What is the Alberta Government’s position on Kyoto?
The Alberta Government believes Kyoto is too stringent too soon. The targets and timelines in Alberta’s strategy, Albertans and Climate Change: Taking Action, reflect what we think we can realistically achieve. Alberta is the province that has done the most work on developing actions to address climate change. It is investing in technology now so we can be better prepared to achieve the more stringent targets expected in Kyoto’s second phase, from 2013 to 2018. What lies ahead for Alberta’s agricultural producers? They need to be positioned to take advantage of the opportunities from these policy developments. Our department and other government agencies are talking to producers about the offset market and developing quantification protocols [methods to calculate how much soil carbon is stored or greenhouse gases are reduced by changing from one agricultural practice to another]. We’re also working on strategies to help the industry adapt to climate change and to take advantage of bio-
