Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault is calling out Calgary-based oil giant Suncor — not China — over emissions during his controversial visit to the world’s largest polluter this week..In an interview with the Canadian Press on Tuesday, Guilbeault said Suncor’s plans to sell off its renewables to focus on oil justify the imposition of an emissions cap, something to which the Alberta government is adamantly opposed. .He was reacting to comments made by Suncor boss Rich Kruger earlier this month when he told investors the oil sands behemoth plans to focus on its core business — producing oil — while leaving the renewables business to others.. Suncor CEO Rich KrugerSuncor CEO Rich Kruger fired 1,500 employees Thursday in an e-mail. ."We have a bit of a disproportionate emphasis on the longer-term energy transition," Kruger said after the company posted a $1.9 billion second quarter profit. “Today, we win by creating value through our large integrated asset base underpinned by oil sands.".That apparently stuck with Guilbeault.."To see the leader of a great Canadian company say that he is basically disengaging from climate change and sustainability, that he's going to focus on short-term profit, it's all the wrong answers," Guilbeault said.."If I was convinced before that we needed to do regulation, I am even more convinced now.".Suncor’s profitability was apparently was more of a priority for Guilbeault than the fact that China emits a third of the world’s greenhouse gas — more than all other nations combined. .That would be a more appropriate point of discussion for a Canadian cabinet minister to raise in his meetings with the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) in Beijing this week, where he sits as vice-chair..Guilbeault is the first Canadian official to visit China in four years following a series of events that have soured relations including the detention of the ‘two Michaels’, the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wangzhou and allegations of election interference..Instead, the CPC’s Global Times mouthpiece warned him against being “condescending” in discussions to accelerate China’s own carbon neutrality plans — by 2060, not 2050 under the Paris Accord or even the 2035 target he has artificially imposed on Alberta back home..Earlier this month he imposed arbitrary net-zero rules on Alberta’s gas-fired electricity grid that Premier Danielle Smith has called an “unrealistic, unachievable fantasy.” .And in his CP interview he indicated that regulations to cap oil sector emissions more than 40% — which Smith has said amounts to a de facto production cut of more than 1 million barrels per day — is ready to be unveiled on his return from China, although the exact date has been delayed.."I don't think in 2023 you can be a good corporate citizen and not play your role," he said, referring to Suncor..The Western Standard has reached out to Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz — who Premier Smith has dubbed the ‘Guilbeault Whisperer’ —for comment.
