A Timbit with that Double-Double? Costs and emission reductions of renewed carbon policy in Alberta
This report has a sharable inforgraphic, click here to view.
Alberta is set to renew its 2007 Specified Gas Emitter Regulation (SGER), which will expire in September 2014. Recent indications are that Alberta is considering a “double-double” approach, which doubles the current regulatory standard of a 12 per cent intensity improvement and CAD$15 price ceiling. This report examines the implications of a renewed SGER with both a 24 per cent greenhouse gas intensity improvement that sets the greenhouse gas reductions required from the oil and gas sector and a $30 per tonne price ceiling that sets a maximum cost obligation to comply with the regulations.
A renewed SGER policy based on double-double parameters would deliver emission reductions inside and outside the oil and gas sector while providing research and development incentives through technology fund recycling. The costs of the double-double proposal are less than the price of a Timbit per barrel, or $0.13; however, emission reductions would be equal about 20 per cent of Canada’s remaining Copenhagen emissions gap in 2020.
You might also be interested in
Designed to Fail
This report explores how low-density, car-oriented development increases infrastructure costs and drives greenhouse gas emissions.
Memorandum of Understanding Agreement Erodes Last Pillar of Canadian Climate Policy
The governments of Canada and Alberta have announced new details on an oil pipeline while significantly weakening the industrial carbon price. Doubling down on oil and gas while much of the world is transitioning away from fossil fuels sets Canada on a path toward greater economic risk and worsening climate impacts.
Weakening Canada's Industrial Carbon Price Raises Emissions With No Clear Economic Benefit
News today of a reported agreement between the federal and Alberta governments that the carbon price paid by industry may not reach CAD 130/tonne until 2040 would represent a significant and unnecessary watering down of the current industrial carbon price.
Joint Letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney on Alberta-Federal MOU
IISD joins five other leading climate and clean energy organizations to highlight the urgent need for a final agreement.