Energy policy

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(Vancouver) Leading environmental organizations, unions and a wide range of other groups are calling on the government and opposition to launch a frank conversation about climate change during the 2013 BC election campaign.   “We don’t want BC to repeat the failure to discuss climate change that we saw in the US elections,” says Marc Lee, co-director of the Climate Justice Project and one of the organizers of the open letter. “In spite of dramatic weather events and other clear signs, American politicians were silent on what many are now calling a planetary emergency.”
OTTAWA – Une nouvelle étude du Centre canadien de politiques alternatives compare l’expérience du Canada et de l’Alberta à celle de la Norvège, autre important pays producteur et exportateur de pétrole. L’auteur y constate que les deux pays ont emprunté des voies très différentes et obtenu des résultats très différents.
OTTAWA—A new study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives compares the Canada and Alberta experience to that of Norway, another major petroleum producing and exporting country, and finds they have taken very different paths and with very different outcomes.
(Vancouver) A new study warns that BC’s water and hydroelectric resources are at risk of being depleted by industrial users, thanks to lax reporting requirements and extremely low water prices. Released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the University of Victoria’s POLIS Project on Ecological Governance, the study identifies gaping holes in key information relating to the water that major industries use. For example, of the 31 water licences held by pulp and paper companies — large consumers of water and hydro — only one requires water metering.
It’s amazing to watch the lengths to which Enbridge and the oil industry will go in pretending that tar sands diluted bitumen (dilbit) is no different from conventional oil.  On Aug. 26, the Canadian Press reported that the Northern Gateway spill-response plan filed by Enbridge with the National Energy Board’s Joint Review Panel (JRP) deals only with conventional oil, not specifically with the dilbit that the proposed pipeline will carry.
It’s always pathetic to watch otherwise intelligent people being played like a violin by the oil and gas industry. There’s no shame in it – we’ve all been played – but it’s pathetic nonetheless. I’m referring to the United Association of Pipefitters, one of the 14 trade unions being featured in the new ad campaign from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) touting the tar sands as a great employer of skilled trade workers.
BC’s quest to substantially boost natural gas development seems like a real winner at first glance: heaps of new jobs in the Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) industry, billions in government revenues, and exports that fight global climate change by displacing coal in China.
(Vancouver) Just five years ago the BC government legislated targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), but the province’s 2012 Natural Gas Strategy risks breaking that legislation. The legislation calls for a 33% reduction in GHG emissions by 2020 and 80% by 2050. In a report released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ BC Office, CCPA senior economist Marc Lee finds that: