Several conservative-led jurisdictions have proven that supporting renewable energy doesn’t mean abandoning careful money management. True “conservatives” care about open markets and fiscal responsibility. With more than twice as much investment now flowing into renewable energy worldwide, and twice as many jobs being created every year in renewables than conventional oil and gas, distaste for renewable energy is breaking down even amongst traditional “conservatives”.
Let’s take a hike through three jurisdictions, each with a conservative-leaning government, and see how they are approaching this issue.
Not all conservative-leaning governments treat the development of renewable energy the same. Despite sharing ideological leanings with other Canadian conservative jurisdictions like Ontario, and to a lesser extent Nova Scotia, and states such as Texas, Alberta remains an outlier, placing heavy restrictions on renewable power development.
But there is reason to hope.
Let’s look at Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who shares many political views with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (at least until the current spat over using oil as leverage with President Trump’s threatened tariffs). When Ford first took office, he made a controversial decision about renewable energy. He cancelled Ontario’s wind energy program, tearing up 750 contracts with energy companies. This cost Ontario taxpayers $231 million – an expense Ford surprisingly claimed to be ‘proud’ of.
That was then and this is now, and today Ontario faces a growing political challenge – affordability. In August of 2024, Ford’s Minister of Energy Stephen Lece announced that the province needed to procure 5000 megawatts of power (enough electricity for 4.5M homes). To be clear, this wasn’t an announcement that the province would turn back to wind and solar power; it was an open call for ‘any and all’ power procurement proposals, and as Lece said, the government was energy-agnostic as to where it came from.
Agnosticism isn’t what we’re hoping to see from our leaders when it comes to green energy, but at least the door is open to renewables. This should not be mistaken for a shift towards renewables. If support for renewable energy was a spectrum, Ontario would be just to the left of Alberta.
It gets better. On January 13th, 2025 the Province of Nova Scotia and the Regional Municipality of Halifax announced that “Nearly half of Halifax’s municipal electricity will soon come from a Queens County wind farm, a move the city says will cut its greenhouse gas emissions by a quarter.”
Unlike Ontario’s thumb-on-the-scale approach, Nova Scotia is purchasing its future power directly from a new wind farm. All forms of power generation come with a cost, and in this case, there is an ecological footprint to the wind farm that the company and government are working to mitigate.
In January Nova Scotia announced an ambitious effort to reach NetZero by 2035 and have 80 per cent of its power sourced from renewables by 2030. According to report cards produced at the end of 2024, Nova Scotia got a C letter grade for its efforts so far. This announcement might improve its marks for 2025.
And this is from a conservative province. Tim Houston’s Progressive Conservatives won in a romp in the fall 2024 provincial election.
No comparison of conservative-led jurisdictions and their energy production values is complete without wandering through Texas. According to Power Up Texas, the state “is both the #1 energy producer and consumer in the country.” This isn’t the gospel according to “big green,” but from an alliance of businesses, chambers of commerce, power utilities and others.
For perspective, however, Texas is also the US’s number one producer of oil and coal. So, while 26 per cent of its energy comes from wind and solar, and they are among the leaders in battery storage and transmission, they are still the largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions, at 622.4 MT in 2020, or 13.5 per cent of all the emissions in the US. (Per capita, they are 10th)
However, the trend lines are positive: There are 210,433 electric vehicles registered in Texas and battery storage did not exist in Texas until 2014, now they are second in the country. Texas generated more solar energy in 2023 alone than all in-state solar generation before 2021 combined.
It probably goes without saying that Texas is a Republican state.
Ontario, Nova Scotia and Texas all have conservative leadership. To a greater or lesser extent, they have policy and regulatory environments that either allow for free market competition or actively encourage renewable energy development. But they are also – to a greater or lesser extent – embracing the policy, environmental and economic opportunities that come with renewable power. That means there’s still hope for Alberta.
Note to Readers: Restrictions placed on wind power permitting in the United States during the early days of Donald Trump’s Presidency will have yet unknown impacts.
