Total emissions of 708 million tonnes in 2022 exceeded the 2020 total of 672 megatonnes, but still put Canada’s climate pollution “significantly lower” than pre-pandemic levels in 2019, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) said in a release. Emissions were “the lowest they have been in 25 years, with the exception of the COVID–19 years (2020 and 2021), when the sudden, global economic slowdown caused emissions to drop sharply.”

The NIR shows Canada’s climate policies are starting to make a difference, Matt Dreis, senior analyst with the Pembina Institute’s oil and gas program, told The Energy Mix.

But “moving forward, the provinces need to be fully participating in the energy transition, especially for the sectors that haven’t reduced emissions as much as others,” he added.

The inventory shows that emissions in 2022 were 7.1% lower than in 2005, the base year used to measure national progress.

The hard work by Canadians to reduce emissions is paying off in new data showing that the country has “bent the curve,” Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said in the ECCC release.

Emissions across the energy sector fell 7.7% compared to 2005 levels, even as they increased 73% in oil and gas extraction.

From 2021 to 2022, oil and gas sector emissions grew by one megatonne, “as companies continue to take action to reduce methane emissions and increase energy efficiency,” ECCC said. Yet “the oil and gas sector was once again the largest source of emissions in Canada in 2022,” accounting for around 31% of Canada’s total, CBC News reports.

The Alberta oil sands were the biggest contributor to that total, at 40%, followed by gas production and processing and conventional oil production, the NIR states. “The primary driver of emissions within the oil and gas sector is production growth.”

The tally of “unregulated pollution from oil and gas” had the sector accounting for more emissions in 2022 than buildings, heavy industry, and electricity combined, Climate Action Network Canada (CAN-Rac) said in a release.

“The electricity sector, small businesses, and heavy industry are working to lower their emissions. Families are doing their best to make climate-friendly choices,” said National Policy Manager Alex Cool-Fergus. “it’s only fair to hold the country’s highest-emitting companies accountable for reducing their pollution.”

CAN-Rac added that the long-awaited federal cap on oil and gas emissions, which is now going through the regulatory process, “would be one of the most effective measures to lower Canada’s emissions.”

The other “bigger picture,” Canadian Climate Institute Principal Economist Dave Sawyer said in a statement, was that emissions fell 5.9% between 2019 and 2022 while the economy grew 3.2%. The numbers amounted to “clear evidence that Canada continues to decouple emissions from economic growth.”

But that process “now needs to accelerate further — more than double — if Canada is to hit its 2030 target,”  Sawyer added.

The 2022 results varied by sector and province. Emissions from heat and power production were down 54% since 2005 and 7% since 2021, due to reduced use of coal and refined petroleum products and an increase in low-emitting generation. Transportation emissions grew 7.8 megatonnes between 2021 and 2022, driven by the economic bounceback from the pandemic.

Alberta and Ontario accounted for 60% of the country’s climate pollution, but their emissions trajectories differed. Alberta’s total has continued to rise since 2005 because of the continued expansion of its oil and gas operations. Ontario initially reduced its emissions by completing its coal phaseout in 2014, but saw the total rise by about six megatonnes between 2021 and 2022, reflecting its increased reliance on gas-fired power generation. Alberta reduced its emissions by a megatonne over the same 12-month span.

Ontario “is driving up electricity sector emissions due to an increased reliance on natural gas and actively working to expand the natural gas network to new homes and communities,” Environmental Defence Canada Programs Director Keith Brooks said in a release. Currently, the Ontario government is working to overturn an Ontario Energy Board decision that would have protected homeowners from being saddled with the cost of new gas infrastructure.

Manitoba, the Yukon, and Nunavut each increased their emissions—all by less than one megatonne—while the other provinces all lowered theirs.

In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change urged a 45% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 as the best path to avert the worst impacts of the climate emergency.

This story first appeared in The Energy Mix. Read the original article here.

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Fresh from a landslide election victory in April, South Korean President Moon Jae-in is promising to launch a “Green New Deal” that aims to provide economic stimulus while putting the country on track for net-zero emissions by 2050.

Around the world, national and sub-national governments are grappling with the need to stabilize their economies with emergency financing to support individuals and businesses that are being devastated by shuttered economies. As they plan longer-term stimulus packages, a growing group of them – from the European Union to New York State – are insisting that stimulus spending and tax measures must be consistent with net-zero goals.

On May 27, the European Commission proposed a €750 billion ($1.15 trillion) stimulus package in which 25% is allocated to green projects, ranging from zero-emission infrastructure to building retrofits to construction of 15 gigawatts of renewable power generation over two years.

Institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the International Energy Agency (IEA) are urging governments to use the opportunity to accelerate the transition to a net-zero-emissions world.

“If this recovery is to be sustainable – if our world is to become more resilient – we must do everything in our power to promote a ‘green recovery,’” IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva-Kinova told an online climate conference in April. “In other words, taking measures now to fight the climate crisis is not just a ‘nice-to-have.’ It is a ‘must-have’ if we are to leave a better world for our children.”

In South Korea, President Moon’s Democratic Party of Korea launched its environmental platform in March as the country was successfully locking down to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The platform includes plans for a carbon tax, the end to public financing of coal-based electricity, major investments in green energy infrastructure, and transitional training for the work-force.

South Korea – the world’s seventh largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter – also became the first East Asian nation to commit to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, a target that Canada’s Liberal government has also embraced.

“South Korea is about to lead Asia in charting a course away from an energy mix that has fuelled unprecedented growth but also accelerated climate change,” Chaoni Huang, head of sustainable investing in Asia for French bank BNP Paribus, wrote in the Nikkei Asian Review.

Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, has called on governments to focus their recovery efforts on clean energy projects in order to speed up the transition to a net-zero economy.

Current national commitments under the 2015 Paris Accord are insufficient to meet the goal of holding the global temperature increase to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change reports that 110 countries have said they will submit enhanced targets – known as nationally determined contributions, or NDCs – while 124 nations have committed to net-zero emissions by 2050. However, most countries are not yet on track to meet their original targets submitted in 2015, let alone more ambitious ones.

Canada has pledged to improve its 2030 target – which is to reduce GHGs by 30% below 2005 levels by 2030 – and has also committed to carbon neutrality by 2050. However, the two leading global emitters, China and the United States, have done neither.

The European Union has endorsed the net-zero target for 2050, and individual countries are pledging to pursue a green recovery as they attempt to spend their way out of the COVID-19 slump. Several governments – including those of Italy, Germany, Spain and Britain – have announced plans to issue green bonds to help finance green infrastructure projects in 2020.

In response to the COVID pandemic, China is ramping up spending after seeing its economy shrink by 6.8% in the first quarter. Beijing is targeting what’s been termed “neo infrastructure,” which could help cut emissions but isn’t focused on green measures. It includes expanding 5G networks, industrial internet and data centres, as well as boosting rail service and electric vehicle charging stations.

In the U.S., states are taking the lead. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is promising to speed up approval of low-carbon power projects, including a transmission line to bring power from Quebec to New York City. California Governor Gavin Newsom has assembled a task force to advise on the state’s economic recovery that includes a strong climate lens.

Among South America’s largest economies, Chile has shown the greatest willingness to pursue a low-carbon transition as it battles the economic slowdown. In April, it became the first Latin American country to strengthen its existing commitment to reduce emissions. Chile’s government – which has announced an $11.75 billion stimulus plan – pledged to stabilize its emissions by 2025, and then achieve net-zero peak emissions by 2050.

Shawn McCarthy writes on sustainable finance and climate for Corporate Knights. He is also senior counsel for Sussex Strategy Group.

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Teck Resources’ decision to shelve its proposed Frontier oil sands mine prior to a federal permitting decision in February is seen by many as a clear signal to the country that a strategy is needed to ensure the oil and gas sector contributes to Canada’s climate change goals.

Canada needs “a framework in place that reconciles resource development and climate change, in order to produce the cleanest possible products,” wrote Teck’s CEO, Don Lindsay. Essentially, the federal government will have to decide whether to provide financial support for the industry’s effort to cut its carbon footprint or rely only tougher regulations and a rising carbon price to achieve the same end.

Prior to the current pandemic crisis, companies were investing more than $1 billion annually to develop technology that lowers their costs and reduces the greenhouse gas emissions per barrel of crude oil produced. That effort reduced the GHG emissions from each barrel of crude – but not enough to offset the increase in production that made the oil sands sector Canada’s fastest-growing source of GHGs.

With the recent crash in prices – which saw Canadian heavy oil drop to US$3.82 a barrel in March – the industry will be hard-pressed to invest in GHG-reducing technology, even when that spending would cut costs.

However, there may be a heightened role for government. The International Energy Agency in March called on governments around the world to ensure that promised stimulus spending supports climate action, calling the crisis a “historic opportunity . . . to reduce dirty investment and accelerate the transition.”

Al Reid, an executive vice-president at Cenovus Energy, said that producers will require substantially more government support if they are to accelerate the effort to reduce GHGs per barrel.

Cenovus said in January that it aims to reduce that GHG intensity by 30% by 2030, though total emissions would remain flat due to rising production. The company said it aspires to virtually eliminate carbon emissions from its operations by 2050, via solvent-based technology and CO2 capture.

Last September, Suncor said it would invest $1.4 billion in a cogeneration facility that will produce steam and electricity, a move it says would provide an attractive return and reduce emissions by 2.5 million tonnes per year. With the price crash, that project was shelved; federal support could help revive it.

A Corporate Knights analysis released last fall, the Capital Plan for Clean Prosperity, concluded that supporting innovation in the oil and gas sector would generate significant payback in GHG reductions per dollar invested. The plan, a collaboration with industry, government and academic experts, calls for a massive federal capital-spending program to drive the low-carbon transition in five sectors (buildings, transportation, electricity, heavy industry and oil and gas). It calculated that a $21 billion program over six years would make 30% of oil and gas operations 50% more energy/GHG efficient. It would result in a 30-megatonne reduction of oil and gas emissions at the end of that period, from 183 megatonnes in 2017 to 153. (Assuming that companies don’t respond by increasing production, so that total emissions either rise or flatline.)

However, the notion that the Canadian government should provide financial support for oil industry innovation is contentious, particularly when it has committed to ending fossil fuel subsidies.

In February, a report from Calgary’s Pembina Institute, “The Oilsands in a Climate Constrained Canada,” concluded that higher carbon prices and tougher regulations are necessary to provide incentives to deploy game-changing technology.

Tzeporah Berman, international program director for Stand.earth, says the industry is “not moving fast enough because they don’t want to spend the money . . . Either you design a high tax that supports the cleanest projects or you regulate and require CCS [carbon capture and storage].”

Industry supporters insist they can be part of Canada’s climate change solution. Three of the biggest producers – Cenovus, Canadian Natural Resources and MEG Energy – have said they aim to eventually produce crude with no net GHG emissions from their operations. Critics say Canada should not be subsidizing increased production when the world must wean itself off fossil fuels entirely. Global investors are increasingly demanding that those companies show they can prosper in a carbon-constrained world.

Adding to the challenge is the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has gutted demand for oil. The debate is on over whether the federal government should spend billions bailing out Big Oil. One way forward: tying that funding to cutting the industry’s carbon footprint could help transition the sector toward a lower-carbon future.

Shawn McCarthy writes on sustainable finance and climate. He is also senior counsel for Sussex Strategy Group.

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