On November 22, 2015, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley announced a far-reaching and comprehensive new strategy on climate change. It not only responds to recommendations of the Climate Change Advisory Panel (“Panel”), which the provincial government appointed this past summer, but also fulfills the Premier’s promise to disclose Alberta’s new climate change policy initiatives before the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (“COP 21”) in Paris later this month.
Premier Notley’s announcement is a framework only which draws from the Panel’s report, but does not specifically endorse all of the Panel’s conclusions. Premier Notley states that the intent of her new policies is to “bend-the-curve of Alberta’s emissions” and engage in “new collaborative conversation about Canada’s energy infrastructure”
This will result in new greenhouse gas taxes for all corporations and individuals in Alberta with a carbon footprint. Moreover, the provincial government ushered in sweeping new regulatory requirements for the electricity, oil and gas industries.
Borden Ladner Gervais LLP – November 23, 2015.