Transfers help oilsands reduce emissions

Some reductions in greenhouse gas emissions per barrel from oilsands facilities over the past 20 years have been achieved by new technologies as well as the transfer of some activities and their pollution to other industries, Environment Minister Peter Kent said in a statement tabled last week in Parliament.

Kent’s comments, delivered in response to questions by Liberal environment critic Kirsty Duncan, were based on a summary of several recent government reports and internal federal records on heattrapping greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

Although oilsands operations have decreased pollution for each barrel of oil produced, the federal government has described the expanding sector, in its internal records, as the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. For more than a decade, successive federal governments have pledged to crack down on pollution from the sector, without delivering action.

Canada is among the planet’s top 10 sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

Although Kent and his colleagues in cabinet have downplayed Canada’s contribution to global warming by noting the country is only responsible for about two per cent of emissions, his statement noted that all greenhouse gas emissions are having a negative effect on the planet.

“There continues to be strong scientific evidence that increasing GHG emissions will contribute to climate warming over the coming decades, and this will impact climate globally and in Canada,” said the statement, signed by Kent.

Oilsands facilities produced about 48 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gases in 2010 — about seven per cent of Canada’s overall emissions, according to the most recent inventory from Environment Canada.

Although greenhouse gas emissions from the oilsands have more than tripled since 1990, according to the same inventory statistics, their emissions per barrel have decreased by 26 per cent over the same time period.

But Kent suggested that some of the reductions were achieved by transferring activities and their associated pollution to other sectors, such as the refining industry.