Alberta Election - On the Campaign Trail April 16th

With an additional unprecedented $7 Billion in promises, Wildrose leader Danielle Smith has asked Alison Redford's Progressive Conservatives to come clean on how this would be paid for.  Redford was in a rush to pass a budget prior to dropping the writ. 

While Allan Hunspergers remarks, made in the capacity of a Fundamentalist church pastor are still being kept alive by Redford, the media and he LBGT community, Danielle Smith has stayed on message with the Wildrose platform.  Redford was apparently shocked by the remarks, even though she has a candidate, Ted Morton, in her party with similar radical views.  Smith has made her stance on conscience issue very clear by stating that a Wildrose government would not legislate on conscience issues.  Allan Hunsperger also committed to supporting the party platform in a brief statement yesterday.

"I love people and everybody, I have no intolerance about anyone, but I do have a personal religious view.  My views were my personal religious views.  I also agree with the leader, and Danielle Smith says the Wildrose will not be legislating on contentious social issues."

Danielle Smith, once again reiterated her commitment not to legislate conscience issues.

 "I believe in freedom of religion, and I do believe that religious people do have an opportunity, and should run for public office.  What they believe in their own religious private practice is none of my business," Smith stated. "As a political leader the separation of church and state is there for a reason. We do not want the state interfering in the private religious affairs of our citizens."

Smith previously stated that she was pro-choice and pro-gay marriage.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is well entrenched and he Supreme Court of Canada has ruled on issues like abortion and gay rights.  Time to give the fearmongering a rest. 

Redford came under fire yesterday for comments she apparently made at a private fundraiser.  According to a fundraiser attendee, Redford said that she was still dealing with negative impacts from Klein’s cost-cutting during his reign from 1992-2006.  Klein is suffering from dementia and obviously can't defend himself.  Klein imposed some difficult budget cuts, balanced the budget and ensured that Alberta was debt free, something strange to the PC party now. 

As Redford often does, she reacted.  The comments and criticism caused her to issue a press release.

“There have been questions raised about my commitment to Premier Klein and his legacy. I think it is important to remember, I have been a loyal PC member for the past 32 years, including Premier Klein’s tenure.”

A long time friend of Ralph Klein, with no association to the Wildrose party, criticized Redford's remarks.

 “Leave Ralph Klein alone.  When it comes to Ralph, I am non-partisan. Just leave him alone. This is a man who can’t speak for himself.”

Danielle Smith came under fire for comments she made questioning climate change and said her party would scrap a Progressive Conservative plan to capture greenhouse gases.  She said she would scrap the Progressive Conservative plan to capture greenhouse gases.  She said that she was not denying climate change, but didn't believe in footing a $2 Billion bill on something that is not totally understood.

"We've always acknowledged that our world is in a long-term transition away from carbon fuels.  In the meantime, we want to provide supports to consumers to be able to find energy efficiencies so than can reduce the amount of energy, and amount of emissions." 

Smith said that her government would offer tax rebates to Albertans who made their homes more energy efficient. 

This is without a doubt the most exciting election campaign in Alberta in four decades.  A poll released yesterday has the Wildrose leading with 43%, the PCs at 39%, with Liberals and NDP at 11 and 9% respectively.   The election is on Monday, April 23rd

UN Climate Change Deal Reached

Under the Kyoto Accord only developed nations had a responsibility to reduce carbons.  Canada's stance has been that a new deal should include all large emitters, especially China and India.  Although Canada has often been seen as the bad guy, especially by North American environmentalists, it is only number eight on the list of overall global emitters.  A new deal has been reached at the UN Climate Change Talks in Durban South Africa.  The deal, which is to be negotiated by 2015, would include all emitters and would take effect by 2020.

The deal would also include bodies that would govern and collect and distribute funds for poorer countries.  There would also be rules for monitoring and verifying emissions reductions, protecting forests, transferring clean technologies to developing countries and scores of technical issues.

Kyoto,  which only has binding targets for developed countries and runs out in 2012, would be renewed for five years under the accord adopted on Sunday.   China and India were the largest stumbling block to the accord, but after the Conference president Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, who is South Africa's Energy Minister, called a recess and told EU representatives and those of developed countries to put their head together, a deal was reached.

Although a deal was reached, it is still a long way from becoming reality.   There will most certainly be hard negotiations in the development of the new accord.   The effectiveness of a new accord will be in the details.

Canada's Environment Minister, Peter Kent, said that he was cautiously optimistic that a new agreement could be reached by 2015.

"The Durban Platform sets out a process to negotiate a new climate change treaty that would create binding commitments for all major emitters."

Canada's position, all along, has been that China, India, Brazil and South Africa should be part of a new accord, since emissions of those countries has rising emissions with growing economies.  Canada will not undertake a second Kyoto commitment, which it sees as flawed.

The United States is a reluctant supporter of the new accord, with an election in 2012, the contents of the accord would get little support in Congress.  Ted Stern the U.S. Climate Change Envoy said that the package covered significant advances that would be undone without an accord.

"This is a very significant package. None of us likes everything in it. Believe me, there is plenty the United States is not thrilled about." 

As COP 17 draws to an end, at least it is not concluded empty handed.   Whether or not a draft agreement can be reached will depend on many variables.   There is a spending crisis in most Western nations, which governments know has to be under control.  The most urgent one is in the EU.   With austerity measures being imposed on citizens of EU countries, the money to support any climate change accord has to be found.  Past history would indicate that most support climate change measures until it hits their pocket book.

Durban May Be Close to An Emission Deal

An agreement on new measures to combat climate change may be within reach.  COP 17 has already run one day beyond its planned conference day, however there is confidence that a draft plan may be available today.  A draft plan was issued, which seems to address the concern of all parties.

Much has been made in Canada of the Alberta Oil Sands, which are a great target of environmentalists, however according to the German Environment Minister, Norbert Roettgen, the main blockers of a deal are the U.S., China and India. 

The facts are that Canada is eighth in the ranking of emitters, with the United States, China, Russia, Japan, India, Germany and the UK all emitting more than Canada.

Peter Kent, Canada's Environment Minister, has threatened to pull out of Kyoto if the largest emitters are not included in a treaty. 

The draft, which will be negotiated today, would propose a "roadmap" towards a new deal encompassing all countries and would begin in the New Year to be completed by 2015 at the latest.


That has been the central demand of the European Union and scores of countries vulnerable to climate impacts, including the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis) and the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) bloc.

The draft will not include a binding formula, concession to the United States, which will probably be challenged by the Alliance of Island States.
 

If accepted, the agreement would also spell out - for the first time in the UN climate process - that there is a mismatch, a gap, between the pledges countries have already made on cutting emissions and the cuts necessary to keep global temperatures within 2C of pre-industrial levels.
Developing countries have insisted that EU nations must put their existing pledges on restricting emissions under the Kyoto Protocol; and this is also in the drafts.

That does not mean tougher cuts in Europe in the near future, but it would put EU pledges under an international legal framework.

Agreement on managing the Green Climate Fund, which will eventually gather and disburse finance amounting to $100bn per year to help poor countries develop cleanly and adapt to climate impacts, also appears within reach.  BBC

Climate change has been a hot issue in both Canada and the U.S.  There are those that like to tout a dooms day scenario, while others will accept that there is climate change, but are conflicted that it is in fact human made or a natural phenomena.  E-Mails released earlier and again prior to COP 17, also saw conflicts among scientists, some of whom questioned the validity of the data.  

The Alberta Oil Sands have been the whipping boy of environmentalists professing that the development will spell the end of the planet.   This has also influenced the decision on the XL Keystone Pipeline, with America's so-called "Green President" kicking the decision down the road until at least 2013.  Yet the United States is one of the countries blocking the road to an agreement.  Go figure.