For Our Grandchildren received a response to their August letter to the Minister of the Environment, Peter Kent, commenting on the approval given Maxim Power to construct a 5OO-megawatt supercritical pulverized coal plant in the area of Grande Cache, Alberta.
In our letter to Minister Kent we expressed our concern that this plant will emit up to three million tons of greenhouse-gases (GHG) per year. This future discharge of GHG would further undermine Canada’s good faith in giving commitments on GHG reductions after the Copenhagen Conference. Who better to write to than the Minister of the Environment?
How did Minister Kent react to this increase in GHG? His response letter did not even acknowledge there was a concern. He ignored the GHG issue.
For what is it worth, the motivation of the Government – according to Minister Kent – was to allow industry ample time to make the transition to new regulations coming into force in July 2015, and not strand capital investments.
What a change of approach! The former Minister of the Environment, James Prentice understood that developers would rush approval of their projects to evade new Federal carbon legislation.
Prentice stated:”We will guard against any rush to build non-compliant coal plants in the interim.”
Minister Kent solution avoids the issue of non-compliance by postponing the effect of the regulations until well in the future.
And the United Nations Durban Conference on how to curb climate change starts in seven days! The Government of Canada prefers that the Conference be a non-event, with the participants failing to agree on a continuation or replacement of the Kyoto Convention. And of course the usual consensus statement that the Conference has made great progress in tackling climate change.
Peter Jones
