There’s been much ado about Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s views on climate change this week, after he publicly referred to the “energy transition” to come, when economies around the world begin to wean themselves off oil.

A Calgary Herald columnist called it a “significant” public shift for Kenney, well-known defender of Alberta’s beleaguered oil industry and carbon tax opponent.

Kenney himself disagrees — he said at a press availability Tuesday that he’s been acknowledging the energy transition for “a very long time” — but observers say the public-facing rhetoric about oil’s last barrel represents a shift.

“We have an obligation to do our part to address the challenge of climate change, to reduce greenhouse gas, including carbon emissions — our industry is doing just that,” Kenney told reporters.

He says the Alberta oil industry should have a role to play, arguing tens of millions of barrels will be consumed before demand decreases, and he wants Alberta to supply them.

“According to the International Energy Agency, they project that there will be growing global demand for crude oil between now and at least 2040,” he said.

Still, observers said Kenney’s views on a changing climate — and the need to transition away from oil, in particular — are increasingly relevant as the debate over how to cut Canadian emissions focuses on Alberta and the oilsands.

Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University in Calgary, said he hasn’t seen many instances of Kenney talking about a transition away from oil. If anything, he says Trudeau has made similar arguments — and been criticized by Kenney.

“Trudeau said something quite similar, and the response was, ‘Oh, Trudeau wants to shut down the oilsands.’ And in fact, all he was talking about is a transition,” Bratt said.

Kenney is “stating the obvious,” but there’s a marked shift in rhetoric for the premier talking about Alberta moving off oil, he added.

In public, at least.

“There’s always been a difference between some of his real red meat type speeches and his private behaviour in meetings, and people have remarked on that, that he is a very skilled politician in that way.”

Here’s what Kenney has said publicly about climate change and the transition away from oil:

The Calgary flood — climate change and weather events not linked (2013)

One of Kenney’s first public statements on climate change came after the Calgary floods in 2013. Just after Calgary and surrounding areas were deluged by rising water. Kenney, then the federal minister of immigration and MP for Calgary southeast, did an interview with Kevin Newman about the devastation and response.

The veteran CTV anchor asked Kenney if he thought the flood had any link to climate change.

Kenney said no.

He added that the spring in Calgary had been cool: “We had some rain for three days and a heavy runoff that led to this situation, and, you know, I, the stuff that I’ve read in commentary from scientists suggests that there’s not been, there’s not a connection between weather events of this nature and broader climate issues.”

Although there may have been less general chatter about climate change seven years ago, scientists had established the link between a changing climate and extreme weather. In October 2013, four months after the flood, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a 2,216-page report that predicted extreme weather events would become more frequent and intense thanks to climate change.

On the Alberta campaign trail — there’s a ‘spectrum of views’ (2019)

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After the Harper government was defeated in 2015, Kenney looked west. By the spring of 2019, he was at the helm of Alberta’s newly forged United Conservatives and attempting to form government for the first time.

However, that required balancing leadership with the need to accommodate a very wide range of views — which resulted in multiple so-called “bozo eruptions,” including some about climate change.

In response, Kenney said that he personally believed in man-made climate change, but wouldn’t remove party members who denied it, saying that there are a “spectrum of views” on the issue.

Among those expressing controversial views were Randy Kerry, a UCP candidate and former Kenney campaign manager who called climate change a “hoax” in a Facebook screenshot from 2007. (He was later removed as a candidate for other reasons.)

Karri Flatla, a Lethbridge UCP candidate who ran against former NDP environment minister Shannon Phillips, called climate change a “mythology” in a Facebook post from 2016.

In an interview at the time, Flatla said she did in fact believe in climate change science, she just disagreed with the carbon tax.

The UCP take office and cut environmental programs (2019)

Since taking office in April, the Kenney government has faced criticism that it isn’t taking climate change seriously.

The newly formed government has eliminated Alberta’s carbon tax — though it replaced it with a plan for big emitters called TIER — cancelled programs encouraging renewable energy, launched a $30-million “war room” to fight what it calls misinformation about the oil industry and started a $2.5-million inquiry into an alleged conspiracy to landlock Alberta oil.

The province’s stand-alone offices for climate change policy and environmental monitoring have also been dissolved. The Canadian Press obtained an email sent last fall by Alberta Environment and Parks deputy minister Bev Yee describing the move, which she said would help things like business integration and overall efficiency.

In an email to The Canadian Press at the time, department spokesperson Jess Sinclair said the climate change office was folded into Alberta Environment “in order to ensure that [department] policy is developed with an eye to the overall management of pollution in the province.”

Greta Thunberg speaks at Alberta Legislature (2019)

When Greta Thunberg — a 17-year-old world renowned climate change activist — arrived in Edmonton in October last year to deliver a speech on the steps of the legislature in front of thousands of people, Kenney was attending the opening of a new gas pipeline just outside the city.

He’d been elected on a promise to tirelessly work on getting pipelines built and bring back jobs to the crippled energy-based economy of Alberta. At the time, Kenney decried Thunberg’s visit as part of a “foreign-funded campaign” targeting the province, which he says wants to landlock Alberta oil from having coastal access via pipelines and hamstring the energy industry.

People around the world want “the right balance between economic opportunity and environmental responsibility,” Kenney said. “That’s exactly what projects like this do.”

With files from The Canadian Press

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