Canada Alberta province creates anti-Kyoto task force
Date: 26-Sep-02
Country: MEXICO
Klein, premier of Canada's Alberta province, said Canadian lawyer Peter Lougheed was leading the task force of government and private sector members.
Alberta, which pumps the majority share of Canada's oil and gas, has opposed the plan as proposed to cut greenhouse emissions under the international accord because it would cripple the province's energy industry and suck billions of dollars from its economy.
"Peter Lougheed is leading a task force that is made up of members of our government and private sector members ... to examine the constitutional issues surrounding this debate," Klein told reporters in Mexico City.
In the 1980s, Alberta argued successfully that Canada's federal government in Ottawa had no right to tax energy exports to the United States because the province had jurisdiction over the resources.
Klein said late this week that a constitutional challenge would come only if Alberta cannot convince other provinces to reject the accord.
Klein, in Mexico to examine business opportunities for companies from Alberta, identified the provinces of Manitoba and Quebec as ones which will not likely support Alberta's campaign against the Kyoto accord because of their capacity to provide clean-burning water generated power. "Both have massive water resources," Klein said.
Alberta has the highest greenhouse emissions per capita in Canada, mainly due to the large amounts of carbon dioxide and other gases produced by the energy sector.
Under Kyoto, signed in 1997, Canada is committed to cutting emissions of greenhouse gases to six percent below 1990 levels by 2012.