This article by policy analyst Matt Horne originally appeared on the Pembina Institute website.

Last week, Environment Minister Catherine McKenna and Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr announced Canada’s intention to apply a climate test to major energy infrastructure proposals. This was the fifth of five new principles they announced to improve environmental assessments in the country.

The change is good news because it will fill a long-standing gap in the country’s environmental assessment process. The standard approach has been to look at individual oil pipeline or LNG terminal proposals without worrying about the oilsands mines or gas fields they’re connected to. The new approach will include the carbon pollution from the project being proposed and the carbon pollution from the development associated with it.

What the federal government hasn’t said yet is how they plan to evaluate the new information and integrate it into their eventual decisions. Here are four questions I’d like to see included in their climate test, using Petronas’s Pacific NorthWest LNG project to illustrate how they might work. In many cases, the federal government — as opposed to the proponent — is in the best position to address these questions.

The project is proposed for Lelu Island at the mouth of the Skeena River in northwest B.C. and is a good example of how important it is to look at the associated upstream development. The standard approach to environmental assessment would consider the 4 million tonnes of carbon pollution from the LNG terminal — just shy of the emissions from 900,000 cars on the road. Not a small amount by any means, but if the scope is broadened to include the carbon pollution from the connected pipelines, gas processing facilities and gas wells, the number almost triples to 11 million tonnes.

Question 1: Are there opportunities to cut carbon pollution?

One of the reasons for doing environmental assessments is to ensure that proponents are planning to use the best available processes and technologies. In other words, can we build the same project with fewer impacts on the environment? A climate test should help us do a better job of that for large energy projects by looking at the full range of opportunities to reduce carbon pollution. And the same approach should apply for the newly broadened scope of assessment.

In the case of the Petronas proposal, the results aren’t great. Based on our analysis, the 11 million tonnes of carbon pollution the project would be responsible for could be cut in half with better technologies and practices. These include opportunities like using renewable energy instead of gas and reducing methane leaks from gas wells and pipelines.

Some of the opportunities are directly in Petronas’s control. For example, Petronas’s proposal would be powered entirely by gas, but there’s no reason why they couldn’t be using renewable energy. For example, the LNG Canada and Woodfibre proposals — both of which are also in B.C. — intend to use about 20 per cent and 100 per cent renewable energy, respectively.

By expanding the scope of assessment, the revised process should also include opportunities outside of Petronas’s direct control. This is where it seems more appropriate for the federal government to be considering these opportunities as opposed to asking the proponent to do so.

A specific example is the methane that is released from valves and controls along the gas supply chain. These are a significant source of carbon pollution and can be reduced or eliminated with improved technology and better leak detection programs. A recent study by ICF International found that methane emissions from Canada’s oil and gas sector could be reduced by 45 per cent for less than $3 per tonne of carbon pollution. The federal government has the ability to consider analyses like these to determine if there are further opportunities to cut carbon pollution.

Question 2: Are the policies in place to ensure carbon pollution is minimized?

While there is no shortage of opportunities to reduce carbon pollution, there is also no shortage of opportunities not being pursued because of a lack of effective climate policy. Without carbon prices that increase over time and effective regulations, the business case to reduce carbon pollution isn’t strong enough. Where policies are lacking, the federal government can work with the provinces to ensure that any gaps are filled with a mix of provincial and federal policies.

In the case of Petronas, the province’s Climate Leadership Team provided a clear statement that those policies aren’t yet in place. The team concluded that the province was not on track to meet its targets and that B.C.’s carbon pollution was going to rise without new climate policies. They provided the province a package of recommendations — including a number for LNG and natural gas — that would help the province maintain a strong economy and get back on track to cutting carbon pollution. Those recommendations have yet to be adopted by the government, so the carbon pollution from any development that does proceed will be much higher than necessary.

Question 3: Does the project fit within a plan to meet climate commitments?

Canada has pledged to cut carbon pollution so that the country is responsible for at most 524 million tonnes by 2030. And that number will need to continue dropping post-2030. In assessing the carbon pollution from any proposed project, the government should be able to show how that upward pressure is accounted for in their plan to meet their targets in the medium and long-term.

The 11 million tonnes of carbon pollution from Petronas’s LNG project and the associated upstream development would account for over 2 per cent of Canada’s 2030 target. If the government decided to approve the project, they’d need to show how that 11 million tonnes fits into a plan that meets their 2030 target and positions them for further reductions post-2030.

Question 4: Is the project viable as world moves away from fossil fuels?

If the world’s governments collectively achieve the ambitions they agreed to at the Paris climate talks in December, it will mean a rapid shift away from fossil fuels. If that happens, there will be abundant global supply of oil, gas and coal, without anyone wanting to buy it. In that scenario, will Canadian suppliers of fossil fuels be able to compete for an ever-shrinking market or will they be priced out? While we can’t answer these questions definitively today, the cabinet should consider them and the economic risks they could pose to the country.

I co-authored a paper looking at the role of natural gas in a world with strong climate policies. In this scenario, gas demand peaks in 2030 and drops below current levels by mid-century and continues to decline after that. Those numbers are based on scenarios in which the world avoids two degrees of warming. If we get close to avoiding 1.5 degrees of warming, which was the agreement in Paris, the peak in global gas demand will need to be sooner and lower.

Petronas says they want to be operating by 2020, which is 10 years (or less) before global gas demand would peak and then begin a 50-year decline. How robust is their business case to that drop in demand and the accompanying drop in price? It’s possible they could be one of the suppliers that manage to stay afloat. It’s also possible they could sink. The government should be aware of those risks in making its decision.
So there you have it — four questions that should be on Canada’s new climate test when it deliberates on the carbon pollution associated with major energy projects. They aren’t easy questions to answer, but tests aren’t supposed to be easy. They’re supposed to make you think.

Author's Notes:

• In this article, we use a Global Warming Potential (GWP) of 34 for methane emissions in calculating the carbon pollution from the Petronas LNG project and associated upstream development. The backgrounder on the project that we published in July 2014 has slightly lower numbers because we used a GWP of 25 for methane.
• The carbon pollution estimates for the Petronas project and the associated upstream development are based on phases 1 and 2 (19.2 million tonnes of LNG per year) of the proposal going ahead.

Image: Matt Klotz

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This is a guest post by David Suzuki.

With oil prices plunging from more than $100 a barrel last summer to below $50 now, the consequences of a petro-fuelled economy are hitting home — especially in Alberta, where experts forecast a recession.

The province’s projected budget surplus has turned into a $500-million deficit on top of a $12-billion debt, with predicted revenue losses of $11 billion or more over the next three or four years if prices stay low or continue to drop as expected. Alberta’s government is talking about service reductions, public-sector wage and job cuts and even increased or new taxes on individuals. TD Bank says Canada as a whole can expect deficits over the next few years unless Ottawa takes money from its contingency fund.

It’s absurd that a lower price on a single commodity could have such a profound economic impact, but that’s what happens when you put all your eggs in one basket and fail to plan for such contingencies. With a population and oil-and-gas production profile similar to Alberta, Europe’s largest petroleum producer, Norway, is also feeling the impacts. But much higher taxes on industry, majority state ownership of the country’s largest oil-and-gas company and an approximately $900-billion sovereign wealth fund built from oil revenues are cushioning the fall.

Some see low fuel prices as good news, but there are many downsides. With driving becoming less costly, more cars and trucks could be on the road, which is good for the auto industry but bad in terms of pollution, climate change and traffic accidents. And because the price of oil is now lower than the cost to extract oilsands bitumen, the industry is starting to put the brakes on rapid expansion plans — bad news for workers and businesses in Fort McMurray and those heavily invested in the industry but good news for the planet.

Recent research shows most of Canada’s oilsands bitumen — as well as all Arctic oil and gas, most of Canada’s coal and some conventional oil and gas — must be left in the ground if the world is to avoid a global temperature increase of more than 2 C above pre-industrial levels, the internationally agreed-upon threshold for limiting catastrophic impacts of global warming. The report, by researchers at University College London's Institute for Sustainable Resources and published in the journal Nature, concludes a third of the world’s oil reserves, half of gas reserves and more than 80 per cent of coal reserves must not be burned before 2050.

The study also found that carbon capture and storage, touted as one way to continue exploiting and burning fossil fuels, is too new, expensive and limited to make enough of a difference by 2050.

Study co-author Paul Ekins told National Geographic that putting hundreds of billions of dollars into fossil fuel exploration and development is “deeply irrational” economic behaviour. “What would be ideal,” he said, would be to “use the opportunity of this fall in the oil price to start instituting a global carbon tax, which would take some of the volatility out of the prices.” Removing fossil fuel subsidies would also help.

John Stone, a Canadian scientist and lead author on the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, told CBC the UCL study “is another wake-up call to snap us out of our denial of climate change.”

With 2014 confirmed as the hottest year on record, and 13 of the hottest 15 years having occurred since 2000, we can’t afford to ignore the consequences. According to researchers, the odds that natural variability is causing today’s climate change are less than one in 27 million! It’s astounding that, in the face of such overwhelming evidence from scientists worldwide, people continue to deny the problem exists or that humans are responsible and can or should do anything about it.

It’s especially irresponsible when energy conservation and cleaner fuel alternatives offer so many economic benefits, including job creation, greater stability and reduced health-care costs. As world leaders prepare for the UN climate summit later this year, we must look at the recent market meltdown as an opportunity to shift away from fossil fuels. It’ll be much easier and less costly to get on with it now than to wait until we’re left with few choices.

Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

Image credit: Falling oil price graph by Makaule via Shutterstock.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This is a guest post by Andrew Gage, staff lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law. 

According to the B.C. Government, the Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic – a direct result of climate change – cost British Columbia billions in lost timber value alone – not counting environmental and other damages. This reality has influenced the public consciousness of British Columbians about the cost of climate change, and it doesn’t seem a stretch to suggest that public awareness of climate change’s impacts in B.C. was influenced by the pine beetle epidemic, and therefore that the pine beetle played an important role in B.C. adopting its carbon tax in 2008 – the only jurisdiction in North America to date to do so.

I have suggested that awareness that climate change is costing us here and now may finally drive real climate action to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions (because as John Oliver says, we’ve proven that we “cannot be trusted with the future tense”). It may even prompt discussion about whether the taxpayer – or the polluter – should be the one paying for those costs. 

Misunderstanding the science

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when Black Media columnist, Tom Fletcher, claimed that there is no scientific evidence that the pine beetle epidemic was actually caused by climate change.

I asked the province’s top forest scientists if [Premier] Campbell was right [that the pine beetle epidemic was caused by human carbon emissions]. The answer? We don’t have enough evidence to conclude that.

Now, climate science is increasingly able to link particular damages to climate change, and even to quantify the contribution of major fossil fuel companies to global greenhouse gas emissions. So it was surprising to hear a report that science did not support linking climate change to a multi-year shift in habitat.

A quick conversation with a forest pathologist who works for the B.C. Government and a few Google searches later and I knew that for many years there has been a wide range of peer-reviewed, scientific journal articles that make a link between the Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic and climate change. For example, this classic 2003 article by Allan Carroll of UBC and others:

The current latitudinal and elevational range of mountain pine beetle is … limited by … climatic conditions unfavorable for brood development. … Given the rapid colonization by mountain pine beetles of former climatically unsuitable areas during the last several decades, continued warming in western North America associated with climate change will allow the beetle to further expand its range northward, eastward and toward higher elevations.

Indeed, Mr. Fletcher also didn’t have a chance to read the recent report of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which concluded:

Warm winters in western Canada and U.S. have increased winter survival of the larvae of bark beetles, helping drive large-scale forest infestations and forest die-off in western North America since the early 2000s (Bentz et al., 2010). Beginning in 1994, mountain pine beetle outbreaks have severely affected over 18 million hectares of pine forests in British Columbia, and outbreaks are expanding northwards (Energy, Mines and Resources: Forest Management Branch, 2012).

I provided a couple of articles to Fletcher, via Twitter, and asked him to identify the “top forest scientists” that he had spoken with. After some back and forth, he referred me to the government’s pine beetle website. 

Here's ministry's current consensus on pine beetle @WCELaw. http://t.co/dugFzp2kyy As for who works there, do your own research.

— Tom Fletcher (@tomfletcherbc) May 3, 2014

I therefore called Tim Ebata, a forest entomologist with the Ministry, and one of the people who “works there” to ask him if he could clarify what this mystery scientist had told Fletcher. So far as the Ministry can determine, Fletcher spoke with a forest geneticist – not an etymologist or someone directly working on pine beetle – and the scientist in question, according to Ebata, “was probably cautious” in what he said about a matter that was outside of his field. 

Ebata, who is an entomologist and has specialised in the mountain pine beetle for almost 20 years, said that the mountain pine beetle is “a prime example of the effects of climate change – the classic biological example.” Ebata explained that the epidemic was driven by both an availability of mature pine trees (the preferred host species of the mountain pine beetle) and “a period of above average temperatures that lasted for almost 10 years,” consistent with climate change. 

And it’s not just the pine beetle. I’ve written previously about the forest pathologist I also consulted: Alex Woods, who has been recognized by the Professional Foresters for his work in demonstrating a link between a disease known as Dothistroma and climate change. In response to my emails researching this current story, Alex confirms that as a forest pathologist, “I have witnessed significant changes in forest disease behavior apparently linked to changes in our climate… Cold winters are a fundamental regulator for many organisms and we appear to have lost that fundamental regulator.”

Shoddy journalism or a communications challenge?

There’s no getting around the fact that Tom Fletcher’s piece is wrong and irresponsible. It incorrectly implies that scientists are doubtful that human-caused climate change is responsible for the mountain pine beetle epidemic, when actually scientists are very confident that there is a link. 

It sounds as if his error comes in part from relying on his recollection of a 2-year old conversation with a scientist who did not specialize in mountain pine beetles, but I suspect that it relates to a misunderstanding about science and scientific certainty.

It is rare that scientists say that they are certain about anything. That’s the nature of the scientific process.

For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change doesn’t say that the link between human greenhouse gas emissions and climate change is certain. They say that it is “extremely likely” – which is apparently about 95 per cent certain. That’s about the same level of confidence that scientists have that smoking causes cancer. And that’s in a rigorous process where the scientists have made every effort to quantify their levels of certainty and doubt. 

Faced with doubt – even if it’s a little doubt – Fletcher may have leapt to the conclusion that the link between climate change and the mountain pine beetle is not really proven (the terminology used by the IPCC to describe its levels of certainty has been criticized as confusing). But proof – whether scientific, legal or journalistic – isn’t the same as certainty. The reality is that there is a lot of proof that human caused climate change did drive the mountain pine beetle, and we can be pretty darn confident of that fact.

Who should pay?

To date the costs of the mountain pine beetle epidemic has been born by the communities impacted by the epidemic, by the taxpayer and by future generations.

The carbon tax – which is revenue neutral – doesn’t change that. It does not generate revenue for communities hit by the mountain pine beetle to rebuild and adapt. 

But perhaps we should have that conversation. Richard Heede’s Carbon Majors work identifies 90 fossil fuel producers that are responsible for 63 per cent of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Those 90 producers have received major financial gains from their production and sale of fossil fuels, in large part because they are not paying for costs associated with those fuels and their use – costs like the mountain pine beetle epidemic. In some cases these same companies have sought to spread doubt about the scientific consensus and have lobbied against climate action. 

Chevron USA is responsible for approximately 3.5 per cent of the greenhouse gases in the global atmosphere to date. That means that for each billion dollars of lost timber value, or environmental damage, that B.C. suffers as a result of the mountain pine beetle epidemic, something like $35 million could be said to have been caused by Chevron. 

Perhaps we should send them a bill.

Andrew Gage is a staff lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law working on climate change and a lead author of the Environmental Law Alert Blog. Follow West Coast Environmental Law on Twitter at @WCELaw. 

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons. Fraser Lake area impacted by Mountain Pine Beetle. Red trees are dead or dying.

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