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QUESTION PERIOD — Ministry of Natural Resources

Carbon Emissions

December 14, 2022


Hon. Julie Miville-Dechêne

Every year, the United Nations Environment Programme, or UNEP, publishes its Production Gap Report, which tracks the discrepancy between planned fossil fuel production and production levels consistent with limiting warming to 1.5 to 2 degrees Celcius. According to UNEP, in order to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celcius, the world’s governments must cut fossil fuel production in half by 2030. However, Canada plans to increase its oil and gas production by almost 18% between 2019 and 2040.

Minister, isn’t Canada’s approach to climate change contradictory? We’re committing to reducing our country’s emissions while increasing our oil and gas exports at the same time.

Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson, P.C., M.P., Minister of Natural Resources [ - ]

Thank you for the question. To be very clear, I will answer in English.

I think it’s a very important question. Step back and look at, for example, the International Energy Agency’s 1.5-degree scenario. The world is not there yet; the commitments from all the countries are not there yet. However, assuming you achieve 1.5 degrees, over the course of the next number of decades you will still be using significant amounts of hydrocarbons. Even in 2015, with a 1.5-degree scenario, you will still be using some amount of hydrocarbons, but you won’t be combusting them. You will be using them for solvents, waxes, petrochemicals and hydrogen. In that scenario, you’re still using 25 million barrels of oil, a quarter of what we produce today, and about half the amount of natural gas that we use today.

In that scenario, you have to be able to produce them with virtually zero production emissions. There are combustion emissions and production emissions. Even if you eliminate all the combustion emissions because you’re using them in applications where you’re not combusting, you still have to produce them with zero or close to zero. That is where we are focused, namely, on driving emissions down in every natural gas and oil sector across the country — not only in Alberta and Saskatchewan but also in Newfoundland and Labrador — to the point where Canada is producing with virtually zero carbon emissions.

There is no forecast right now that says oil consumption will decline until somewhere between 2030 and 2035. At that point it will, as we deploy more vehicles. Of course Canada wants to extract value for its resources, but it wants to do it in a manner that is consistent with a net-zero world.

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