Since 2021, the Federal Government in Canada has adopted new policy measures that will provide public subsidies to support the installation of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology at emissions-intensive oil extraction and processing sites in Canada (principally at oil sands production sites in Alberta). The political and industry argument is that large-scale adoption of CCS will enable us to achieve some reduction of the substantial CO2 emissions that are currently being released into the atmosphere at oil production operations in Canada (commonly referred to as our “upstream emissions”) while allowing us to maintain the economic benefits of continuing to increase oil production levels to 2030 and maintain high production levels for another 15 or 20 years, to 2040 and beyond.
Our predicament, however, is that emissions at oil sands production sites in Canada account for less than 15% of the total well-to-wheels emissions released by each barrel of oil from Canada’s oil sands and ultimately burned as fuel. Over 85% of the total emissions from every barrel we produce (referred to as the “downstream emissions”) occur after we export our oil, when it is refined and combusted as fuel in vehicle engines in the U.S and in other foreign markets and released into the atmosphere as tailpipe emissions. Those downstream emission are not counted as part Canada’s national emissions.
The Federal Government claims that adoption of CCS and other new measures will achieve a promised 20 million tonne reduction of CO2 emissions at oil sands facilities in Alberta by 2030, measured against the 2019 level. The Federal Government assures Canadians that as much as 15 Mt CO2 of that reduction will be achieved by deployment of CCS technology. But if the annual level of Canada’s oil production continues to expand to 2030, as the government confirms and the industry plans to do, there will be no reduction at all in the overall level of the emissions released into the atmosphere by the combustion of the oil produced in Canada. The volume of “exported emissions” from Canada’s expanding oil production will continue to grow. The ongoing rise in the annual level of downstream emissions by 2030 from our expanding oil exports will offset many times the promised 20 Mt CO2 cut in extraction emissions at oil sands production sites in Canada.
We are told by Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change and by energy economists that, under the Paris Agreement (and under the terms of the UN Framework Agreement on Climate Change that defines what emissions countries are obliged to count in their national emissions accounting) Canada has no obligation to “count” the “downstream” emissions that are released by our exported oil as part of our formal national emissions.
But the accounting rules are not an answer to the problem we face. Global emissions from burning oil, gas, and coal are driving the warming of the earth’s surface. That includes the massive volume of the downstream emissions released by our exported oil, which we are planning to increase (or maintain at very high levels) for another 10 or 20 years. There is no existing technology that can “remove” them from the atmosphere once they are released. The fact that the Government of Canada does not “count” them does not halt the warming. The downstream emissions from our exported oil contribute directly to climate change in Canada – to the same extent as if those emissions were released in Saskatchewan or in Nova Scotia.
In terms of magnitude, downstream emissions from our exported oil are equivalent to the combined total of all the GHG emissions released every year within Canada’s borders from all our industrial activities, transportation (cars, trucks, rail, domestic air, and marine), all buildings, agriculture, electricity generation, and all oil and gas extraction and processing operations within Canada, etc. They will continue to increase in line with our expanding oil exports.
Canada’s national emissions in 2022 were 708 million tonnes (Mt) CO2eq. When Canada signed the Paris Agreement in 2015, our total domestic emissions were 745 Mt. We have reduced the annual level of our domestic emissions by only 37 Mt over that seven-year period. Our solemn commitment under the Paris Agreement requires that by 2030 we cut our domestic emissions at least 40% below the 2005 level, which would require as much as a 300 Mt reduction below 2015 level. We are far from meeting that goal. Even if we do meet that goal, due to the rapid growth of our oil exports the downstream emissions from Canada’s exported oil have already increased 268.2 Mt since 2015 – rising from an annual level of 496 Mt in 2015 to 723 Mt in 2022, and they continued to increase through 2023.*
Given Canada’s plans to continue expanding oil production to 2030 and beyond, the increase in Canada’s downstream oil emissions over the period from 2015 to 2030 will exceed 300 Mt CO2. That increase will offset the entirety of Canada’s Paris commitment to achieve a 300 Mt reduction of our domestic emissions by 2030. The Supreme Court of Canada in its decision on March 25, 2021, in the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act case, relying on the scientific evidence presented to the Court, clearly and precisely acknowledges the borderless way emissions released in one jurisdiction will affect (and drive climate change) in all other jurisdictions. In the Carbon Pricing case, the Court was required to examine the scientific evidence which explains why GHG emissions released within one province in Canada will impact all the other provinces:
“It is also an uncontested fact that the effects of climate change do not have a direct connection to the source of GHG emissions; every province’s emissions contribute to climate change, the consequences of which will be borne extra-provincially across Canada and around the world.”
— References re Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, para 187 (emphasis added)
In the same way, whether they are released by cars and trucks in New York or Shanghai, emissions from our exported oil are contributing directly to climate breakdown in B.C. and Northern Quebec, and they are driving the escalating heat in India and all South Asia, the horrific drought in the Horn of Africa and across the Sahel, the retreat of glaciers in the Himalayas and Central Asia, acidification of the world’s oceans. This catastrophic outcome, which crosses all national borders, is being driven by the physics of climate change. Nothing in the national emissions accounting rules will slow that down or protect us or the world from the consequences of the downstream emissions from our oil exports.
So long as we continue in Canada to increase our oil production or maintain our existing high production levels, the earth’s average surface temperature will continue to rise. The evidence is clear that global oil production must be reduced about 50% by 2040 to give us any realistic chance to limit the rise in the earth’s average surface temperature to 1.5°C. If Canada and other major oil producers continue along the path of maintaining existing high production levels, global heating will reach 2.4°C or above by 2100. In the absence of a commitment to make deep production cuts by 2030 and 2040, Canada’s climate policy adopting CCS technology is a sham.
- Read the discussion paper now: The Problem of Overshoot: a framework for an honest public discussion about climate change and Canada’s future oil production (opens as a PDF in your web browser)
* Canada does not include downstream emission for our exported oil in our national emissions accounting and does not officially publish that data. However, in recent years Ecojustice, an environmental law charity, has successfully made applications to the Federal Government demanding release of this information. On November 12, 2024, Ecojustice published a new set of comprehensive data showing downstream emissions for Canada’s crude oil and natural gas exports for the period 2012- 2024: https://ecojustice.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Downstream-Emissions-One-Pager-Total-domestic-v-downstream-ff-exports-emissions-2012-2023.pdf
