Re: “Climate strategy back on drawing board; Alberta admits missing target to cut emissions,” May 18.

Simon Dyer from the Pembina Institute states that on climate change policy, “Alberta is not a leader.” This follows a recent David Suzuki Foundation report ranking the provinces for their leadership efforts on climate action. Ontario, Quebec and B.C. were ranked as “very good,” while Alberta was rated “worst.”

While I have tremendous respect for Pembina and the David Suzuki Foundation — and believe B.C. and Quebec should be lauded for their respective initiatives, here are five reasons that if there is any leader on climate action in North America, it is Alberta.

1. Leadership usually means being first. With its Specified Gas Emitters Regulation, Alberta was the first jurisdiction in North America to pass legislation, enact greenhouse gas regulations, and most importantly, actually implement a functioning, economywide, market-based greenhouse gas reduction system in 2007. While the foundation makes passing reference to the “very small emission pricing policies of Alberta,” the truth is, with a range of roughly $10 to $15 per tonne, Alberta has had the strongest and most stable economywide carbon price signal in North America, arguably the world. Five years later, Alberta is still the only jurisdiction in North America to implement an economywide carbon price signal. That’s leadership.

2. Leadership often means being on the bleeding edge. The foundation points out a number of areas where Canada must take action to reduce emissions — things like spurring clean energy and innovation, agricultural programs to reduce emissions from soil, ensuring waste sector methane emissions are captured and used for energy, and reducing fugitive emissions from the oil and gas sector.

The reality is that Alberta’s market-based offset system has been a testing ground for quantification approaches, new technologies and projects in all of these areas for the past five years. Doing things first often means learning lessons the hard way, through trial and error. There have been bumps along the road, as pointed out in recent reports from Alberta’s auditor general, but these challenges, along with the many successes, are lessons that Alberta and every other jurisdiction in North America can benefit from.

3. Leadership means challenging preconceived notions. Alberta’s system has allowed a number of North America’s largest energy companies to get acquainted with a price on carbon. They’ve explored, performed due diligence on and implemented greenhouse gas reduction technologies. Their employees are finding innovative ways of reducing emissions (and therefore costs) for their companies. Many companies now take into account emissions when making long-term investment decisions, and they realize that putting a price on carbon is not only the right thing to do, it can be good for business.

This evolution in thinking is clear in recent articles on the Pioneer carbon capture and storage project.

Energy leaders in Alberta are not debating the science of climate change, or whether there should be a carbon price signal, they are asking for a stronger carbon price signal to support the business case for investments in greenhouse gas reduction technologies.