This article was written by Jordan Omstead and was published in the Globe & Mail on November 9, 2023.

Canada and other major fossil-fuel-producing countries are failing to meet targets to keep global warming in check, a newly released major international report warned Wednesday, putting the world’s energy transition at risk.

The 2023 Production Gap report says the countries are planning to produce 110 per cent more fossil fuels in 2030 than is consistent with keeping global warming to 1.5 C above preindustrial levels, and 69 per cent more fossil fuels than what’s in line with a 2 C target.

“These plans throw the global energy transition into question. They throw humanity’s future into question. Governments must stop saying one thing and doing another, especially as it relates to the production and consumption of fossil fuels,” Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, wrote in a foreword to the report.

The report – co-produced by the United Nations Environment Programme, Winnipeg-based International Institute for Sustainable Development and several other leading climate groups – comes ahead of the COP28 climate conference later this month in Dubai, where leaders will discuss efforts to curb global emissions.

Of the 20 major fossil-fuel-producing countries profiled in the report, Canada’s planned increase to oil production for 2030, compared with 2021 levels, ranks behind only Brazil, the United States and Saudi Arabia, and just ahead of Russia and Kuwait. Norway and the U.K. were the only two countries projected to decrease both oil and gas production for 2030, according to the report.

By 2030, the United Nations estimates global emissions need to be cut by 43 per cent compared with 2019 levels to keep warming at 1.5 C and to get on a pathway to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

And while the vast majority of the countries have pledged to hit the net-zero target, the report says none have committed to production cuts in line with a 1.5 C limit.

“Despite governments around the world signing up to ambitious net-zero targets, global coal, oil and gas production are still increasing while planned reductions are nowhere near enough to avoid the worst effects of climate change,” said Angela Picciariello, senior researcher with the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

The 2015 Paris Agreement sets out a global commitment to keep average temperature rise well below 2 C compared to preindustrial times and aim for 1.5 C. Scientists have said crossing that 1.5 C threshold could unleash some of the most severe climate-change effects, such as more frequent and severe heat waves.

The report comes on the heels of an audit released Tuesday by Canada’s federal Environment Commissioner.

That audit found Canada was well short of its emissions targets for 2030 and fewer than half of the policies outlined in the Emissions Reduction Plan had a timetable for implementation.

The international report released Wednesday does, however, highlight some encouraging signs.

It notes Canada is one of the countries that has taken steps to end international public financing for fossil-fuel projects. It also says Canada has joined three other countries – China, Germany and Indonesia – in starting to develop scenarios for domestic fossil-fuel production consistent with national or global net-zero targets.

The report puts some cold water on carbon capture and storage technologies.

It says those technologies could play a role in helping reduce the emissions footprint of hard-to-transition sectors, but “they are not a free pass to continue with business as usual.” Around 80 per cent of carbon capture pilot projects over the past 30 years have failed, the report said.

“Counting on these largely unproven and relatively costly technologies being rolled out at scale is thus a potentially risky and dangerous strategy,” the report says.

The federal government rolled out a refundable tax credit for businesses investing in carbon capture and storage projects at an estimated cost of $2.6-billion over five years starting in 2022-2023, and $1.5-billion annually starting in 2026 until at least 2030. The Pathways Alliance, an industry group of Alberta oil sands companies, has been lobbying the federal government to support a massive carbon capture and storage network.

Given what the report calls the “risks and uncertainties of carbon capture,” it says countries should aim for a near total phase-out of coal production by 2040 and a combined reduction in oil and gas production by three-quarters by 2050 from 2020 levels.

Many countries, the report says, are also promoting gas as a “bridge” or “transition” fuel, with no apparent plans to transition away from it.

“Gas could hinder or delay the transition to renewable energy systems by locking in fossil-fuel based systems and institutions,” the report said.

Despite governments around the world signing up to ambitious net-zero targets, global coal, oil and gas production are still increasing while planned reductions are nowhere near enough to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

ANGELA PICCIARIELLO SENIOR RESEARCHER WITH THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

This article was written by Marieke Walsh and was published in the Globe & Mail on November 8, 2023.

Ottawa’s projections overly optimistic, Environment Commissioner says

Ottawa does not yet have a road map for meeting its 2030 emissions-reduction goals, the federal Environment Commissioner concluded in a bleak assessment that also found the government’s projections in this area are overly optimistic.

More than two years ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged at an international summit that Canada would cut its greenhouse-gas emissions by at least 40 per cent below 2005 levels by the end of the decade.

In a report tabled Tuesday in the House of Commons, Environment and Sustainable Development Commissioner Jerry DeMarco says an audit by his office found that the federal government is on track to continue Canada’s streak of missed climate targets.

The report says Ottawa’s own emissions projections reveal a gap between its emissions goals and the policies meant to fulfill them. Mr. DeMarco also found that the minority Liberals have dragged their feet on implementing key policies, failed to prioritize the most important policies and relied on unrealistic assumptions that undercut their own projections.

The result is that Canada is the only Group of Seven country whose emissions are higher now than in 1990, the report says.

“This is not my first time sounding the alarm,” Mr. DeMarco said at a news conference in Ottawa.

Seven years out from Canada’s next emissions-reduction deadline, his report points out that the country has never met an emissions goal, despite crafting more than 10 separate plans since 1990.

The Trudeau government is at a crossroads on climate policy. More than two weeks ago, Mr. Trudeau announced a surprise softening of his government’s carbon-pricing policy, exempting home heating oil from the levy, but not other fuels. The change catapulted the debate over carbon pricing back to the forefront, as premiers demanded more relief from the carbon price and experts warned the move could spell the end of the Liberals’ signature climate-change policy.

Mr. DeMarco said the change was announced too late for it to be factored into his report.

Despite the government’s carbon-price climbdown, Mr. Trudeau has said Ottawa is “doubling down” on the fight against climate change. On Parliament Hill on Tuesday, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault told reporters an updated climate plan, which is expected by the end of the year, will have “good news.”

“We’re confident that we can get there. There’s still seven years before 2030,” Mr. Guilbeault said.

“I agree with the commissioner. We need to do more. We need to do it faster. And that’s exactly what our government is doing.”

But Mr. DeMarco said the government has not learned to move faster. For example, clean fuel regulations were years late, and the Liberals’ key 2021 campaign promise to cap oil and gas emissions is also delayed.

“If they have the will to act like it’s a crisis, rather than just saying it’s a crisis, then they can roll things out more quickly,” he told reporters.

In 2022, the federal government released an updated emissions-reduction plan, which said Canada would cut emissions 40 per cent by 2030. But the plan projected only a 36.4-per-cent reduction. At the time, the government maintained it would still hit 40 per cent, because some policies had not yet been modelled.

Mr. DeMarco said that conclusion from the government was not credible. The government “can’t just have a hope” to hit its targets, he said.

The government later released another report that showed an even wider gap, with Canada reaching a 34-per-cent reduction by 2030, compared with 2005 levels. That too was not realistic, the commissioner said.

Both reports were characterized by “overly optimistic assumptions, limited analysis of uncertainties, and lack of peer review,” the audit found.

Mr. DeMarco noted that the issues he is flagging in his latest report repeat concerns that he has raised in the past. Still, he said the government’s most recent plan is an improvement over past attempts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. He said there is still time to “course-correct.”

Dave Sawyer, the principal economist with the Canadian Climate Institute, a governmentfunded think tank, said Mr. DeMarco’s audit shows that the federal government needs to focus more on implementing the policies it announces.

For example, he said, the think tank’s own modelling shows that, if the government were to implement a stringent cap on oil and gas emissions, Canada ”could be on track to more or less hit the target.” But the longer the delay in implementing the policy, the more risk there is, he said.

Overall, Mr. Sawyer said he isn’t surprised by the report’s findings. But he’s optimistic that Canada will be able to change its emissions trends.

“We’re in a much better place than we were a number of years ago,” he said.

In a statement on the commissioner’s report, the Official Opposition Conservatives said Mr. DeMarco’s audit shows the government’s “punitive plan won’t accomplish anything.” The party has not yet said what its own emissions plan would entail.

On Monday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre refused to say whether he would commit to Canada’s 2030 emissions-reduction targets, or the targets under the Paris Agreement.

NDP MP and deputy environment critic Alexandre Boulerice accused the government of “failing on climate,” in a statement to The Globe and Mail. He said the Liberals should impose a windfall tax on oil and gas companies to pay for home heating retrofits that would lower heating bills.

The climate targets report was released along with reports on a number of other audits by Mr. DeMarco.

One audit found that the Department of Natural Resources’ infrastructure program for zeroemission vehicles is on track to meet its 2026 target. But the report says there is still a “large gap” between the existing number of charging stations for those vehicles and the number needed by 2035.

The audit also found that 87 per cent of federally funded charging stations were placed in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia.

In another audit, Mr. DeMarco’s office found that the federal government is failing to decarbonize its own vehicle fleet, and is currently on track to miss its deadline for greening those vehicles by a wide margin.

This opinion was written by Nichole Dusyk and Jessica Kelly, and was published in the Globe & Mail on November 8, 2023.

Nichole Dusyk is the lead for Canada energy and a senior policy adviser at the International Institute for Sustainable Development. Jessica Kelly is a senior policy adviser at the IISD.

If governments around the world maintain the status quo in terms of energy policies, we’ll see peak global demand for coal, oil and gas before 2030 – and clean technologies will play a much stronger role. That’s according to the latest analysis from the International Energy Agency, which recently released its annual World Energy Outlook, or WEO, report.

For Canada, the IEA research confirms it’s time for governments to heed the signals and end public support to the fossil fuel industry. This includes eliminating subsidies for liquefied natural gas expansion across the country. LNG Canada, the only such facility under construction, has already received more than $6.5-billion in public support from federal and provincial governments.

Global demand outlook for natural gas (including LNG) has been progressively revised downward in the “stated policies” scenarios of each of the past four WEO editions. This year’s report is also the second to project an absolute decline in global natural gas demand by 2030.

In a current world scenario (with no additional changes to existing climate policies), last year’s outlook for natural gas demand in 2040 was cut by around 570 billion cubic metres (a 12-percent reduction relative to 2021 forecasts). This year, forecasted natural gas demand in 2040 has been adjusted down a further 140 bcm. Even without more ambitious climate policy, the market is changing quickly and revealing that the structural shift away from natural gas has begun in many economies. There is no evidence that Canada’s LNG will find demand in an oversupplied and shrinking market.

Industry often claims that Canada can be a major LNG exporter and even an LNG superpower. This has led to a sense of urgency and pressure to build infrastructure quickly. The pipeline for TC Energy’s Coastal Gaslink, which is supposed to feed LNG Canada, was recently completed despite significant opposition and environmental violations. LNG enthusiasm assumes strong demand going decades into the future with opportunities to support European and Asian energy needs.

But this urgency to build is misplaced: The forecasts and analysis just don’t support the hype. The IEA’s most recent report highlights the EU’s accelerated move toward renewable energy sources after feeling the sting of gas’s use as a geopolitical weapon. China’s economic growth is slowing as well, with the IEA projecting its total energy demand to peak mid decade with a trend toward higher proportions of clean energy. Emerging Asian markets, with the highest LNG demand growth, are price-sensitive and will likely favour the lowest-cost producers.

This all means that developing LNG in Canada is an economically risky proposition. And propping up LNG as a “cleaner” energy export than some of Canada’s dirtier fuels is undermined by higher than-expected methane emissions in LNG supply chains, not to mention the large energy needs of LNG infrastructure itself.

Like natural gas, the outlook for LNG demand has been revised down. Demand in 2050 under current policies, according the WEO’s most recent outlook, is nearly 15 per cent lower than projected two years ago. The WEO also makes clear that if the world successfully limits global warming to 1.5 C through more ambitious climate policies, there is no need for new LNG facilities. Even projects that are already under construction, such as LNG Canada, risk becoming uneconomic before the end of their lifetime.

The industry is attempting to launch into a weakening market. Globally, multiple new LNG projects are slated to come online starting in 2025, mostly in the U.S. and Middle East, and will flood the markets with more than 250 bcm a year of new capacity by 2030 – roughly 45 per cent of today’s global LNG supply. This will drive prices down and influence the economic viability of projects coming online after 2027.

Given the clear signals about the long-term prospects of the LNG industry, governments in Canada need to protect taxpayers from this risk. It is essential to end the subsidies, tax breaks, exemptions, discounts and deferrals that have been provided to the country’s LNG sector. This includes having the public pay for the cost of building transmission lines to electrify LNG facilities. The loopholes for LNG in the federal government’s policy to eliminate “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies also need to be closed – permanently.

If the WEO makes anything clear, it is that the future is in renewables and electrification. Public support, both in Canada and abroad, should flow only to long-term clean energy solutions such as solar, wind and electric heat pumps.

This article was written by Catherine McKenna and was published in the Toronto Star on November 3, 2023.

CATHERINE MCKENNA IS THE FORMER MINISTER OF ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE WHO, IN 2017, INTRODUCED CANADA’S NATIONAL CARBON PRICING SYSTEM. SHE IS THE CEO OF CLIMATE AND NATURE SOLUTIONS.

Canadians know that extreme weather caused by climate change — devastating wildfires, storms, floods — is already costing us billions of dollars. Canadians can also see we are now in a global race with the United States, Europe and China to attract investment in clean energy that creates growth and good jobs.

So you would think that serious politicians would at last agree that carbon pollution can’t be free — that it should be priced with predictable increases to encourage people and businesses to choose cleaner, less expensive energy solutions that also create good jobs and grow our economy.

You would be wrong.

But then life is full of ironies. Using pricing to change behaviour is a strategy drawn from any conservative playbook. By setting a price, a market can work its magic and people can make the best choices for their businesses and families.

This is the logic at the heart of Canada’s approach to meeting its climate commitments and driving carbon pollution out of our economy and environment.

But because I’m not a conservative and know that markets often hurt people who can least afford it, I made sure that the federal approach to carbon pricing had a special protection built in: it’s revenue neutral. This means that the money raised by putting a price on carbon is transparently rebated in the form of a quarterly Climate Action Incentive rebate made directly to Canadians’ bank accounts.

This isn’t something I expect our political opponents to advertise, but it doesn’t stop it from being true. Nor does it change the fact that Canada’s carbon pricing system follows the same approach successfully pioneered by conservative politicians.

Think prime minister Brian Mulroney and acid rain, or premier Gordon Campbell, who created Canada’s first carbon pricing system in British Columbia. Quebec premier Jean Charest made common cause with the all-American Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to set up a carbon market that, despite opposition in Quebec and California, propels both economies forward.

So on one hand we have today’s Conservatives who refuse to take lessons from their own. On the other, let’s remember that while we are in a fossil fuel climate crisis, the oil and gas industry is playing a double game. They are generating massive profits that they return to their shareholders while charging consumers exorbitant prices. At the same time they are demanding huge public subsidies to clean up the pollution they cause, while walking away from their already modest climate commitments.

We keep overlooking this fact: The skyrocketing price of heating oil and gas being paid by Canadians isn’t caused by the carbon price where all the money is given back. It’s the skyrocketing price of heating oil and gas being charged by large oil and gas companies.

This, incidentally, is why an oil and gas windfall tax is long overdue. It would address the climate crisis and improve affordability by giving that money back to families to help them get off fossil fuels and transition to cheaper, cleaner energy.

According to the Parliamentary Budget Office, if the same windfall tax currently paid by Canadian banks and insurance companies was paid by the largest Canadian oil and gas companies, proceeds would reach $4.2 billion in just five years. That would buy a lot of heat pumps.

Let’s not lose focus. The problem here isn’t carbon pricing. It’s the price of fossil fuels. As Clean Energy Canada has made clear, “fossil fuel inflation is the culprit for skyrocketing heating oil prices.” The sooner heating systems relying on fossil fuels are switched out — all across Canada — for cold-climate heat pumps, the better for consumers and for the planet. And a windfall tax can help Canadians get it done.

This article was written by Anne Shibata Casselman and was published by Maclean’s in September, 2023.

Exclusive: Projects that risk 1.5C heating target operated by companies receiving financing from European, Chinese and US banks

This article was written by Ajit Niranjan and was published in The Guardian on October 31, 2023.

Human fossil fuel emissions are threatening a key climate threshold more quickly than previously thought, a new report says.

This article was written by Matt McGrath and was published by BBC News on October 30, 2023.

This article was written by Seth Borenstein and was published in the Toronto Star on October 31, 2023.

In a little more than five years — sometime in early 2029 — the world will likely be unable to stay below the internationally agreed temperature limit for global warming if it continues to burn fossil fuels at its current rate, a new study says.

The study moves three years closer the date when the world will eventually hit a critical climate threshold, which is an increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius since the 1800s.

Beyond that temperature increase, the risks of catastrophes increase, as the world will likely lose most of its coral reefs, a key ice sheet could kick into irreversible melt and water shortages, heat waves and death from extreme weather dramatically increase, according to an earlier United Nations scientific report.

Hitting that threshold will happen sooner than initially calculated because the world has made progress in cleaning up a different type of air pollution — tiny smoky particles called aerosols. Aerosols slightly cool the planet and mask the effects of burning coal, oil and natural gas, the study’s lead author said. Put another way, while cleaning up aerosol pollution is a good thing, that success means slightly faster rises in temperatures.

The study in Monday’s journal Nature Climate Change calculates what’s referred to as the remaining “carbon budget,” which is how much fossil fuels the world can burn and still have a 50 per cent chance of limiting warming to 1.5 C since pre-industrial times. That is the threshold set by the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The past 10 years are already on average 1.14 C hotter than the 19th century.

Last year was 1.26 C warmer and this year is likely to blow past that, according to scientists.

The new study set the carbon budget at 250 billion metric tons. The world is burning a little more than 40 billion metric tons a year (and still rising), leaving six years left. But that six years started in January 2023, the study said, so that’s now only five years and a couple of months away.

“It’s not that the fight against climate change will be lost after six years, but I think probably if we’re not already on a strong downward trajectory, it’ll be too late to fight for that 1.5-degree limit,” said lead author Robin Lamboll, an Imperial College of London climate scientist.

Analysis also warns of further tipping points on horizon such as drying up of groundwater vital for food supplies

This article was written by Damian Carrington and was published in The Guardian on October 25, 2023.

Life on planet is in peril, say climate experts, as they call for a rapid and just transition to a sustainable future

This article was written by Damian Carrington and was published in The Guardian on October 24, 2023.