The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) never considered the cumulative greenhouse gas emissions of the Pacific NorthWest LNG export terminal, according to documents revealed in a federal court this week.

The documents were submitted to a federal court in Vancouver during a hearing to determine whether the information should be considered as part of a forthcoming judicial review of the federal government’s decision to approve the LNG project.  

SkeenaWild Conservation Trust filed for the judicial review of the project’s approval and received 17,000 pages of federal documents under disclosure — the release of information required by law during legal proceedings. SkeenaWild hired two experts to give expert testimony on those documents.

One of those experts Kirsten Zickfeld, a climate scientist and associate professor of geography at Simon Fraser University, testified in a sworn affidavit that CEAA did not provide the federal government with an assessment of cumulative emissions from the project and that these emissions “should be assessed, especially…in terms of their share of a provincial or national ‘carbon budget.’ ”

A second expert, policy and technical analyst from the Pembina Institute Maximilian Kniewasser, testified in a sworn affidavit that Canada considered imposing conditions on the project to limit carbon pollution, such as requiring the project be powered by grid electricity rather than natural gas, but chose not to despite doing so to varying degrees for two other LNG projects, LNG Canada and Woodfibre LNG.

The federal government and Pacific NorthWest LNG asked the court to strike the affidavits from consideration as evidence on the basis that they are “inadmissible…extrinsic evidence.”  

Greg Knox, executive director of SkeenaWild, argued the two affidavits should be considered as evidence in the upcoming judicial review, likely to take place this fall.

“We are not trying to bring in new evidence,” Knox told DeSmog Canada, “just evidence to the court to show in black and white that the agency failed to provide the minister and cabinet with the proper information to make an informed decision on the project.”

Pacific NorthWest LNG To Take Up Big Chunk of Canada’s Carbon Budget

Zickfeld, an expert in climate modelling and carbon budgets, served as the lead author of the UN Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the 1.5 degree target.

Under the Paris Agreement, the majority of the world’s governments, Canada included, have agreed to limit global temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius with a goal of limiting that increase to 1.5 degrees.

Efforts to work towards that goal, Zickfeld outlines, will require countries to cap their climate pollution through carbon budgets.

Depending on the type of carbon budget Canada selects, Pacific NorthWest LNG could eat up 2.5 to 11 per cent of the country’s total all-time climate pollution allowance.

“Over the lifetime of the project (here assumed to be 30 years), these annual emissions add up to about 360 million metric tons of CO2 cumulative emissions,” Zickfeld wrote.

A large part of what makes liquefied natural gas exports so carbon-intensive is the process of turning natural gas into a liquid. The process requires running massive compressor stations 24/7 to cool gas to -162 degrees Celsius, the point at which gas turns into a liquid that can be loaded onto tankers.

In the second document Kniewasser concludes the carbon emissions from the project could have been significantly reduced had the agency assessed the technical and economic feasibility of powering the LNG terminal with grid electricity, rather than with natural gas.

“I described two alternatives to power LNG projects other than burning natural gas: using grid electricity to power non-compression load, and using grid electricity to power compression load,” he wrote in his affidavit.

These alternatives could have reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the project by between six per cent and 44 per cent, or 8 and 57 megatonnes of carbon emissions, every year, Kniewasser stated.

“These potential emissions reductions are especially significant given the project’s long operating life, B.C.’s legislated long-term climate targets, and Canada’s Paris climate commitments.”

Feds Never Considered Cumulative #Climate Impacts Of Pacific Northwest #LNG, Court Docs Reveal https://t.co/CX9llm7KZ2 #cdnpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) July 14, 2017

Much of Pacific Northwest LNG Review Conducted Behind Closed Doors

The fact that cabinet was not apprised of the cumulative climate impacts of Pacific Northwest LNG was not a matter of public knowledge, Knox told DeSmog Canada.

“In the type of environmental assessment process we had for this project, none of that was made available to the public. And it was never provided to the public until we requested it through the legal process,” he said.

Under what is know as a standard environmental assessment process, the Canadian Environmental Assessment agency conducted a review of Pacific NorthWest LNG with no public hearing, no cross examination and no full public disclosure of documents submitted during the duration of the review.

About half of the documents that were used in the assessment process weren’t on the public record, Knox said.

“When we got those documents in the spring, that is when we got some expert witnesses to comment on the complete lack of cumulative effects assessment for climate pollution and an assessment of the viability of using electricity from the grid to reduce emissions.”

“Under CEAA both of those things should have been done and the minister in cabinet should have been given that information. That poses the question: what sort of discussions and deals were done behind the scenes and why wasn’t this proper process done to reduce and assess the climate pollution from this project?”

Knox said the federal government’s decision to approve Pacific NorthWest LNG conflicts with promises to take meaningful action on climate change.

“When the government and industry are teaming up to argue against doing their due diligence on the climate impacts of this project, it’s really disconcerting,” he said.

“I think that government in this case is standing up for the interests of industry. We believe we’re bringing information and evidence forward that is in the public’s interest.”  

Kirsten Zickfeld Affidavit PNW LNG by DeSmog Canada on Scribd

Max Kniewasser Affidavit (Apr 27 2017) by DeSmog Canada on Scribd

Crown's Motion to Strike Zickfeld and Kniewasser Affidavits PNW LNG July 2017 by DeSmog Canada on Scribd

PNW LNG Motion to Strike Zickfeld and Kniewasser Affidavits July 2017 by DeSmog Canada on Scribd

Image: Federal ministers and Premier Christy Clark annouce the approval of the Pacific Northwest LNG terminal in September 2017. Photo: B.C. Government via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

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 sustainable energy economist, Mark Jaccard. It was originally published on his blog, Sustainability Suspicions.

On May 7th 2013, I was among twelve Canadian climate scientists and energy experts who sent a letter addressed to Natural Resources Minister the Hon. Joe Oliver.

As professionals who have devoted our careers to understanding the climate and energy systems, we are concerned that the Minister’s advocacy in support of new pipelines and expanded fossil fuel production is inconsistent with the imperative of addressing the climate change threat. We are going to have to wean ourselves off our addiction to fossil fuels. Thus our choices about fossil fuel infrastructure carry significant consequences for today’s and future generations.

Readings of atmospheric CO2 are approaching a new milestone of 400 ppm — a reminder of the rapidly shrinking amount of “space” remaining before we risk committing ourselves to increasingly unmanageable and costly levels of climatic change.

Here is the text of the letter:

The Honourable Joe Oliver, P.C., M.P.

Minister of Natural Resources

Parliament Hill

Sir William Logan Building, 21st Floor

580 Booth Street

Ottawa, ON K1A 0E4

May 7, 2013

Dear Minister Oliver,

As climate scientists, economists and policy experts who have devoted our careers to understanding the climate and energy systems, we share your view that “climate change is a very serious issue.”

But some of your recent comments give us significant cause for concern. In short, we are not convinced that your advocacy in support of new pipelines and expanded fossil fuel production takes climate change into account in a meaningful way.

Avoiding dangerous climate change will require significantly reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and making a transition to cleaner energy.

The infrastructure we build today will shape future choices about energy. If we invest in expanding fossil fuel production, we risk locking ourselves in to a high carbon pathway that increases greenhouse gas emissions for years and decades to come.

The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) “450 scenario” looks at the implications of policy choices designed to give the world a fair chance of avoiding 2˚C of global warming. In that scenario, world oil demand is projected to peak this decade and fall to 10 per cent below current levels over the coming decades. The IEA concludes that, absent significant deployment of carbon capture and storage, over two-thirds of the world’s current fossil fuel reserves cannot be commercialized. Other experts have reached similar conclusions.

We are at a critical moment. In the words of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, “each additional ton of greenhouse gases emitted commits us to further change and greater risks.” The longer we delay the transition to low-carbon economy, the more drastic, disruptive and costly that transition will be. The implication is clear: the responsibility for preventing dangerous climate change rests with today's policymakers.

The IEA also warns of the consequences of our current path. If governments do little to address emissions, energy demand will continue to grow rapidly and will continue to be met mostly with fossil fuels — a scenario that the Agency estimates could likely lead to 3.6˚C of global warming.

Yet it is this very dangerous pathway  — not the “450 scenario” linked to avoiding 2˚C of global warming — that you seem to be advocating when promoting Canadian fossil fuel development at home and abroad.

If we truly wish to have a “serious debate” about climate change and energy in this country, as you have rightly called for, we must start by acknowledging that our choices about fossil fuel infrastructure carry significant consequences for today’s and future generations.

We urge you to make the greenhouse gas impacts of new fossil fuel infrastructure a central consideration in your government’s decision-making and advocacy activities concerning Canada’s natural resources.

We would be very happy to provide you with a full briefing on recent scientific findings on climate change and energy development.

Thank you for your consideration of these important matters.

Sincerely,

J.P. Bruce, OC, FRSC

James Byrne

Professor, Geography

University of Lethbridge

Simon Donner

Assistant Professor, Geography

University of British Columbia

J.R. Drummond, FRSC

Professor, Physics and Atmospheric Science

Dalhousie University

Mark Jaccard, FRSC

Professor, Resource and Environmental Management

Simon Fraser University

David Keith

Professor, Applied Physics, Public Policy

Harvard University

Damon Matthews

Associate Professor, Geography, Planning and Environment

Concordia University

Gordon McBean, CM, FRSC

Professor, Centre for Environment and Sustainability

Western University

David Sauchyn

Professor, Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative

University of Regina

John Smol, FRSC

Professor, Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change

Queen’s University

John M.R. Stone

Adjunct Research Professor, Geography and Environment

Carleton University

Kirsten Zickfeld

Assistant Professor, Geography

Simon Fraser University

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.