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.
A new report suggests the economic impact of the pandemic led to a massive increase in federal aid to Canada’s oil patch.
But the annual inventory of fossil fuel subsidies published by the International Institute for Sustainable Development also highlights that almost all of the direct aid was paid out in two programs to protect jobs and cut greenhouse gas emissions.
It raises further questions about how to define fossil fuel subsidies, an issue Canada has not solved despite promising to eliminate “inefficient” ones for more than a decade now.
“The problematic aspect is how do we make sure they’re not supporting for future fossil fuel production,” said Vanessa Corkal, a policy analyst at the IISD and author of the report.
Her report notes that it makes no sense for Canada to both provide direct funding to help fossil fuel producers and charge a price on the pollution fossil fuels create, likening it to “trying to bail water out of a leaky boat.”
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.
EDMONTON — Critics are asking why Alberta Environment has been sitting on years’ worth of data about pollution from coal mines while the government considers a dramatic expansion of the industry.
“It raises some important questions about our ability to trust what’s going on,” said New Democrat environment critic Marlin Schmidt. “The fact (Alberta Environment) hasn’t reported publicly is extremely concerning.”
On Monday, The Canadian Press reported on analysis of coal mine contamination in the Gregg and McLeod Rivers and Luscar Creek near Jasper, Alberta, dating back to the 1990s. It found toxic levels of selenium many times over the amount considered safe for aquatic life, CP says.
The Gregg and Luscar Creek mines closed in the early 2000s. Selenium levels from both declined, at best, only gradually over more than 15 years of remediation.
In the case of the Cheviot mine on the McLeod River, levels gradually grew between 2005 and 2017. The operation closed last June.
The data also shows the provincial government knew about the levels for at least 15 years and did not report anything after 2006. The information was available in raw form, but Schmidt said it isn’t enough to simply collect information.
“There are numbers and then there are the numbers that the stories tell. That’s the piece that’s missing.”
The New Democrats were in power for four of those years. Schmidt said sitting on the information is worse now because Alberta is going through a wrenching debate over the present government’s plans to expand the industry by opening up the Rocky Mountains to open-pit, mountaintop coal mines—an option that did not exist under the NDP.
“This data’s relevance is more important now,” he said.
Alberta Environment has pointed out that the raw data has always been public. Spokesperson John Muir promised the province would soon release its own report on water downstream of coal mines.
Lack of action shows that monitoring often promised by industry and government as new projects are considered isn’t enough, said Katie Morrison of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.
“On those rivers we’re seeing that monitoring hasn’t been enough to actually control selenium. We just continue to promise monitoring. We didn’t see action to bring those selenium numbers down.”
A 2006 provincial report found that selenium was already harming fish. As well, a 2005 published study co-authored by provincial scientists found rainbow trout were suffering facial and skeletal deformities from selenium.
The province has recently sold about 1.4 million hectares of coal exploration leases. Hundreds of drill sites and kilometres of new roads have already been permitted on previously unmined mountainsides. One new coal mine, Benga Mining’s Grassy Mountain project in the Crowsnest Pass in southwestern Alberta, is before a joint federal-provincial review.
The information on the old coal mines shows what’s at issue for new ones, said Morrison.
“Those stakes are really high,” she told CP. Selenium release “has been happening other places and they have not been able to get the selenium under control.”
Benga says a new method should allow the mine to treat 99% of its selenium. As well, the mine has been designed to minimize contact between water and selenium-bearing rocks, the company says.
Morrison said that treatment is still unproven. She said if its efficiency falls to even 90%, selenium levels in nearby streams will cross thresholds safe for aquatic life.
Morrison said her group produced expert testimony at the Benga hearings suggesting the company doesn’t have a convincing long-term plan for controlling selenium long into the future.
“We have not seen that technology work at the scale that we’ll need it to or with the amount of selenium we’re likely to see.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published January 26, 2021
Alberta’s energy minister has promised people will be able to say “no” to coal mining in the Rocky Mountains during upcoming consultations.
