Kyoto Speakers Series: Murray Smith
[ You may also read this at Alberta IndyMedia.]
On November 14, the Honourable Murray Smith, Alberta Minister of Energy, presented his talk as part of the University of Calgary Kyoto Speakers Series entitled, ``Kyoto: A Made in Canada Solution''.
Mr. Smith tried to keep his presentation up-beat by starting off with a joke. As a segue into his reasoning for why the `` Alberta Plan'' is better than and preferable to Kyoto, Mr. Smith made reference to a dizzying variety of disparate statistics and quotations.
Many of these were incorrect or misleading; it might have made sense to tabulate his position in order to present it more cohesively.
For example:
- Mr. Smith claimed to know of, ``no poor country with a good environmental record''. One may easily compare the per-capita emissions of countries like China to see that this is nonsense. This gross measure doesn't really compare ``environmental records'' in the fullest sense, of course, but China has a long, long way to go before they're polluting as much as North America. Mr. Smith's implication was, I think, that we have a good environmental record.
- It was also claimed that, ``without the participation of countries like China or India [ratification of the Kyoto Protocol] will have no impact''. Although China and India are tempting scapegoats when one looks at their total emissions, there would be a huge impact on total carbon emissions if all other nations were to reduce their per-capita production of carbon dioxide (and equivalents) to Indian or Chinese levels, which are far below North American levels. Additionally, North America and Europe have an excellent opportunity to lead by example and help developing nations avoid the pollution-rich industrial expansion in our history; suggesting that they do as we say and not as we have done in order to curb an emission problem which is largely North American and European seems rather hypocritical.
- Apparently convinced that GDP growth and emissions growth were strongly causally related (i.e. if GDP is to grow, emissions must grow and vice versa), I invited Mr. Smith (twice; he first directed listeners to the Alberta Plan Web site, which includes no such research) to point out which economic research had convinced him of this. The authors of parts of the Alberta Plan also appear convinced of this relationship. For example, the ``key findings'' article claims, ``The magnitude of that [presumed] disadvantage [with US corporations] would depend on the amount of embodied energy/carbon in a product and the market price of carbon emissions.'' This correlation is historically true in developing economies [ WorldWatch, WorldWatch, EPI] but seems to be weakening at a faster rate lately, and it may not make sense to use this presumption when predicting decades into the future; extensive analysis of this presumption should have been done before using it as a foundation for a policy initiative. Murray Smith has promised such analysis, but has yet to get back to me as of November 26 [see also my Web site for some information from Gordon Vincent].
- Murray Smith brought up vague fear, uncertainty and doubt about the US not ratifying Kyoto (although the Government report says, ``Competitiveness impacts for Canada with the U.S. opting out of Kyoto are not understood.'') despite the fact that many US states are taking quite drastic emissions action notwithstanding the national government's stance. The spectre of jobs moving to the US seems to be mere speculation, since many states have already implemented far more stringent environmental controls than Canadian jurisdictions [ Pembina Institute].
Murray Smith's talk was reasonably short and although it was rambling in places, much of the general thrust seemed to be towards the utility of the Alberta Plan. Much was made about how effective it would be in reducing emissions; there wasn't any mention of why the Plan couldn't be made to work within Kyoto targets if this is true, however.
For example, Mr. Smith claimed that ``[the Alberta Plan will make Alberta] as good or better than the rest of the world in emissions reductions''. It was not made clear how this would compare with nations which are planning to ratify Kyoto, nor with countries which already have ratified nor even with current US-State reductions.
At least Murray Smith wasn't ambiguous about his stance on Kyoto, unlike Alan Amey from Climate Change Central (the ``Public Private Partnership'' about which Mr. Smith made brief mention); ``I am anti-Kyoto,'' said Mr. Smith during questions.
One questioner was confused about how to compare the Kyoto targets (which specify absolute levels of carbon emissions; 94% of 1990 levels by 2012) with the Alberta Plan, which specifies only targets for the reduction of the ``intensity'' of emissions. Mr. Smith allowed that emissions could (and probably would) grow quite a lot above 1990 levels under the Alberta Plan; the Alberta Plan calls for a 50% reduction in the ``intensity'' of emissions by 2020, which means that total emissions would be allowed to increase to arbitrary levels but that the rate of growth of emissions could be at most half of what it was in 1990 by 2020.
You can view Murray Smith's entire presentation as Webcast by the University of Calgary if you have a QuickTime decoder.