Conservatives love rhyming slogans. Alberta’s Conservative government has come up with a dandy in their latest fight with the feds: “scrap the cap.” The cap they want to scrap is on upstream emissions from the oil and gas sector that the federal government intends to implement in 2025.

The proposed plan is a national cap-and-trade system that Ottawa claims will set emissions limits without restricting production. The framework proposes to cap 2030 emissions at 35 to 38 percent below 2019 levels. Facilities will either have to reduce their emissions or buy allowances from other facilities that have. The sector will be allowed to use offset credits or pay into a decarbonization fund that will invest in future emissions reductions.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith doesn’t like it one bit, calling it an “intentional attack by the federal government on the economy of Alberta and the financial well-being of millions of Albertans and Canadians.” So the province will mount a $7-million advertising campaign to alert the people of five provinces—Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia—to the federal iniquity.

That the oil premier and her government share the industry’s dislike of the proposal is to be expected. The facts, however, challenge their opposition. The oil and gas sector is responsible for 28 per cent of Canada’s emissions and that is increasing. While Ontario’s emissions have fallen since 1990, Alberta’s have risen by 52 percent, and are now 72 percent higher than Ontario’s. Canada’s overall emissions have been declining since the early part of this century while oil and gas emissions continue to rise.

Environmentalists just as unsurprisingly support the federal plan. Rick Smith, president of the Canadian Climate Institute, said the framework was a sensible approach but preferred a shorter timeline. Caroline Brouillette, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada, welcomed the framework, saying it was time that “the oil and gas industry finally does its fair share of the national climate effort.”

The organization I rely heavily on for energy/environment info, the Pembina Institute, is very much on board. Executive Director Chris Severson-Baker pointed out that despite record-breaking profits, the oil companies have shown “very little evidence of sufficient capital being dedicated to projects that would reduce emissions. This is despite a suite of incentives on the table, including investment tax credits and grants for companies that go ahead with carbon capture and storage projects.”

Severson-Baker also said he hasn’t seen any proposals from the provincial government to sufficiently regulate emissions.

In summary, we have rising emissions from the oil and gas industry compromising Canada’s commitment under the Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, and neither Alberta nor the industry is doing what needs to be done even though Ottawa is offering generous financial incentives. Clearly, the proposed federal emissions cap is much needed.