A brief history of climate fiddling

The energy policies of the Canadian and New Brunswick governments during the last decade were examined to outline any problems and accomplishments regarding their objectives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as specified in the Kyoto Protocol. Historically, New Brunswick's energy policy has been dominated by electricity policy. The province managed to keep power rates very low compared to other jurisdictions by importing inexpensive hydro power from Quebec for domestic purposes and by constructing large power plants to export power to American electricity markets. In the late 1980's the provincial government announced a long-term energy policy that was environmentally sustainable. The policy included increasing energy efficiency and conservation while supporting renewable and alternative energy sources. The green policy outlined the need to reduce greenhouse gases, acidifying emissions and ozone-causing pollution. It also outlined how much new generating capacity could be avoided. The policy was never implemented because it was feared that it would aggravate the fact that the massive coal-fired power generating plant at Belledune which was built mainly to serve the export market (which never materialized) left New Brunswick with a surplus of electricity. By 1992, under the Climate Change Convention, the Canadian government was working with the provinces to stabilize their greenhouse gas emissions by 2000. Governments only agreed to promote voluntary measures. In 1997 a costly multi-stakeholder process was created to recommend options for attaining the goal set by the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 6 per cent by 2012. The climate change issue received little attention by the New Brunswick government which has been absent from most of the multi-stakeholder discussions because of the understaffed and poorly funded Energy Branch of the Department of Natural Resources of Energy. The new government is working on major reforms to the electric power sector and the arrival of natural gas