A new study published today in the journal Nature finds the vast majority – 99 per cent – of Canada’s oilsands are “unburnable” if the world is to avoid a global temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius. 

The study, co-authored by Christophe McGlade and Paul Ekins, also found over 80 per cent of the world’s current coal reserves and half of all gas reserves similarly need to remain unused. 

Given changing market conditions that are already making the production of expensive and carbon-intensive fossil fuel reserves – like oilsands crude – more difficult, the authors concluded that a concerted effort to limit global warming would result in a massive drop in Canadian oil production.

The extraction of bitumen would “drop to negligible levels after 2020 in all scenarios because it is considerably less economic than other methods of production,” the report states.

The use of in situ mining and carbon capture and storage (CCS) to limit greenhouse gas emissions from oilsands production would only slightly move the needle, according to the study, with a total of 85 per cent still remaining unburnable despite these efforts. The authors also predict CCS, a process both the government of Canada and the oil and gas industry are increasingly relying on, will have a limited role to play in a world taking action to limit global warming.

“Because of the expense of CCS, its relatively late date of introduction (2025), and the assumed maximum rate at which it can be built, CCS has a relatively modest effect on the overall levels of fossil fuel that can be produced before 2050 in a 2C scenario.”

The authors argue that keeping within that 2C target will require an entirely reworked relationship with carbon and a concerted effort to keep reserves underground.

“A stark transformation in our understanding of fossil fuel availability is necessary,” the authors write in the paper’s conclusion, adding, “in a climate-constrained world…large portions of the reserve base and an even greater proportion of the resource base [recoverable under current economic conditions] should not be produced if the temperature rise is to remain below 2 degrees Celsius.”

The new research for the first time uses a single integrated model to analyze the world’s oil, gas and coal reserves and what portion of the remaining global ‘carbon budget’ countries might claim given the type and location of their reserves.

Within their analysis McGlade and Ekins found the Middle East holds over half of the world’s unburnable oil and that Canada has the lowest utilization of its deposits – the majority of which are buried in bitumen stores – while the U.S. has the world’s highest.

Coal is by far the most restricted fossil fuel resource in the study with 82 per cent of global resources remaining unburned before 2050.

The region assignment of unburnable reserves can be seen in the chart below:

In December countries will gather at the UN climate summit in Paris to sign an international climate deal meant to limit rising greenhouse gas emissions and global atmospheric temperatures. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in order to avoid a temperature rise above 2C the carbon budget between 2011 and 2050 must be limited to between 870-1,240 gigatonnes of CO2.

However, as the study’s authors point out, global fossil fuel reserves surpass that number by three times.

Given the urgent need to limit the use of current resources, the study makes the point that policy action on climate change would “render unnecessary” the continued exploration of new fossil fuel reserves.

As DeSmog Canada recently reported, G20 nations spend around $88 billion annually to explore for new coal, oil and gas reserves.

A report produced by the Overseas Development Institute and Oil Change International notes this level of investment for carbon stores that may never be exploited creates a “triple-loss” scenario by investing in potentially stranded fossil fuels, diverting investment from alternative energy, and undermining an ambitious climate deal in 2015.

“In 2013, fossil fuel companies spent some $670bn (£443bn) on exploring for new oil and gas resources. One might ask why they are doing this when there is more in the ground than we can afford to burn,” study author Paul Ekins told The Guardian.

“The investors in those companies might feel that money is better spent either developing low-carbon energy sources or being returned to investors as dividends,” said Ekins. 

Image Credit: Oilsands operations by Kris Krug.

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The B.C. government’s claim that LNG exports offer the “greatest single step British Columbia can take to fight climate change” is inaccurate in the absence of stronger global climate policies according to a new report released today by the Pembina Institute and the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions.

Natural gas does have a role to play in a world that avoids two degrees Celsius in global warming, but only if strong emissions reduction policies are put in place in the jurisdictions that produce and consume the gas, says the report, LNG and Climate Change: The Global Context authored by Matt Horne and Josha MacNab.

“Natural gas is often described as a bridge fuel. The question is, how long should that bridge be?” says MacNab, B.C. regional director for the Pembina Institute, a national non-profit focused on transitioning Canada to a clean energy future.

“Our research suggests it must be very short if we’re going to be able to get off the bridge in time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.”

If strong climate policies were put in place to avoid reaching more than two degrees of warming, the burning of natural gas would peak by 2030 and drop below current levels by mid century, according to the report.

Under that scenario, energy efficiency, renewables and nuclear would increase significantly while the use of fossil fuels drops.

“It’s climate policy that will determine coal use, not the availability of natural gas,” MacNab says. “It’s not simply a question of LNG and coal swapping out for each other.”

The B.C. government’s claim, which was made during the February 2014 throne speech, is premised on two assumptions.

The first is that natural gas is cleaner than coal. On that point, MacNab said that in most cases natural gas is 10 to 40 per cent cleaner than coal assuming that methane is safely managed. However, the Pembina Institute report also notes that there “remains material uncertainty” about the life cycle emissions of natural gas that requires additional research.

The second assumption the B.C. government makes is that LNG will replace coal.

“In a world with weak climate policy, natural gas will not reduce coal use,” says Horne, B.C. associate regional director for the Pembina Institute. “Without a global push for low carbon energy sources and efficiency, LNG will likely worsen rather than ease global warming.”

The institute’s findings are in line with a report published last week in Nature, which found that cheap abundant natural gas will actually delay any efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

B.C. Needs to Put Emissions Reduction Policies Before LNG Strategy

To draw its conclusions, the Pembina Institute report compares the role of natural gas under two different scenarios: one in which global warming is limited to two degrees Celsius and one that stays on the business as usual path. The comparison yields two very different roles for natural gas — either as part of an energy mix that helps avoid dangerous climate change or as part of an energy mix that accelerates the world down the path to dangerous climate change.

“Instead of leading with LNG and natural gas strategies, jurisdictions — B.C. included — need to lead with emissions reduction policies,” the report says.

To avoid more than two degrees of warming and keep atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases below 450 parts per million, the International Energy Agency says policies need to include economy-wide carbon pricing, the phase out of fossil fuel subsidies, emissions standards on power plants and a renewable transportation fuel standard.

The Pembina Institute makes three recommendations to the B.C. government to increase the chances that B.C.’s LNG industry can be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem, including applying an evidence-based approach in assessing energy exports, strengthening domestic efforts to reduce emissions from natural gas and LNG development and playing a more proactive role on climate change and methane management globally.

If strong climate change policy was enacted on a global level, natural gas use would peak by 2030 — just 15 years from now. What does that mean in terms of B.C.’s plans to build an LNG industry?

“We would encourage the B.C. government to be thinking about that in terms of the long-term sustainability of the industry,” MacNab says. “B.C. ought to be careful in hitching its economic wagon to a resource that will decline in a carbon-constrained world."

Photo: Christy Clark at LNG Canada announcement via Province of British Columbia on Flickr

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This is a guest post by Evangeline Lilly, Canadian actress.

For those of you who don’t know me, I am a Canadian actress who has been living abroad in Hawaii for the past ten years. I have been involved in such well-known projects as the television series “Lost”, the indie hit “The Hurt Locker”, the blockbuster film “Real Steel” and the upcoming second and third “Hobbit” films.

To hear Evangeline Lilly tell her story, listen here:

I grew up in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta surrounded on all sides by the never-ending golden fields of wheat that so signify the Canadian prairies. From there my family moved to British Columbia where flat, open plains were replaced with majestic, mountain vistas and beautiful green valleys. Trees, rain, snow, farms, wildlife, snow peaked mountains and insects defined my upbringing.  

From my Grandfather’s homemade cabin in the Gulf Islands to our summers spent camping on the Okanagan Lake, as a Canadian I was always surrounded by natural beauty.

I remember when I was summoned away from Canada. There was a job waiting, it offered a lot of money, and it meant I would move to Hawaii…Hawaii: paradise. If you know anything about my history, you’ll know that that job was my role as “Kate” on the television series Lost and you’ll know that I took it and left Canada…never to move back.  

So now, I have been living in “paradise” for ten years. Do I miss home? Always. Every day that I’m gone. Because, you see, being Canadian is in my bones, it’s an identity that I can’t and don’t want to escape. Tropical beaches with turquoise waters are beautiful, but my heart wells and my soul sings when I see pine tree covered mountains and stretches of interminable deciduous forests.

I am Canadian. I can’t help myself. Beavers, and moose, and bears, and squirrels all make me feel proud. Snow, and ice, and lakes, and rivers are all a part of me. The Rockies, Niagara, the Great North, and Hudson’s Bay are symbols of who I am. Rosy cheeks, frostbite, neighbours, and hard work are all a part of my Canadian identity.

When I think of home, I think of the wilderness. Canada is one of the last natural expanses left on planet earth, but right now, that vestige is being seriously threatened.  

The tar sands in Alberta, the construction of new pipelines, the industrial abuse of clean water, the elimination of environmental laws and mistreatment of First Nations peoples are some of the greatest threats to our identity as Canadians. We are known as harmonious people: living in harmony with ourselves, with the rest of the world, and with nature.  

But our response to these issues has not been in keeping with that reputation. In a time when the world needs to band together in order to learn how to live in harmony with nature, I would have expected Canada to be leading the charge, but we’re not.  

Preserving nature in Canada is not just about Global Warming – it’s about preserving our heritage, our history, and our harmony: our identity.

Will you stand against the damages being done to our wilderness? Will you stand up for nature because as a Canadian, nature has shaped you?  

I am Evangeline Lilly and I am Canadian. What are you?

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