Canada's Oil and Gas Companies Weakening National Climate Plan While Expanding Production, Says New Report

Federal Government Must Double Climate Targets and Curtail Oil Expansion to Limit to 1.5°

KATOWICE, Poland, Dec. 10, 2018 /CNW/ - A new report released today at COP 24 shows oil and gas emissions in Canada are rising and that oil and gas companies in Canada are systematically weakening and delaying Canada's climate plan and further climate ambition while reaping more federal subsidies and continuing to increase oil production.

"Unless the federal and provincial governments have the courage to stand up to the oil and gas lobby, Canadians will not have the climate safe future they deserve," said Dale Marshall, National Climate Program Manager, Environmental Defence.  "It's simply not fair that emission levels from oil and gas production are allowed to rise so significantly while other sectors and individual Canadians are doing all the heavy lifting."                                              

According to the report, the current growth trajectory for oil and gas production in Canada is inconsistent with the country meeting even its existing target. To meet the targets laid out in the IPCC report, oil production will have to be curtailed. However, federal and provincial governments allow oil companies to undermine efforts to meet even the current climate plan. Last week, Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna committed to increase Canada's climate ambition by 2020— the report outlines that meeting current targets requires significant cuts in oil and gas emissions.

Among the report's findings:

• Documents obtained under freedom of information requests in Saskatchewan show that oil companies advocated for delayed, weakened, and, in some cases, voluntary methane regulations, all of which will lead to higher emissions.
• The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) proposed a long list of amendments to Bill C-69 that would undermine the effectiveness of future impact assessments. Since April of this year, CAPP has meet with federal officials 139 times on Bill C-69, on average once per work day.
• The oil and gas industry successfully lobbied to have high carbon crude oil treated the same as other crude in the Clean Fuel Standard, undermining the effectiveness of the regulation, and is still pushing to have the upstream oil and gas sector entirely exempted.

For more media information and to see the report, please visit: https://environmentaldefence.ca/report/canadas-oil-and-gas-challenge/

SOURCE Environmental Defence

Tzeporah Berman in Katowice Poland at COP24 [phone] or [email protected]; Barbara Hayes in Ottawa, [email protected], 613-255-5724