The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition Alberta Premier Jim Prentice is warning Canada is facing profound economic repercussions unless pipelines are built to open up new trade routes. The Globe's Gary Mason quotes Mr. Prentice as saying access to new markets for Alberta energy is of critical importance, but that work must be done amid an international image problem. Mr. Prentice has changed the diplomats in the province's two foreign offices in Asia and Washington, appointments the Premier said underscore the priority he is placing on accessing new markets. One of those key posts went to federal Conservative MP Rob Merrifield, who will be pushing hard on the Keystone XL pipeline file. Mr. Prentice is also shaping a new climate-change strategy that will see the province shutter many of its coal plants and replace them with new investment in renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. Alberta has become the Wal-Mart of the energy world, he said, a land-locked, low-cost supplier of oil that has primarily one customer -- the United States. Despite this admission, he wants to avoid the humiliation of international condemnation he felt at the Copenhagen climate-change conference in 2009.