Alberta mulls changes to CO₂ rules

Alberta regulators will explore raising the price its largest emitters can pay into a technology fund to comply with provincial carbon regulations, a move could also boost carbon offset prices. Bob Savage, director at Alberta Environment’s climate change secretariat, told Reuters Point Carbon that the ministry will test the potential impact of raising the fund price, lowering the emission reduction targets and widening the program to more participants over the next month or two. The program is limited to emitters that produce over 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, which amount to 90-100 facilities. He said that when the carbon regulations were first rolled out in 2007, Alberta expected that its rules would be preempted by federal climate change regulation. But five years later, the Conservative party government has backed off plans to launch an economy-wide carbon reduction program, opting instead to address emissions on a sector-by-sector basis. “If you wind back the clock and think of the context at that time, it looked like the government was moving forward with Turning the Corner (its national climate plan). So the thinking at the time was that we would eventually be at tougher targets and see stronger carbon price signals,” he said. Under the oil-rich western province’s climate change law, facilities that emit more than 100,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year must reduce their emissions intensity by 12 percent. The 90-100 facilities that must comply with the law have three options for meeting the intensity target, including paying C$15 ($14.96) for every tonne they emit over the limit into a government fund that will help commercialize new technologies, such as carbon capture and storage.