This text is part of the special Energies section
While Canada plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, there is still a long way to go to meet the targets, say experts. Transition to renewable energies, capture of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, compensation, several tools are available to States, which will certainly have to collaborate to achieve their objectives.
“The combination of these different paths is subject to a big debate,” explains Mark Purdon, professor in the Department of Strategy and Social and Environmental Responsibility at UQAM’s School of Management Sciences (ESG).
In 2021, Canada committed to becoming a carbon neutral country by 2050 under Canada’s Carbon Neutral Accountability Act. This law provides, among other things, national targets for reducing GHG emissions every five years from 2030.
In a letter dated last November, Steven Guilbeault and Jonathan Wilkinson voiced their concerns about emissions from the oil and gas sector. The federal Ministers of Environment and Climate Change and Natural Resources estimate that these emissions have increased by 20% since 2005, and represent 26% of emissions in Canada.
For the president of the board of directors of the Quebec Association for the production of renewable energy (AQPER), Viviane Maraghi, the reduction of GHG emitted by the fossil fuel sectors is done in particular by the energy transition. “This is the primary objective of the production of renewable energies”, underlines the one who is also director of sustainable development at Kruger Energy. She nevertheless concedes that achieving carbon neutrality in Canada requires a set of measures implemented by several players.
Collaborate and Reduce
Will Canada achieve its carbon neutrality goals? Yes, believes Mr. Purdon. Nevertheless, the one who also holds the Research Chair in Decarbonization believes that the government should not repeat the same experience as in the past. “Canada has a desire to reduce emissions, but it also had one before,” he says, for the Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997, and for the Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015.
The researcher is of the opinion that Canada must henceforth rely on international cooperation by investing in particular in carbon credit projects. Moreover, he considers that the reduction of GHG emissions for the oil and gas sectors poses a “major challenge”. “People need to have a little more nuanced perspective on the possibilities that Canada may need to purchase emissions allowances, carbon credits or other instruments to facilitate carbon neutrality. Because, if we are not able to reduce emissions 100% at home, we can collaborate elsewhere in the world to seek to limit GHG emissions,” he maintains.
He cites as an example the case of Quebec, which already has an established partnership with California. In 2020, the province succeeded in reducing its emissions by 13.2% compared to 1990. But in addition, companies subject to the Quebec carbon market made net purchases of emission rights from the carbon market. carbon from California up to 11.4 million emission allowances. “This flow represents the allocation to Quebec of GHG emission reductions achieved in the United States, for a value of 11.4 million tonnes in CO equivalent.2, or 13.4% of the level of emissions in Quebec in 1990”, specifies the Quebec Ministry of the Environment on its website. The province therefore exceeded its original reduction target of 20% through its partnership with California.
Mr. Purdon also observes in his work that the biggest purchasers of offset credits are generally those who seek at the same time to reduce their GHG emissions internally. “People want to do as much as they can to limit, because they’re going to save money and they’re going to invest and find innovations that can sometimes even be exported to make a profit,” he says.
For meme Maraghi, the achievement of the Canadian objectives for 2050 requires, among other things, the establishment of policies and energy efficiency, in particular by reducing the number of vehicles, even if they are electric, she illustrates. “The energy transition is part of a much broader notion of social and economic transition,” she believes. The production of electricity will not be an equivalent to the production of petroleum products. There is going to be a dose of energy efficiency that will allow us to achieve these objectives in 2050.”
Storing Oil Industry Emissions
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