The Canadian oil and gas sector, one of the largest in the world, is actively undermining the country’s efforts to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, denounced the environmental NGO InfluenceMap in a report published Thursday.
Analysis of the country’s six largest oil companies, which account for more than two-thirds of the sector’s market value, as well as a group of industry players, highlights a dual strategy aimed at increasing oil production and gases and influence Canada’s climate policies, despite their pledge to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and calls from many experts for a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
“Despite the industry’s ‘green’ communication campaigns, evidence illustrating efforts to oppose relevant climate policies suggests a disingenuous commitment to climate action,” said InfluenceMap analyst Sofia Basheer. , in a press release.
In his report, the analyst cites in particular the sector’s support for new offshore oil and gas projects, liquid natural gas installations and pipelines to the United States.
Several of these companies also opposed an emissions cap proposed by the government in 2022, underlines the NGO.
“Misleading messages”
In her analysis, Sofia Basheer points to the “industry’s use of misleading messages” such as the benefits of increasing Canadian oil and gas exports to replace coal elsewhere in the world, thus allowing a overall reduction in emissions.
More recently, in response to the invasion of Ukraine, the industry argued that Canadian oil and gas could replace “hostile energy sources” from countries like Russia, the report adds.
The fourth largest oil producer in the world, Canada has seen emissions from its oil and gas sector increase by 74% between 1990 and 2020.
The sector is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. It represents more than a quarter of total national emissions with 179 megatonnes of CO2 emitted in 2020.
Four of the companies examined — Cenovus Energy, Canadian Natural Resources Limited, Imperial Oil and TC Energy — demonstrated a “lack of commitment to climate policy,” InfluenceMap concludes.
Suncor Energy and Enbridge, meanwhile, “appear to engage positively in some areas of energy transition while opposing others.”
Finally, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers appears to be “the most proactive and opposed to progress in climate policy,” the report argues.