“There’s a war of ideas occurring all the time and it looks like been pretty successful at convincing politicians and policymakers that we cannot achieve a low carbon economy unless we develop our high carbon economy first,” said Donald Gutstein, author ofIn the 1990s, Imperial didn’t want a carbon tax, said Graham Taylor, author ofand professor emeritus at Trent University who has reviewed the documents.
“We are going to stand up, through the Canadian Energy Centre, for a country that generates energy at the highest environmental, human rights and labour standards on earth,” Kenney said. and Vladimir Putin’s Russia will.” Alberta opens energy war room. Story continues below.“Canadian policy measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from these industries … could reduce their international competitiveness. This, in turn, could lead to plant closures in Canada.
When Baldwin made his speech to the fossil fuel industry in 1990, it faced prices on average five times lower than a decade before. Imperial had made a huge investment in Alberta oil sands, but it wasn’t worth fully developing at that point, Taylor said, so policies to fight climate change were less threatening to its bottom line.