Province challenges federal net zero regulations
By Lethbridge Herald on May 3, 2025.
Al Beeber
Lethbridge Herald
The provincial government will be challenging federal net zero regulation in the Alberta Court of Appeal.
Flanked by Justice Minister Mickey Amery, Nathan Neudorf, Lethbridge East MLA and Minister of Affordability and Utilities, and Rebecca Shulz, Minister of Environment and Protected Areas Rebecca Shulz, Premier Danielle Smith said the regulations will have serious implications for grid reliability and electricity affordability.
Starting in 2035, federal regulations – which were finalized last December – will set limits on carbon dioxide pollution from virtually all electricity generation units that burn fossil fuels.
The federal government says the regulations provide flexibilities and don’t prescribe specific technological solutions but rather enable provinces, territories and municipalities to choose the solutions they feel are best for their own jurisdictions.
“As older units retire and are gradually replaced with cleaner and more efficient units, GHG emissions will decrease. By 2050, the regulations will ensure a net-zero electricity system,” says the federal government.
Smith said the Alberta electric system operator’s analysis shows those regulations “set an emission limit that is completely unattainable and would make Alberta’s electricity system even more expensive, more than 100 times less reliable than the province’s supply adequacy set standard.”
She said the regulations have caused uncertainty and set “absurd timelines” that have killed any hope of private industry from bringing online any new clean, reliable natural gas-powered generation.”
Without natural gas power generation, Alberta “would be at serious risk of regular brownouts and blackouts during the cold dead of winter, through the dog days of summer,” said Smith, noting regulations jeopardize affordability with costs increasing by $30 billion and raising electricity prices by 35 per cent for Albertans.
Smith said “if Ottawa had its way, Albertans would be left to freeze in the dark.”
The premier added that Carney must immediately start working with the provincial government to reset their relationship “with meaningful action, not hollow rhetoric.”
Ottawa believes that while Canada’s electrical sector has taken steps to reduce greenhouse emissions, an expected increase in electricity generation could see those emissions increase without what it calls regulatory guardrails.
About 85 per cent of the country’s electricity currently comes from renewable sources of energy or non-emitting sources including wind, solar, hydro and nuclear.
Federal figures which cite a national inventory report from 2022 show 62 per cent of Alberta’s electricity is generated by natural gas and 19 per cent by coal. Hydro generates one per cent of electricity while other renewables contribute 16 per cent of the total. Smith, however, says natural gas 1 generates 75 per cent of the province’s electricity.
In contrast, neighbouring British Columbia generates 95 per cent of its electricity by hydro, Saskatchewan 14 per cent and Manitoba 97 per cent.
Canada-wide hydro generates 64 per cent of electricity, natural gas 10 per cent and coal four per cent.
Amery said the regulations set an unachievable target given current technology and infrastructure.
“The reliance on unproven technologies make it nearly impossible to operate natural gas plants without costly upgrades, threatening investment, reliability and Alberta’s energy security,” Amery said.
He said the government constitution shows clearly that provinces have exclusive jurisdiction over “the development, conservation and management of sites for the generation and production of electrical energy.”
Regulations fail to acknowledge “the unique characteristics of Alberta,” including its climate, economy and electrical power system,” said Amery, noting courts have agreed with Alberta on similar questions of federal over-reach.
Neudorf told media that “our job is to always put Albertans and their wellbeing first. What the federal government’s clean electricity regulations is doing is putting ideology first and we cannot allow that to stand.
“Electricity is not a luxury. Albertans increasingly depend on electricity to provide for their families, put food on the table, power their businesses and chase a better future” and federal regulations put reliability and affordability of the provincial grid at risk.
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“Alberta will be left to freeze in the dark.”
Her and her cronies either ignore the danger on the horizon of climate change or simply choose to ignore it. Climate skeptics love her, no doubt genuflecting every morning toward her and her minions. The government federally has no intention of creating a “lights out” fiasco and neither is it focusing on one province. That oil and gas happens to be focused on Alberta has been to the province’s advantage for decades, so it is no surprise that the focus happens to be this province – along side other emitters across the nation. He (Carney) has already made a significant concession regarding the CT, but without future conditions applied to industry , that future looks grim – unless you are a climate skeptic, alongside the moon landing and believe in the “flat earth”.
Well said. We (all of us) have had thirty years since the first IPCC report on climate change to direct efforts in reduction, efficiency, and transition to low-ghg technologies. Instead we (all of us) have drifted along with the status quo or, in the case of conservative governments, actively undermined any efforts to act responsibly. It is sad.
It is sad and probably too late to avoid the many converging and destabilizing (ecological and social) stresses global warming will cause. And where will these so-called leaders (including our own MLA) be then? These are the faces of failure.
I would argue that many individuals and species around the world are already experiencing the destabilizing impact of climate change.
https://wmo.int/news/media-centre/africa-faces-disproportionate-burden-from-climate-change-and-adaptation-costs
https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/attribution-studies/index.html
Point taken on the future tense. Interesting article on attribution. It astounds me that our government can speak about the ‘costs’ of not pumping oil or digging coal out of the ground fast enough, but can ignore the real costs of extreme weather attributed to a warming earth: The former being an accounting procedure, the latter being damaged infrastructure, destroyed habitat, and human/non-human lives.
I’m originally from a very large farm in Alberta. I am well aware of how important water is for us all. You raised good points. Does the UCP and Danielle Smith care? No.
Even the UCP aren’t being forthright, or honest.
https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/alberta-oil-and-gas-companies-not-consulted-emissions-cap-challenge
https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/renewables-pause-in-alberta-affecting-118-projects-worth-33-billion-think-tank-says
Maybe time to go back to 1963 policy and convert those natural gas power plants back to coal power? Environmentally destructive renewable energy systems, particularly solar, don.t seem to working all that well.
Thanks Danielle, for bringing sober assessment to our energy needs.
Maybe you should understand that coal fired power is very polluting? Also, the UCP are being deceptive with the net zero issue.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/ottawa-tells-energy-firms-to-start-powering-down-coal-fired-plants/article1373738/
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/new-premier-prentice-says-canada-needs-new-markets-for-alberta-oil/article20651943/
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/parties-promise-to-close-alberta-coal-plants-encourage-renewable-energy
https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/alberta-oil-and-gas-companies-not-consulted-emissions-cap-challenge
sober, eh? she is more to the tune of gnarly fingernails raking the blackboard. what comes out of her is about as serviceable as is leaching tailings.
You really do not have a clue. Cynical response contributing nothing to the discussion. Clearly a DS acolyte bowing at the Altar of David Parker et al.
Danielle Smith misses why our power bills are the most costliest in Canada, and she doesn’t see why Alberta has power grid problems.
https://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/ndp-urged-to-re-establish-alberta-electricity-advantage
https://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/transalta-agrees-to-pay-56m-for-power-price-manipulation-in-alberta
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-electricity-economic-withholding-1.6946797
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/politics/conditions-have-changed-government-kills-planned-changes-to-albertas-electricity-market
https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/albertas-utilities-minister-defends-energy-only-power-market-amid-blackout-scare
well shared.
it sure is odd how those that favour unsustainable, heavy polluting, eco-destructive approaches, simply so as to maximise greed, love to use outlandish all or nothing sound bites: as in, “Alberta will be left to freeze in the dark.”
somehow, greed and self service will ever trump cleanliness, health, and respect for all life and that which sustains life, and the lives to come, from whom we hold this land in trust.
gosh, if only there was a way we could just make do with having all our needs, but accepting less in the way of wants. but, the very idea we should ever consider the folly of how much energy we use to maintain so much stuff that we have come to believe we need, yet is merely about distraction and time suck.
shucks, if we gots the money then we gots ta have more stuff. read: having the money is 9/10ths our morality.