Canada has an escalating price on carbon pollution and this week announced new tax credits to polluting industries to match those in the IRA. At the same time, Canada is vested in an oil pipeline to increase the capacity of oil sands operators to ship their products offshore and to the U.S.
Then there is Australia with the Labor Party now in power. It has reversed policies from the previous Liberal Party governments and committed to carbon emission reductions in 2030 by 43% compared to 2005 levels. At the same time, it is continuing to back natural gas projects, pipeline development and new coal mines.
All three governments are preaching from the same hymnal. They remain committed to fossil fuels because without them the impact on their countries’ current and near-future economies would be devastating. Their strategies emphasize an orderly transition with predictable outcomes that ensure the democratic nations of the world will be able to buy “democratic” oil, gas and coal. And at home, emission reductions would make each of their countries reduce emissions to achieve interim and 2050 net-zero targets.
None mention that the oil, gas, and coal that they export will end up being burned by their customers. The emissions and their contribution to global warming will not be coming from them.
Does this sound like greenwashing?
Originally, greenwashing was something businesses did to mislead investors and the public about their environmental credentials. But it sounds to me like we can add democratic governments to that definition. Expect more of it as COP27 begins next week in Egypt.
Holding this environmental gab session on the continent of Africa, the canary in the climate change coal mine should be an interesting affair. The promises of the Paris Climate Agreement to provide US $100 billion annually to Global South countries to help mitigate and adapt to climate change has yet to be fulfilled. And Africa more than any other continent is suffering the most because the money isn’t flowing, the projects to mitigate and adapt cannot get going, and the climate is changing.
Just look at Kenya in the last couple of years. The northern half of the country has hardly seen a drop of rain while the southern half is inundated with flooding. Or take Somalia which has experienced three years in a row of little to no rain. That’s three years of crop failures contributing to further political destabilization.
Our atmosphere is a shared commons. It doesn’t matter where emissions are produced. Political boundaries don’t stop greenhouse gas emissions. Global warming doesn’t stop at borders.
If you can encase your country in a glass bubble then you might be on to something. But you can’t. And although we will hear about the progress being made by the United States, Canada and Australia when their representatives speak at COP27, they are all acting like they are already living under glass bubbles.
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The vision expressed by the premiers reflects “the shared values of Canadians; strengthen our economy and create jobs; identify opportunities to develop, transport, and transmit energy … and maintain the highest degree of environmental safeguards and protection, including by addressing climate change, climate resilience and reducing greenhouse gas emissions globally.”
The oil sands were very much a part of the conversation. This is seen by some Canadians as our greatest asset and by others as our greatest liability. Even the Premier of Ontario, Kathleen Wynne, the province that has put more green energy infrastructure in place than any other in the country over the last decade, tried to put a positive spin on the fossil fuel industry centered in Alberta. She is quoted as stating that the industry “is committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions on a per-barrel basis.”
It is this last statement that points to the delusional nature of Canada’s position on climate change and the oil sands. What the Premier is talking about is intensity reduction, not carbon reduction. Let me explain the difference.
Intensity reduction looks at the amount of carbon dioxide released per the amount of energy produced on a unit basis. So if you clean up your production processes you can reduce the carbon input for each energy unit you produce. And indeed intensity reduction is happening in Alberta and Saskatchewan’s oil sands projects. Environment Canada reported in 2013 that between 1990 and 2012 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with the production of a barrel of oil sands crude had decreased by 28%. This was accomplished by the introduction of new extraction methods with lower carbon footprints. It should be understood, however, that some of those new technologies have subsequently had disturbing side affects including bitumen leaks that I have reported on in previous blogs. The industry is also diverting less freshwater in its per barrel production of oil sands crude. Total GHG emissions from oil sands production equaled 55 megatons in 2011. That amounted to 8.7% of Canada’s total GHG emissions.
So if we reduce the carbon emissions from each barrel of oil we produce shouldn’t we contribute fewer GHG emissions? Only if we keep production at the same level. But that is not the case. In 1990 the oil sands were producing less than 400,000 barrels per day, albeit the production of those barrels included considerably more GHG emissions on a per barrel basis. But today production has more than tripled. By 2010 we were producing 1.47 million barrels per day and that number continues to climb. So reducing GHGs by 28% may sound like an accomplishment, but in truth, the oil sands are bigger carbon emitters than ever before and GHG output continues to grow. In 2010, 52% of the oil produced in Canada came from the oil sands. By 2025 the industry projects that number to rise to 79%. Most of that is represented not by a decline in other oil bearing sources, but by a rise in total production volume. See the graph below produced by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, that illustrates where Canada’s oil has come from in the past and will come from over the next decade.
So do the math. Current oil sands production is yielding 264% more GHGs than production in 1990. And the projections with or without decreased intensity suggest that the number will only get larger because of explosive growth.
So the premiers have their work cut out for them to come up with a policy that reconciles Canada’s duality as a producer of GHG-intensive oil and a country committed to mitigating climate change.
