analysis of almost 15,000 publicly-traded companies around the world. To calculate how much each ton of carbon emissions ends up costing society, economists used the Environmental Protection Agency’s estimate of $190 per ton.

For all of those companies combined, the damage would run into the trillions of dollars, Christian Leuz, a coauthor of the study and a business professor at the University of Chicago, told the Associated Press. The researchers only included direct emissions from companies, not “downstream” emissions related to the products they sell. (So emissions from the operations needed to build cars would count; the pollution that comes out of its tailpipe wouldn’t.)

But even as the toll of carbon emissions becomes apparent, governments around the world are pouring more money into support for fossil fuel companies than ever before. Last year, subsidies for oil, coal, and natural gas reached a record high of $7 trillion, according to a report out Thursday from the International Monetary Fund, which works out to $13 million every minute. |Read more https://grist.org/economics/true-cost-carbon-pollution-half-of-corporate-profits-climate/|

#ClimateChange #Cost #environment #world #cdnpoli #politics #emissions