Alberta Oil & Gas’ Coup Against Renewable Energy
A clean energy think tank says Alberta's pause on approvals for new renewable energy projects is affecting 118 projects worth $33 billion of investment.
In a new report, the Pembina Institute says those projects would create enough jobs to keep 24,000 people working for a year.
It says those projects represent what could be $263 million in local taxes and leases for landowners in 27 municipalities.
- Renewables pause in Alberta affecting 118 projects worth $33B, think tank says, CBC News
By Gregg Wall (9-2-2023)
It’s odd, downright strange.
Alberta just held a provincial election, and the United Conservative Party (UCP) made no mention of their desire to harm investments, jobs, innovation, and the economy. And yet, arguably, that’s exactly what Premier Smith & UCP did in early August when they announced the halting of renewable energy approvals for six months. The natural reaction from investors, with billions on the line, was: we may look elsewhere (and take our jobs, boost to the economy, and tax revenue with us).
You might expect government intervention into the economy like this, perhaps from a progressive government, that sees the writing on the wall for fossil fuels. Indeed, your humble author has called for the American & Canadian governments, on any number of occasions, to nationalize fossil fuels, wind down the industry, with the proceeds going to fund a green grid, reparations, remediation, and clean up. With North America, indeed, the Northern hemisphere, presently in flames and suffering suffocating blast furnace heat, due to fossil fuels, such a proposal & government intervention makes perfect sense.
And yet, this is, here in Alberta, a libertarian government. UCP, so I’ve read, is all about free markets, the invisible hand, price discovery, and allowing innovation & jobs creation. Supposedly, UCP is the party of limited government. But apparently, there’s a clear departure between campaign rhetoric, libertarian theory, and reality. And this is something we’ve see throughout Western governments, and particularly from centrists, corporatists, and neoliberals (aka libertarians) … the desire to protect donors & entrenched interests, the desire to crush opportunity & innovation (in the furtherance of a failed status quo). And if consumers and labor suffer w/ sky high gas and utility prices, and fewer jobs, detrimental to the Alberta economy, that’s simply too damn bad. If humanity suffers from a burning planet, toxic air, deadly heat, and diminished crop production, that too, is too bad.
Alberta has a deadly fossil fuels industry to protect. This coup, this hypocrisy, to be sure, is nothing short of catastrophic for Alberta & Canada. It also tells us something about the fossil fuels industry, an industry that now takes in $7 trillion in direct & indirect subsidies, globally. Namely, that the industry cannot compete against renewables, and so endless lobbying to shut renewables down. (No few in number were recently patting themselves on the back that renewable energy received a trillion in investments. Now, compare the trillion in investments to the seven trillion in welfare the fossil fuels industry receives.)
At one time democracy was said to offer experimentation, innovation, and opportunity. Governments might try greater social spending or a pivot back to free market principles, and these experiments were something other nations could look towards and learn from. But Western governments, now controlled by multinationals & oligarchy, seem to have shut that down. After all, what interest do centrist and corporatist politicians… reporting into bankers, billionaires, monopolies, & utilities… have in a departure from the status quo. Particularly, when the failed status quo prints out billion and billions in quarterly returns.
It appears that libertarians and neoliberals have abandoned all the very principles that made capitalism worthwhile, in favor of greed, monopoly, and profit maximization. Innovation, competition, price discovery (completely necessary for a free market economy), increased jobs and rising wages have all been abandoned for boardroom & C-suite dictators & despots… setting captured gov policy, prices, and wages (w/ maniacal control). And given these same boardrooms' & C-suites' quest for unlimited corporate socialism… including but not limited to, corporate welfare, bailouts, privatized profits – socialized costs and R&D, captured regulatory bodies, control & ownership of political duopolies & due process, free money welfare from central banks, etc, etc… what we are seeing throughout the West is the merger of corporate interests and the state.
What many recognize as nothing less than fascism. As for the people of Alberta, they’ll pay and pay for this type of crony capitalism & ultra-corrupt libertarian government. Albertans will pay with lower wages, fewer jobs, grossly elevated prices at the pump & utility bills, a lower standard of living, and an economy that has lost out on investment, innovation, and opportunity. The resulting drag on the economy will, of course, damage social cohesion and stress families.
And democracy & society will further rend in two… which has, historically, been a key strategy of the highly corrupt, powerful, and wealthy. Best to keep on eye on libertarians, best to watch both what they say and what they do.
Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2023
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