Everyone is still trying to digest the news that Donald Trump is the president-elect of the U.S. and to figure out what that means regarding everything from immigration and war in the Middle East to a woman’s right to choose.

But let’s focus on Alberta.

Trump looks certain to approve the Keystone XL pipeline and, in general, to be a proponent of other energy infrastructure. That will open markets to Alberta’s primary products and get producers a better price.

But let’s not overstate its import: Keystone is one pipeline of many and the energy industry has always found, and will continue to find, ways to get product to the best possible markets. It’s not as if energy exports stopped in recent years. On the contrary, shipments of crude oil through Enbridge Inc.’s pipeline system have, for example, grown by 25% per year since 2013. A decision of more or less equal importance to the oil and gas industry lies with Canada’s federal government this month regarding approval of the Trans Mountain Expansion project.

Trump has threatened to rip up the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which Export Development Canada estimates would be like levying a 10% tariff on all U.S.-bound goods and services. But the impact would be felt much more in the manufacturing sectors of Ontario and Quebec than in Alberta. If anything, NAFTA favours the U.S. in energy exports. The final provisions, in Chapter 6 of the document, basically stipulate that Canada may not restrict exports to the U.S. below a historical percentage of production.

The real tough issue for Alberta – and for Canada – will be the climate-change file. Trump has repeatedly called global warming “a hoax” and is trying to quit the Paris climate agreement. He is facing – as he will with a great many of his policy choices – vigorous opposition. But safe to say he won’t be working willingly to reduce carbon emissions in the U.S.

Alberta, on the other hand, is in the midst of implementing an aggressive climate plan, with an economy-wide carbon tax of $20 per tonne coming into effect on Jan. 1, 2017, rising to $30 per tonne a year later. A broadly based carbon tax – such as Alberta’s – is the best way to reduce carbon emissions. But there’s no doubt that imposing the cost on the economy will, absent similar plans in other jurisdictions, have a drag on Alberta’s economy. Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s former president, proposes that Europe impose a carbon tax on imports from the U.S. if Trump pulls out of the Paris accord; but surely that would invite a trade war, which would be in the best interest of nobody.

In the meantime, Alberta’s NDP government is pushing ahead with its climate plan. “The world will be carbon-constrained regardless of one election in one country,” said Shannon Phillips, Alberta’s environment minister, at a recent United Nations climate conference in Morocco, “because climate change is real.” And it looks like Alberta will be paying the price for now.

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