Alberta admits it can’t keep pace

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Rapid growth in the Alberta oil sands is likely to outstrip government efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions, said the province’s Environment Minister Rob Renner.

The sheer volume of projects under construction or in the planning stages means there is no hope of Alberta achieving any absolute reduction in GHGs in the near future, he said. In fact, government estimates suggest emissions could be 64 percent above the Kyoto Protocol benchmarks by 2020, despite the province’s plan to enforce a 12 percent cut per unit of production.

“Unless there are significant changes at the rate at which (projects) are developed, we could see an additional one-third in the industrial side in new (carbon dioxide) production,” Renner said.

He said government, industry and ordinary citizens all have a role to play in reducing manmade emissions.

—Gary Park