Even if humanity manages to achieve “carbon neutrality”, essential by 2050 to limit climate disruption, humanity will consume 25 million barrels of oil per day, affirms the federal Minister of the Environment, Steven Guilbeault, in interview at Duty. The Trudeau government, however, promises to impose a cap on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on the Canadian fossil fuel industry in the fall of 2024.
As part of an interview given in the context of the Climate Ambition Summit which is being held this Wednesday in New York, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change indicated that the “draft final regulation” on capping and the reduction of GHG emissions from the oil and gas sector will be tabled before the next United Nations climate conference, COP28, scheduled for December.
Minister Guilbeault also anticipates that this regulation, which aims to curb the continued growth of emissions from fossil fuel production in Canada, will be “adopted”, and therefore in force, no later than fall 2024. According to Ottawa , it must make it possible to reduce emissions from the oil and gas sectors at the pace and on the scale necessary to achieve the 2030 climate objectives, then net zero emissions by 2050. It only concerns emissions on Canadian territory, which excludes emissions from the combustion of exported resources.
Production
Does this regulation mean that the industry, which anticipates growth in oil and natural gas production over the coming years, will instead have to reduce exploitation? “The oil companies will have to answer this question,” replies Steven Guilbeault, recalling that the exploitation of natural resources is a provincial jurisdiction. Provinces like Alberta and Newfoundland and Labrador also want to increase their production.
But the message from the Trudeau government is clear: the climate objectives linked to this regulation on emissions from the most polluting industry in the country must be respected. “How will the companies go about it? We don’t tell companies how they should do it. We present the objectives and you must see how you are going to achieve them,” argues the minister.
“We are working to cap and reduce pollution, so that the oil and gas sector does its fair share in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Canada,” he adds. During a speech as part of the Climate Ambition Summit at the UN on Wednesday morning, Mr. Trudeau declared that Canada would do better than reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 75 % by 2030.
25 million barrels
Steven Guilbeault also refutes the idea of international growth in the consumption of fossil fuels over the coming years, an idea reiterated this week by certain companies in the sector gathered in Calgary as part of the World Petroleum Congress.
The minister, however, takes up elements of the speech given by his colleague Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Jonathan Wilkinson. The latter affirmed this week at the World Petroleum Congress that humanity will consume around 25 million barrels of oil every day in 2050, despite the objective of achieving “carbon neutrality” in order to avoid sinking of the planetary climate.
According to Minister Wilkinson, this consumption will mainly come from processes that do not involve burning oil, particularly in the manufacture of asphalt, lubricants and solvents.
“We have two choices: either we take the climate threat seriously and we work to limit the increase in temperatures to 2°C, or even 1.5°C. This means that we are moving from a world where we consume 100 million barrels per day to a world where we consume 25 million barrels. Or we can ignore the science and pay a bill that will be higher and higher, in terms of human, environmental and economic impacts,” argues Steven Guilbeault.
For the moment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that warming would exceed 2°C by 2050, leading in particular to an increase in drought episodes, a drop in agricultural production, more migration. The state of health and well-being would thus be reduced, while “levels of poverty and inequality increase considerably”.
Under this scenario, the loss of ecosystems would be very difficult to curb. The world’s coral reefs, for example, would be “wiped out,” while rainforests would be “severely damaged.” The overall rate of species extinction would also increase significantly.