Putting Canada on the path towards meeting our Paris Agreement GHG emissions reduction target of 30% below 2005 levels by 2030 is a task that will require enormous engineering effort calculating the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) and in the construction of infrastructure to mitigate the effects of Greenhouse Gas emission.
Marieke Walsh writes in the Globe and Mail that Environment Minister Wilkinson says that 2019 will be the last year of emission increases in Canada. The highest emitting sectors in Canada (oil and gas and transportation) are the ones that Mr. Wilkinson said he will be most focused on in the years ahead.
On transportation, Mr. Wilkinson said emissions can largely be cut through regulatory changes that will target vehicle fuel efficiency. He said in his talks with Mr. Biden’s special envoy for climate, John Kerry, the focus is on “how fast can we go in terms of raising the level of ambition” on fuel economy standards. More investments in zero-emission vehicle infrastructure will also be needed, he said. On the oil and gas sector, Mr. Wilkinson said the increasing stringency of methane regulations will “start to bite” and the pending implementation of the clean fuel standard will also have a “significant impact on emissions.” Raising the carbon price to $170 a tonne by 2030 is the key reason why Canada can show that it will meet its emissions targets in less than a decade.1
An article in The Economist proposes this is the moment for an ambitious attempt by President Biden to deal with climate change and move America to less carbon and blackouts. Biden has said that he wants fossil-fuel emissions from power generation to end by 2035 and the economy to be carbon-neutral by 2050. America is not just the world’s second-largest emitter, but also a source of climate-related policy, technology and, potentially, leadership. What is about to unfold in Washington will set the course in America for the next decade—and quite possibly beyond.
Time is pressing. Neither Mr Biden nor his successors may get a second chance to recast policy on such a scale. Global emissions from fossil fuels and cement production in 2019 were 16% higher than in 2009. It will be even harder to limit climate change to less than 2°C above the pre-industrial level, the global threshold from which America’s target for 2050 comes. To be carbon neutral, the world must curb emissions by 7.6% a year for a decade, a steeper decline than in 2020, when covid-19 cut demand for oil and coal. For America, delaying action to 2030 would nearly double the cost of reaching net zero or, more likely, mean it overshoots its targets. Yet there are grounds for hope. Although the Republican Party is against almost all action, voters are increasingly alarmed by climate change. Two-thirds of them think the federal government is doing too little about it, and that share includes plenty of younger Republicans. Although the fossil-fuel lobby remains powerful, many Republican business donors want more action—partly because asset managers are urging firms to align their strategies with the net-zero world Mr Biden envisions. Most encouraging of all, the costs of power from wind and solar have plunged by 70% and 90% over the past decade. Along with cheap gas, this has already helped America decarbonise at an impressive rate, despite Donald Trump’s rolling back of fossil-fuel regulations. Price has not been the only factor; more than half of the states have some sort of clean-energy mandate, a device that Mr Biden wants to introduce on a national scale.2
The Canada Department of the Environment and Climate Change reported on Greenhouse gas sources and sinks in 2020. Emission increases since 2005 in the oil and gas and transportation sectors have been offset by decreases in electricity and heavy industry.
After hovering between 700 and 720 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO2 eq) in recent years, in 2018 (the most recent annual dataset in this report) Canada’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions increased to 729 Mt CO2 eq. This increase is attributed to higher fuel consumption for transportation, winter heating and oil and gas extraction. Over the long term, Canada’s economy has grown more rapidly than its GHG emissions: the emissions intensity for the entire economy (GHG per Gross Domestic Product [GDP]) has declined by 36% since 1990 and 20% since 2005. Emission trends since 2005 remain consistent, with emission increases in the Oil and Gas and Transportation sectors being offset by decreases in other sectors, notably Electricity and Heavy Industry. The Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change (adopted in 2016) puts Canada on the path towards meeting our Paris Agreement GHG emissions reduction target of 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. The Framework is a comprehensive plan to reduce emissions across all sectors of Canada’s economy, stimulate clean economic growth and build resilience to the impacts of climate change. Canada is committed to continue implementing the Framework, while working to exceed its 2030 emissions reduction goal, and developing a plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.3
Breach Media reports on a committee formed by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers ( CAPP ) and Canadian Government representatives named “Create the Path Table” to discuss regulations and creating “opportunities” post-pandemic. Themes for discussion included advancing offshore projects in Atlantic Canada and tar sands projects in Western Canada, “cooperation in building investor confidence,” and “government industry collaboration to strengthen energy trade” with the United States.
There was discussion of “emission reducing technologies,” hydrogen energy, and carbon capture and sequestration—several proposals promoted by oil companies that have been widely panned as false solutions perpetuating fossil fuel use. “Canada’s LNG” is referred to as an “opportunity” for the country’s climate plans, even though scientists have concluded that liquified natural gas is in fact a carbon-intensive fuel that needs to be phased out. CAPP “greatly appreciated” government engagement with industry. The oil lobby’s focus on Natural Resources Canada appears to have paid off. In June, O’Regan announced that the government would exempt offshore drilling in Newfoundland and Labrador from federal environmental impact assessments. In September, he announced a $320 million public handout with no strings attached to Newfoundland’s offshore oil industry. That same month, O’Regan began echoing the CAPP’s talking points by touting LNG as the answer to the climate crisis and a key part of the Liberal’s “green recovery” agenda. Soon after, he reassured CEOs from Husky and Suncor that the federal government “cannot achieve Net Zero without our oil and gas sector” and that any economic recovery would involve “continued exploration” for oil off the east coast, according to a memo obtained by Greenpeace.4
Mitigation of the effects of the climate emergency on Canada is an enormous engineering challenge that will require government support of research, training, design and construction of infrastructure that meets the IPCC goals on emission reduction and supported by SCC calculations.
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