Oil and Gas Emissions Cap Coming to Canada by Next Year, Says Environment Minister

Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault rises during question period in the House of Commons on Oct. 21, 2022. The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld

New climate regulations introducing a cap on greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) from Canada’s oil and gas sector will be introduced by next year, says Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault.

“We will have draft regulations maybe by the spring, at the latest in the first half of the year,” Guilbeault told The Canadian Press in an interview on Nov. 14 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, where he is attending the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP27.

“The goal is to have the complete regulations by before Christmas, which is, you know, record level time to develop regulations,” he said, noting that other climate regulations, like introducing a clean fuel standard, took over five years.

The federal government introduced its “Canada’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan” in March, stating that it aims to reduce nationwide GHG emissions by 40 to 45 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.

The government’s national climate plan, introduced in December 2020, states a goal of reducing methane emissions from Canada’s oil and gas sector by at least 40 percent by 2025.

The government updated that target in March and applied a 75 percent methane emissions reduction target, relative to 2012 levels, for 2030.

Ottawa further hopes to achieve countrywide net-zero GHG emissions by 2050.

The federal government has acknowledged its targets are ambitious while saying that other countries “need to be more ambitious, and need to move faster.”

“With less than a decade left to achieve Canada’s 2030 target, and with countries around the world moving to a cleaner economy to attract investment and secure jobs for their citizens, more action is required,” reads the government’s 2020 climate plan, “A Healthy Environment and a Healthy Economy.”

Emissions Cap

The federal government has said that an oil and gas emissions cap would hold the sector “accountable for its emissions” and require them to adopt practices in line with Canada’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan.

However, Ottawa also maintains that the cap “will focus on emissions and will not be a cap on oil and gas production.”

“It will maximize opportunities to invest in decarbonizing the sector while accounting for evolving energy security considerations. And it will be designed to manage competitiveness challenges and minimize carbon leakage risks,” reads a government paper titled “Oil and gas emissions cap.”

Yesterday, Guilbeault also rolled out Canada’s “Global Carbon Pricing Challenge,“ introduced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at last year’s UN climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland. The challenge will call on countries to ”adopt pollution pricing as a central part of their climate strategies.”

“Carbon pricing works by putting a cost on the thing we don’t want—pollution,” reads an Environment Canada news release published on Nov. 14.

Conservatives have criticized parts of the Liberals’ climate plan, particularly the planned increase of the carbon tax in March 2023, with leader Pierre Poilievre calling the government’s actions a “tax plan” that will overall fail to reduce emissions.

“The [prime minister’s] carbon tax has not hit a single, solitary emissions reduction target. It has not worked,” Poilievre said in the House on Oct. 5.

According to government statistics published in August, Canada was responsible for just 1.5 percent of worldwide GHG emissions as of 2019.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.