Ottawa inched closer to crossing Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s red line on oil sector emissions caps on Wednesday without actually crossing it — yet..But speaking from Paris where he unveiled Canada’s ‘carbon management strategy’ Energy and Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson made it clear a full-blown cap on oil and gas emissions is coming. And soon..“Alongside rising carbon prices, increasingly stringent emissions standards —such as the Clean Electricity Regulations, Clean Fuel Regulations and the emissions cap for the oil and gas sector — will further encourage adoption of carbon management technologies,” NRCan said in its policy statement released in conjunction with the International Energy Agency (IEA)..In the document, it says the cap — which is footnoted as “under development” — will be ‘legislated’ to achieve net-zero by 2050 with a series of five-year interim targets, starting with a 40% to 45% reduction from 2005 levels by 2030..Added Wilkinson, in conjunction with Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault: "Carbon management technologies are an important part of how Canada can decarbonize its heavy industries and ensure they can compete and succeed in the global race to net zero by 2050,” he said. .“The International Energy Agency, the IPCC and other experts have been clear about the need for countries to rapidly develop and deploy carbon management technologies, and Canada is leading the way.”.It’s not immediately clear why Wilkinson would make such a major policy decision in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower in Paris and not Calgary or Ottawa — especially when the IEA meeting was ostensibly to talk about critical mineral supply chains..In a bid to show the policy has a few ‘carrots’ and isn’t all ‘sticks’, a considerable amount of verbiage was given to the role of carbon capture and hydrogen production from natural gas, which happen to be two of Premier Smith’s own pet projects..The document notes the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) — which covers Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba — has enough geological storage to sequester all of Canada’s emissions for hundreds and even thousands of years..It notes that one-seventh of the world’s active carbon capture projects are located in Canada. And while it acknowledges carbon capture is “essential” to reaching net-zero, “technologies to reduce, remove or reuse CO2 from the atmosphere is a not a silver bullet for addressing the climate crisis.”.“This means scaling carbon management alongside ongoing efforts to meet Canada’s primary goal to aggressively reduce absolute emissions.”.In other words: “Reducing emissions remains the top priority of Canada’s climate plan, recognizing the best way to tackle climate change is to stop new emissions from entering the atmosphere.“.And that means “regulation,” which puts the feds on a clear collision course with Alberta — not just over its ‘proposed’ electricity regulations, but also the emissions cap..The Western Standard has reached out to Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz’s office for comment, but it wasn’t immediately clear if they had been informed of the policy announcement prior to Wilkinson’s press release.
