Today was a big day for the NDP and what they plan to do about the environment. Environment Minister Shannon Phillips announced that the existing $15-per-tonne levy will increase to $20 per tonne next year and $30 per tonne in 2017. Phillips also announced that industrial facilities that emit more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year will need to cut emissions intensity below a base line to 15% (from 12% today) in 2016 and 20% in 2017.
Phillips also appointed Alberta School of Business professor, Andrew Leach, to chair a comprehensive review of Alberta’s climate change policy. The goal for Leach (who has zero oil and gas industry experience) will be to have a preliminary proposal ready in time for international climate change talks in Paris set for December.
Leach is a vocal commentator on the environment and oil sands development. Up until this appointment, Leach was a Professor of Energy Policy at the University of Alberta; a position he held for two years. Leach has also been a vocal critic of Prime Minister Stephen Harper saying “There is one person to blame for the fact that Canada, to date, does not have greenhouse gas policy for the oil sands: Prime Minister Stephen Harper”.
And for the two and half years that the BOE Report has been serving Canada (now the most read oil and gas news service in the country), very little criticism has been made about the articles that are published. Leach, however, has gone out of his way to be critical of work the BOE Report has done. During the recent Alberta election, Leach called a piece concerning Notley and fraccing ‘ridiculous’ via Twitter.
Not one to waste any time, Leach, as Chair of Alberta’s Climate Change Advisory Panel, has already begun listening to Pembina Institute’s Executive Director, Ed Wittingham.