The Trudeau government’s rushed approval of the Petronas-led Pacific Northwest LNG project Tuesday — during sunset at a gated Coast Guard station near the Vancouver airport — struck some opposition MPs, and the Vancouver press corp, as oddly rushed.  

Now comes word, in a bombshell Reuters news report Friday morning, that Petronas may be looking to sell the Pacific Northwest LNG project, according to "three people familiar with the matter.” The B.C. government tried to throw water on the speculation Friday afternoon, saying it sought assurances from Petronas and that the proponent doesn't have plans to sell the LNG project.

However, the revelations have led some to speculate the Trudeau government knew about Petronas’ plans to sell and raced out west in a hurried attempt to save the project from collapse. Others have questioned if the provincial and federal governments knowingly approved a project destined for failure, and if so, why?

“It’s incredibly cynical if Trudeau’s government had advance knowledge this wasn’t going ahead,” Nathan Cullen, NDP MP for Skeena-Bulkley Valley, told DeSmog Canada.

Hasty LNG Approval Signaled Trouble

The timing of the announcement was peculiar since Trudeau’s ministers were in a cabinet meeting earlier that morning in Ottawa. One of them, Fisheries Minister Romeo LeBlanc, was scheduled to meet in Ottawa with five B.C. hereditary chiefs opposed to the LNG project.  

But that meeting was abruptly cancelled, and ministers Catherine McKenna, Jim Carr and LeBlanc jetted across the country to the airport-area press briefing, where they announced their approval of the controversial LNG project.

Cullen said the timing of the Trudeau government’s announcement was highly suspicious.

“I’ve been trying to understand why they announced the way they did,” he said. “It was disorganized, it was panicked and they had already flown out hereditary chiefs to Ottawa. This was a huge announcement, a big deal for Trudeau. Why the panic?”

“I think because Petronas was about to say, ‘we’re thinking of selling.’ They wanted to milk one last good news story out of it before reality hit and people realized Christy Clark’s [LNG] fantasy was nothing more than an attempt to get reelected.”

Canada’s climate change minister Catherine McKenna stands beside B.C. Premier Christy Clark during the Trudeau government’s announcement approving the Petronas-led Pacific Northwest LNG plant on Tuesday evening near the Vancouver airport. Photo: Mychaylo Prystupa.

When asked to confirm the news of Petronas’ intentions, Caitlin Workman, McKenna’s media officer, provided this statement via e-mail: “As far as I have seen there are only speculation and unnamed sources out there on that matter. The project was approved by the government based on a lengthy and thorough process that took about three years from beginning to end.” A media inquiry to Petronas, via its Pacific Northwest LNG office, was not responded to Friday afternoon.

Shannon McPhail, executive director of the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, told DeSmog Canada the news reveals a dizzying level of political posturing on behalf of both the province and the federal government.

“Clearly they knew this was going to happen. What other reason was there for their hasty press conference in Vancouver?” McPhail told DeSmog Canada. “They didn’t plan that. They had meetings scheduled with hereditary chiefs in Ottawa. That was a last-minute, hasty decision.”

While McPhail said she was frustrated by the federal government’s decision to approve the project earlier this week, the news of Petronas’ potential exit from the B.C. LNG market puts it all into perspective.

As for B.C. Premier Christy Clark, McPhail sees it cutting two ways.

“Did the feds play her?” McPhail mused. “At the press conference Christy Clark couldn’t get that smile off her face — she looked like the cat that had caught the canary.”

“Then I started thinking — she didn’t know. They used her has a pawn to get what they wanted: a carbon tax across Canada.”

Did Christy Clark ‘Get Played’ or is She a Player?

Earlier this week Clark reversed a long-standing election promise that her government would not increase the provincial carbon tax. This was the result of an explicit political condition placed on federal approval of the Pacific Northwest LNG project.  

Clark sure as heck wanted this Pacific Northwest LNG approved. She set ambitious LNG targets for herself, promising to have three LNG facilities up and running by 2020 and committing much of her cabinet to LNG project approvals.

So far, none of the other already approved LNG projects — Squamish's small-scale Woodfibre LNG plant, and the two giant Kitimat LNG projects by Shell and Chevron — have moved ahead with final investment decisions.

But that doesn’t mean Clark wasn’t willing to leverage the federal approval of the Pacific Northwest LNG project for some political advantage.  

It’s entirely possible Clark’s cheshire grin at Tuesday’s rushed press conference was due to the fact that she could say “we did everything we could,” McPhail said.

“Maybe the cat that ate the canary face was just for show to demonstrate to media, ‘hey look I was right all along, we’re the jobs people and look how hard we worked.’ ”

But the approval of the Pacific Northwest project may just be setting the stage for the main B.C. event: the federal approval of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline.

That’s what it comes down to for Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs.

“We suspect that in part the tradeoff between the federal government and the Clark government here in B.C. is that the premier agreed to sign on to the federal carbon tax proposal,” Phillip told DeSmog Canada.

“Furthermore we believe in exchange the federal government has agreed to complete the hat trick of betrayal of the promises and commitments made to the First Nations people during the course of the last federal election will be the approval of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion proposal.”

The Vancouver Sun’s Editorial Board has yet another take on the connection between the LNG approval and the pending pipeline decision, stating that Trudeau’s LNG approval will win “applause from resource sector” while giving the Prime Minister the credibility to impose the moratorium on oil tankers on the northern coast, thereby killing Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline and “winning the admiration of the environmental movement.”

“Having earned his green spurs, he can [then] approve the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain” pipeline….having deftly played both sides of the street.”

The federal government is expected to make a final decision on the Trans Mountain pipeline by December.

For Project Opponents, Approval Still Represents Betrayal

Phillip is among many of the project’s opponents that consider the federal government’s approval of the project — even if a political charade — a deep betrayal.

“Let me begin by saying that to see the deception inherent in the approval of the Pacific Northwest LNG project proposal flies in the face of any notion of genuine reconciliation between the government of Canada or the province of B.C. and First Nations.”

Lax Kw'alaams woman Christine Smith-Martin crashed the Trudeau government’s Tuesday night Petronas LNG decision announcement in protest while holding a jar of salmon.  Photo: Mychaylo Prystupa.

“Clearly there has been a great deal of backroom dealing going on.”

Cullen, who spent Friday in Haida Gwaii for the royal visit, said many people in Northern B.C. are furious.

“Trudeau wasn’t invited here, the Premier wasn’t invited here for a reason. People are feeling very betrayed right now,” he said, adding Prince William and Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, were canoed by members of the Haida nation wearing “no LNG” t-shirts.

“Haida elders expressed their real sadness and anger,” he said.

David Moscrop, a political scientist and PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia, said that kind of betrayal comes with high political costs.

“You don’t get to shake the betrayal because the approval didn’t work out — the betrayal sticks to you,” he told DeSmog Canada.

Moscrop, who studies democratic governance, said if the Pacific Northwest deal goes south it will be a lose-lose for the federal government.

“On the right and left they’re going to be accused of having sold out,” he said. “This doesn’t benefit anyone participating in this process.”

‘Cui Bono?’

Moscrop said ultimately, it may have been both the provincial and federal governments who got played.

“I like to ask the old question: ‘cui bono?’” he said, referring to the ancient question, meaning simply, who benefits?

“People think industry and government are friendly, but only to the extent that they can get something out of one another.”

“If industry thinks it can gain significant advantage by sticking it to the government, they will.”

Throughout the project review process Petronas, a company with a poor human rights record, leveraged poor market conditions as a way to gain an ever-sweetening deal for the project from the provincial government. Petronas successfully negotiated for enormous income tax breaks and weakening of carbon tax rules that could cost B.C. taxpayers millions of dollars.

“I don’t blame them — either get out or leverage this moment to get every nickel and dime out while the getting is good,” Moscrop said, adding if Petronas was eyeing a sale of its Pacific Northwest LNG project it will be easier now with a conditional approval under their belt.

McPhail said the idea Petronas is threatening to pull out of the project for leverage might be what worries her most of all.

“My biggest fear is this is a negotiation tactic from Petronas,” she said.

“This is smart business accounting, smart corporate accounting. That’s what these guys are doing. If they’re threatening now, people are going to say 'give them whatever they want, please don’t go.' ”

Image: Premier Christy Clark and the ministers gather in Richmond for the approval of the Pacific Northwest LNG terminal. Photo: Province of B.C. via Flickr

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Restoring oversight. Meaningful participation. Rebuilding trust.

Such phrases sounded just so good when the federal Liberal Party first detailed its plan to address the environmental assessment and consultation process for major projects like interprovincial pipelines and LNG export terminals.

But such rhetoric may already be critically undermined thanks to way the government has approached public consultations in its environmental review of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Expansion Project, which would almost triple the Edmonton-to-Burnaby pipeline’s capacity to 890,000 barrels/day.

Such missteps include but are certainly not limited to: appointing a former LNG lobbyist and partner with Kinder Morgan to sit on the panel, providing inadequate notice to the public and First Nations of the actual hearings, and failing to mandate that the consultations actually have any bearing on the final decision by cabinet.

The Trans Mountain Expansion will be the first major resource project to receive a decision by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet, with a decision expected by just before Christmas.

As a result, the way the government handles criticism of its panel review process may set the tone for the remainder of its efforts to reverse the previous government’s dismembering of the environmental review process. At this point, it’s not looking good.

Panel to Rebuild Public Trust in Federal Assessment Process

In late May, the National Energy Board (NEB) granted the Trans Mountain Expansion a partial approval, subject to 157 conditions.

(Technically, and thanks to the same changes in 2012 that handed the NEB responsibility for conducting reviews of pipeline projects, the federal cabinet didn’t even need to listen to the NEB’s verdict and could have okayed the project even if it hadn’t received approval.)

But the NEB is arguably ill-suited to perform environmental reviews given its technical focus, so the federal government appointed a three-person panel to conduct an additional review of the project in order to help restore some of that evaporated public trust.

Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr appointed to the panel: Kim Baird (former chief of Tsawwassen First Nation, lobbyist for Woodfibre LNG and partner with Kinder Morgan), Tony Penikett (former premier of Yukon) and Annette Trimbee (president of the University of Winnipeg and member of the Alberta government’s recent non-renewable resource royalty review panel).

The panel was tasked with consulting citizens, First Nations and local governments in ten cities during July and August: Calgary, Edmonton, Jasper, Kamloops, Chilliwack, Abbotsford, Langley, Burnaby, Vancouver and Victoria.

#KinderMorgan Review Panel Slammed for Perceived Conflict of Interest https://t.co/28WwWsfGoq #cdnpoli #bcpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) August 8, 2016

Panel Member's Relationship With Kinder Morgan Questioned

But problems started almost immediately. Baird was quickly flagged as carrying a perceived conflict of interest given her former ties to the company that she was supposed to be reviewing with an unbiased lens.

A video posted by the Dogwood Initiative showed that Baird had a working relationship with Kinder Morgan Canada’s president Ian Anderson, having previously shared staff expertise with the company and stating “our perspectives were more similar than not.”

“Of all of the people in British Columbia that you could possibly find to take the job, why not pick somebody who doesn’t have an online video of them visiting the Kinder Morgan facilities and boardroom in Calgary and talking about how similar they are and sharing staff?” says Kai Nagata, the Dogwood Initiative’s director of energy and democracy.

“There four-and-a-half million people in the province: just pick somebody who’s not directly involved with the proponent,” he adds.

Hearings Consistently Accused of Being Poorly Publicized and Scheduled

The Kamloops hearing was a disaster. The event’s organization was criticized throughout the day, with many reporting that citizens weren’t given enough notice.

At one point, Penikett interrupted one of the citizens speaking to ask how they got to the university campus, implying their assumed reliance on fossil fuels makes them an unsuitable critic of the project. The incident, Nagata says, “betrays a complete ignorance about the purpose of the pipeline” as the heavy crude will be bound for export not direct usage in domestic cars.

“Why didn’t they just get Ezra Levant to run the panel?” Nagata quips.

Many of the same concerns have been voiced in other communities: the Chilliwack Times reported the consultations were slammed by local First Nations for a lack of invitations, while the Langley Times observed the hearings were considered “poorly publicized and badly scheduled.”

Nagata says Dogwood has been hearing the same thing from all of the communities: he says if the government really wants to find out what people think, they should have panel that has “at least the appearance of being impartial,” give more than 48 hours notice that a panel hearing is happening and host it at a time when people aren’t vacationing or working.

He adds that all the problems with the NEB process are present in these panel hearings: the proponent doesn’t have to appear, there’s no cross-examination or testing of evidence, and there’s no real mechanism to introduce scientific evidence other than attaching a PDF to an email with a staggeringly long address.

“That’s just not how you conduct a public infrastructure review process in the developed world,” Nagata says.

“It does not meet the basic test for procedural fairness or natural justice. If that’s the basis on which they plan to approve this pipeline, they’re setting themselves up for political fallout and legal challenges. And that’s really sad given the very clear promises made during the election.”

Trimbee Also Under Fire For Stance on Fossil Fuel Divestment

And Baird isn’t the only member on the review panel with a questionable history.

Trimbee, the president of the University of Winnipeg and member of Alberta’s criticized royalty review panel, has come under fire from students for the way the university’s administration handled a June 27 vote on fossil fuel divestment, with the outcome marked by similar problems as the federal review panel.

Andrew Vineberg, a student at the University of Winnipeg and community liaison for its students’ association, says the call for divestment started in the fall of 2014, with the school’s administration and board of regents agreeing to do a risk assessment of divestment in May of 2015 (which he admits was an admiringly fast response, noting that some campuses push for divestment for years without any success).

Vineberg describes the risk assessment phase as “very open and transparent and public,” with administration seeming open to considering the issue.

Trimbee attended every related meeting.

Underpublicized Vote Did Not Explicitly Address Divestment

But the lofty rhetoric, which Vineberg describes as attempting to “make it seem like they were bolstering their environmental policy,” was quickly undermined by the out-of-nowhere vote on the issue that took place after the school year was done and with some student representatives unable to attend.

The agenda was released only a few days before the meeting, with the phrase “responsible investment” replacing “fossil fuel divestment” even though the risk assessment had spoken explicitly about the latter.

Vineberg says many of the regents didn’t know what they were voting on coming in, and that the wording was vague and toothless (the proposal being “a responsible investment policy that applies Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria and a separate fund option that is 100 per cent fossil fuel free and geared towards ‘green’ innovation.”)

“The university went in a direction that, to me, suggests they like the PR value that publically claiming a support of sustainability and environmentalism and social justice and indigenization brings to them but they do not actually want to do the work and change their manner of business to align themselves with those values,” he says. “They do not want to compromise the way they do business.”

Vineberg says they’re now gearing up for the next phase of organizing and mass mobilizing for September.

Environmental Review Panel Serves as Predominant Interim Intervention

In late June, the federal government announced a review of the NEB and environmental assessment process. Both review panels will be presenting their recommendations in January 2017, after cabinet is expected to have made a decision on the Trans Mountain Expansion Project.

In other words, this environment review panel serves as the predominant interim intervention by the federal government into what’s otherwise considered a hopelessly flawed assessment process for one of the biggest pipeline projects in the foreseeable future.

And the government appointed a former Kinder Morgan partner, a panelist who attempts to undermine criticisms by accusing them of relying on fossil fuels to get to the public consultation, and a university president who has circumvented pushes for fossil divestment on her campus.

In addition, the consultations have been arguably underpublicized, while the perspectives from citizens who manage to book a babysitter and take the day off work to attend them have no actual legal bearing on the decision.

Nagata suggests it fits into the broader pattern of action not meeting rhetoric, with the federal government granting Site C dam permits only being the most recent example. And now the panelists are heading to Burnaby (August 9 to 11) and Vancouver (August 16 to 18), spots of fierce opposition to the proposed pipeline.

“They think they’ve had a rough ride so far from the Interior and Fraser Valley communities,” Nagata says.

“I think people are pretty pissed off. The whole idea was the Liberals campaigned on the glaring inadequacies of the National Energy Board process. They were very forceful in denouncing the Harper government’s approach to pipeline approvals. And what they’ve done is arguably made the entire process worse.”

Image: Pipeline review meeting via Kai Nagata

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The Site C dam, advanced as the province’s showcase clean energy project by the B.C. government, will cause significant environmental damage without any significant climate benefit, according to a new report from the University of British Columbia.

Authored by Rick Hendriks from Camerado Energy Consulting, the report found Site C, a BC Hydro megadam proposed for the Peace River near Fort St. John, will not provide energy at a lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emission rate than other alternative energy projects.

“The government stated that the unprecedented level of significant adverse environmental effects from Site C are justifiable, in part, because the project delivers energy and capacity at lower GHG emissions than the available alternatives,” Hendriks, an energy consultant with more than 20 years experience analyzing large-scale hydropower projects, said.

“Our analysis indicates this is not the case.”

Comparing BC Hydro’s own data on Site C and alternative energy scenarios, the report found the megadam provides no substantial benefit over other renewable sources like wind and solar.

“I feel like the discussion in the public has made a few assumptions about the Site C dam that merit reexamination,” Karen Bakker, professor of geography at UBC and Canada Research Chair in Political Ecology, told DeSmog Canada.

“The assumption that Site C is clean and green is one that we actually need to scrutinize rather than assume,” she said.

Bakker, who oversaw the new greenhouse gas analysis, is one of several scholars who recently found the Site C project represents the largest amount of significant adverse environmental impacts ever reviewed under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act since its introduction into law.

She said although the joint federal-provincial review panel tasked with considering the Site C project did some good work, they were limited in resources and scope when it came to a fulsome project analysis. The panel did not consider the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the project.

“That’s the simple way to sum up why we’re doing what we’re doing,” she said.

Bakker said the report did not conduct an independent review of BC Hydro’s own greenhouse gas estimates for the project, but said, “even using their own numbers Site C is not cleaner or greener than other renewables.”

“Our analysis suggests that other renewables like wind and solar would help Canada achieve its climate change goals more quickly and cheaply and with much lower environmental impact than Site C.”

Bakker said the new report highlights the need for more thorough analysis of Site C’s environmental impacts. She added more research, which doesn’t rely on BC Hydro’s estimates, needs to be conducted.

“There’s much more to be done,” she said. “It would be great if this had been studied and geothermal had been examined as well.”

The Site C dam will power a proposed 1100-megawatt electricity facility, producing far more electricity than B.C. is projected to need for roughly two decades.

Local farmers, landowners and First Nations say the dam, which will flood 107 kilometres of the Peace River valley, will unnecessarily destroy wildlife habitat, First Nations archaeological and hunting sites and some of the province’s most productive agricultural land.

The chair of the Site C Joint Review Panel, Harry Swain, has come out against the project, saying B.C.’s domestic electricity demand has not significantly increased since 2007, meaning the province has no need for the estimated $9-billion project.

“I think we’re making a big mistake, a very expensive one,” Swain recently told DeSmog Canada. “Of the $9 billion it will cost, at least $7 billion will never be returned. You and I as rate payers will end up paying $7 billion bucks for something we get nothing for.”

“There is no need for Site C,” Swain said. “If there was a need, we could meet it with a variety of other renewable and smaller scale sources.”

Swain and the other panel members were prevented from making a recommendation on the Site C project, saying their review was too limited in scope and that the province consistently failed to investigate alternatives to the dam.

Bakker said the new greenhouse gas report highlights the need for more thorough and independent analysis of Site C. She urged the federal government to take the new information into consideration.

“The federal government committed to doing greenhouse gas assessments of all projects — upstream and comprehensive assessments,” Bakker said, saying both Environment Minister Catherine McKenna and Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr promised as much in their January 27th statement on project reviews.

“We are sending a copy of this report to those ministers suggesting what we’ve done is a small input into what should be a much bigger process and asking who is doing that review, because that is what they’ve committed to.”

Bakker said how the federal government proceeds with the Site C project will determine whether or not Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet will honour their campaign promises and public mandates.

“The most significant precedent-setting litmus test in all of this is the First Nations issue,” she said.

“The fact that this government hasn’t publicly assessed whether Site C would infringe treaty rights, despite the fact that the joint review panel presented evidence that directly supports the claim that treaty infringements would occur, is a problem.”

“But we want to make sure that the broader discussion about balancing that against Canada’s climate change goals is not continuing on the basis of false assumptions.”

Image: W.A.C. Bennett Dam and the Williston Reservoir on the Peace River. Photo: Jayce Hawkins/DeSmog Canada

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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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Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr has reiterated the federal government’s pledge to overhaul the National Energy Board in order to restore public confidence in Canada’s pipeline review process. But the promised legislative changes will not come quickly.

"You don't rush your way into decisions that affect not only today, but generationally in Canada in the new world of sustainably moving resources to market," Carr said Monday while attending the federal cabinet’s retreat in New Brunswick.

Over the last month, the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs and Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan requested Carr and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suspend the review of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline to avoid a decision being pushed through a process they claim is “deeply flawed.” Trans Mountain’s final hearings began as scheduled on January 19 in Burnaby, British Columbia.

"The minister is correct, we shouldn’t rush the creation of a new process,” Andrea Harden-Donahue, energy and climate justice campaigner with the Council of Canadians, said. “But continuing with the flawed Kinder Morgan and Energy East reviews is entirely inconsistent with Liberal promises. How can a 'transition strategy' rectify the failings around public participation and Indigenous consultation for these projects. I don't see how this can happen."

“We are not saying pipeline companies have to go back to square one,” Harden-Donahue told DeSmog Canada. “All evidence submitted goes on hold and this can be supplemented with additional evidence after the changes are made.”

Trudeau’s government has been clear on several occasions pipeline projects currently under National Energy Board review will not be forced to go back to “square one,” that is, begin their application process completely from scratch.

The legislative changes during the Harper government’s 2012 omnibus bill frenzy severely weakened key pieces of environmental protection legislative like the Navigable Waters Protection Act and the Species At Risk Act. The National Energy Board Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act were also altered to ensure proposed pipelines made it through the regulatory process within 15-months, no matter how complex those projects may be.

“Some pipeline reviews may fall into that time limit. On the other hand, large projects with clear risks like Energy East or Kinder Morgan may not and this is problematic,” Harden-Donahue told DeSmog Canada.

There is little doubt the massive surge of public participation in the Northern Gateway pipeline hearings in B.C. served as the impetus for the Harper government to slap time limits on project reviews. With the exception of the Mackenzie Gas Project, the Board took less than 15 months to make its decisions on project applications between 2004 and 2012.

The controversial Northern Gateway proposal to pipe oilsands (also called tar sands) bitumen to B.C.’s northern coast drew records numbers of public participants for regulatory hearings and took four years to complete. The Board approved the project, albeit with over 200 conditions, in 2014.

By allowing pipeline reviews to proceed under the previous federal government’s rules, the Liberal government may be condemning projects to go back to ‘square one’ regardless. First Nations, and environmental organizations over the last four years have not been hesitant to take pipeline reviews to court over violations of ‘aboriginal’ rights or the freedom of expression.

In some cases, pipeline opponents are winning these legal battles, particularly those launched by First Nations.

Last week, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled in favour of coastal First Nations who argued in their case against Northern Gateway that the B.C. government fail to consult them about the pipeline proposal. The provincial government is now required to meaningfully consult coastal First Nations on the project, which many believe to be dead already.

Similar scenarios could play out for other pipeline projects.

The Board’s review of Trans Mountain faces a legal challenge by Tsleil-Waututh First Nation. Energy East has not come up against a legal case yet, but Treaty 3 First Nations in Ontario have vowed not to allow the pipeline to go through their territory without their free, prior and informed consent.

Line 9 pipeline, one of the first pipelines to be approved by the Board in the post-2012 omnibus bill era, is also being challenge by Deshkaan Ziibing (Chippewas of the Thames). The Ontario First Nation plans on taking their case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Image Credit: Shannon Ramos via Flickr

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Leaders in Canada’s environmental community are expressing optimism about the appointment of lawyer Catherine McKenna as Minister of Environment and Climate Change at a swearing in ceremony in Ottawa Wednesday morning.

“Including climate change in the environment minister’s title signals how high a priority this issue is to our new federal government,” said Merran Smith, executive director of Clean Energy Canada.

As a lawyer, McKenna focused on international trade and competition and co-founded a charity focused on advancing human rights in the developing world.  She was also a legal adviser and negotiator for the United Nations peacekeeping mission in East Timor. A video on her website shows her biking around Ottawa with her three children.

Although her background isn’t heavily weighted to environment and climate change, Ed Whittingham, executive director of the Pembina Institute, said it’s a good appointment.

“I’m impressed with the NGO experience, which suggests a very different approach to working with environmental NGOs like Pembina,” Whittingham told DeSmog Canada. “It indicates a more engaging, communicative, collaborative approach, reading the tea leaves right now.”

McKenna pulled off an upset on Oct. 19, defeating popular NDP MP Paul Dewar to win her seat in Ottawa Centre. She will lead a Canadian delegation to Paris later this month for a critical United Nations meeting to negotiate a new agreement on cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.

“I think she has just the right kind of experience,” said Louise Comeau, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada. “We’ve moved beyond the science and even the economic dimensions on climate change. This is now about the issues of justice and fairness and I think she’s well positioned to deal with that.”

Comeau is also pleased with the appointment of Stephane Dion as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Winnipeg South Centre MP Jim Carr as Minister of Natural Resources. Dion, Carr and McKenna will co-ordinate during next month’s climate negotiations.

“The minister responsible for Natural Resources Canada doesn’t have a vested interest in the oilsands or pipelines so we can expect a more open mind on transitioning to a clean energy system,” Comeau told DeSmog Canada. “I’m quite optimistic. This signals a significant attempt to move forward in a balanced way.”

The Liberals’ election platform was vague when it came to how to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, promising only to work with provinces to put a price on carbon and to end subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has vowed that Canada will do its part to prevent the catastrophic consequences of more than a two-degree rise in global temperatures.

The Liberals have also promised to restore robust environmental assessments and to review changes to the Fisheries Act. Nunavut MP Hunter Tootoo was named Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard during Wednesday’s swearing in ceremony.

Tootoo defeated Conservative MP and former minister of environment Leona Aglukkaq. Aglukkaq had to apologize in December 2014 for reading the newspaper while opposition parties asked the government about high food prices in the North during Question Period. She also once indicated that there’s still “debate” about some elements of climate science.

The Liberals will have a lot of catching up to do on the environment file. New documents obtained by CBC indicate federal efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will make just a small dent, in part due to many of the most effective programs — such as the ecoEnergy efficiency programs to help homes and business save energy — being cancelled by the Conservative government.

"For the last 10 years at the federal-provincial table they wouldn't even allow the word climate change to be used. That's a challenge," Ontario's Environment Minister Glen Murray told the CBC.

That means incoming McKenna faces an uphill battle — but also that there are plenty of opportunities for improvement at a time of unprecedented global momentum for action on climate change.

Last week the news broke that the International Monetary Fund will start to factor climate change into its economic forecasts. That means its well-regarded World Economic Outlook could expose how moves to cut greenhouse gas emissions will threaten growth in oil-exporting countries such as Canada.

“Canada has vast, untapped clean energy potential and developing these resources is both a key climate solution and important economic opportunity,” Smith of Clean Energy Canada said.

Trudeau also created a cabinet committee on environment, climate change and energy on Wednesday morning. The committee will be chaired by Minister of Foreign Affairs Stephane Dion.

Smith says establishing that committee “sends a clear signal that the new federal government understands that environmental protection and economic prosperity must go hand-in-hand, and is committed to taking an integrated approach to managing our natural resources, fighting climate change and growing our clean energy sector.”

Image: Flickr

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.