{"id":265820,"date":"2018-01-02T11:31:23","date_gmt":"2018-01-02T16:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/issues\/how-the-oil-sands-make-our-ghg-targets-unachievable\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T21:55:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T01:55:27","slug":"how-the-oil-sands-make-our-ghg-targets-unachievable","status":"publish","type":"issues","link":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2018\/01\/how-the-oil-sands-make-our-ghg-targets-unachievable\/","title":{"rendered":"How the oil sands make our GHG targets unachievable"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the Paris climate conference in December 2015, Canada reaffirmed its target of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 30 percent from the 2005 level by 2030. The Liberal government was roundly criticized by environmental groups and some opposition politicians for not going beyond the \u201cweak\u201d target of the previous Conservative government, but even today \u2014 two years later \u2014 there is still no plan in sight for how Canada could achieve its target by 2030, given that current total emissions are about the same as they were in 2005. At the same time, the oil industry is planning an expansion of oil production from the oil sands<\/a> \u2014 one of the highest CO2<\/sub>-emitting sources of oil in the world on a per-barrel basis \u2014 and the federal government has approved contentious new pipelines to facilitate that expansion.<\/p>\n

We examine two interrelated questions here. First, is any<\/em> oil sands oil production consistent with Canada\u2019s 2030 emissions target, given the implications of continued production for the required emissions reductions in other sectors? Second, could Canadian domestic oil demand be reduced through automobile and truck fuel efficiency and other measures, as part of the effort to achieve our 2030 emissions target, to the point where domestic demand could be met entirely by domestic conventional oil production?<\/p>\n

As our calculations show, only with a complete phase-out of oil production from the oil sands, elimination of coal for electricity generation, significant replacement of natural-gas-fuelled electricity generation with electricity from carbon-free sources, and stringent efficiency measures in all other sectors of the economy could Canada plausibly meet its 30 percent target.<\/p>\n

However, expected improvements in the performance and reductions in the cost of electric vehicles, combined with across-the-board improvement in the efficiency of cars and trucks, could see a permanent collapse in the price of oil by 2030, if not sooner, rendering oil sands oil a permanent money loser. Thus, the most urgent task related to the oil and gas industry in Canada is to plan an orderly phase-out of oil sands oil production \u2014 before such a phase-out is imposed by external economic forces. Doing so would align Canada\u2019s international climate promises with its economic well-being.<\/p>\n

In 2016, the federal department responsible for tracking Canada\u2019s GHG emissions, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), provided<\/a> a breakdown of 2005, near-present (2014), and projected future (2030) national GHG emissions by sector and by GHG, along with the corresponding quantities of oil, refined petroleum products (RPPs) and natural gas liquids produced, imported and exported, and a breakdown of the amounts consumed by sector. We use a 2017 update<\/a> of the emissions and energy flows in the 2016 analysis.<\/p>\n

In their first four data columns, tables 1 and 2 show the ECCC oil and natural gas amounts, respectively, while table 3 shows the ECCC numbers for GHG emissions. ECCC\u2019s 2030 projections already assume substantial energy efficiency improvements and fuel shifting from 2014 to 2030:<\/p>\n