Harper wants joint Canada-U.S. policies on energy, ecology

Campbell Clark, January 20, 2009, Globe and Mail -- Canada will propose a series of common environmental standards and energy-development plans to new U.S. President Barack Obama beyond a North American cap-and-trade system for greenhouse-gas emissions, government sources say.

The Harper government is planning to propose the harmonization of goals for using bio-fuels such as ethanol, fuel-efficiency standards for cars, and targets for so-called "low-carbon" power plants - which, over time, might push the United States into buying more Canadian hydro to replace its dirtier coal-generated power.

The government will argue that "a cap and trade system will be insufficient alone to get the job done," a source said.

As the Harper Conservatives seek to tie energy security to a greenhouse-gas deal, they will also ask the U.S. to set a joint strategy for developing pipelines that will bring natural gas from Alaska and Canada's North to markets in the U.S.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper fields a question at a news conference after meeting with members of the Atlantic business community in Halifax on Monday. Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press Enlarge Image

The Canadian proposal for a Canada-U.S. climate change pact is a key foreign policy initiative for a Conservative government hoping to engage Mr. Obama, who is being inaugurated today as the 44th U.S. president, on his own priorities.

It is aimed at ensuring that by joining the same system to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, Canadian industry, including Alberta's oil sands, will not be hit by export tariffs or restrictions proposed by some U.S. lawmakers.

Environment Minister Jim Prentice is expected to flesh out the Canadian proposals in coming weeks, including in a speech today in Toronto. Sources say the Harper government also wants the U.S. to work jointly on energy plans to expand electricity transmission and link North America's East and West grids.

And Canada wants to co-ordinate gas-pipeline strategy, in part because it wants to ensure that plans to build the Mackenzie Valley pipeline from the Beaufort Sea through the Northwest Territories are not competing with a plan to develop a pipeline from Alaska through the Yukon and B.C.

Ottawa wants the more advanced Mackenzie Valley project to go first - Mr.
Prentice said yesterday that the government has offered to pay an unspecified portion of the costs - but Mr. Obama has promised to develop the Alaskan pipeline.

University of Alberta energy expert André Plourde said that questions about developing hydro power over time are secondary, because electricity exports are relatively small right now, and oil and gas are a much bigger issue.

More important, he said, is ensuring that Mr. Obama's pledge to reduce dependency on oil from the Middle East and Venezuela does not discriminate against Canadian products - so that even if oil sands projects face higher costs because of their greater emissions, they do not face punitive rules.