(May 30*) Canada leaves oilsands pollution rise from UN report

BY MIKE DE SOUZA, POSTMEDIA NEWS MAY 30, 2011

The federal government has acknowledged that it deliberately excluded data indicating a 20 per cent increase in annual pollution from Canada's oilsands industry in 2009 from a recent 567-page report on climate change that it was required to submit to the United Nations.

Photograph by: Chris Schwarz, EDMONTON JOURNAL

OTTAWA — The federal government has acknowledged that it deliberately excluded data indicating a 20 per cent increase in annual pollution from Canada’s oilsands industry in 2009 from a recent 567-page report on climate change that it was required to submit to the United Nations.

The numbers, uncovered by Postmedia News, were left out of the report, a national inventory on Canada’s greenhouse gas pollution. It revealed a six per cent drop in annual emissions for the entire economy from 2008 to 2009, but does not directly show the extent of pollution from the oilsands production, which is greater than the greenhouse gas emissions of all the cars driven on Canadian roads.

The data also indicated that emissions per barrel of oil produced by the sector is increasing, despite claims made by the industry in an advertising campaign.

“The oilsands remain Canada’s fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas pollution, and they’re the subject of a huge amount of attention and scrutiny in Canada and internationally,” said Clare Demerse, director of climate change at the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based environmental research group. “So it’s very disappointing to see Environment Canada publish a 500-page report that leaves out these critical numbers — especially when last year’s edition included them.”

Overall, Environment Canada said that the oilsands industry was responsible for about 6.5 per cent of Canada’s annual greenhouse gas emissions in 2009, up from five per cent in 2008. This also indicates a growth in emissions that is close to about 300 per cent since 1990, which cancel out many reductions in pollution from other economic sectors.

The report attributes the six per cent decrease in Canada’s overall emissions to the economic slowdown, but it also credits efforts by the Ontario government to reduce production of coal-fired electricity as a significant factor.

Environment Canada provided the oilsands numbers in response to questions from Postmedia News about why it had omitted the information from its report after publishing more detailed data in previous years. A department spokesman explained that “some” of the information was still available in the latest report, which still meets Canada’s reporting obligations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

“The information is presented in this way to be consistent with UNFCCC reporting requirements, which are divided into broad, international sectors,” wrote Mark Johnson in an email.

He was not immediately able to answer questions about who made the decision in government to exclude the numbers from the oilsands or provide a detailed explanation about changes in emissions.

An industry spokesman said it favoured more transparency from the government, suggesting that some of the figures may be misleading because of changes in methods used to identify and calculate emissions.

“It’s just too bad you weren’t able to get a hold of (Environment Canada) on this one, because here I am telling you my understanding of what’s going on, but really it’s best to hear directly from them,” said Greg Stringham, vice-president of oilsands and markets at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. “We report the information to them, and they choose to pass it on — they must pass it on the UN. But then they choose how to disclose it and put it out there.”

Although Stringham said that the industry figures did not show any significant growth in emissions per barrel of oil produced, the full report noted an intensity increase of 14.5 per cent from 2008 to 2009, “mainly the result of a new integrated mining and upgrading facility as well as a new integrated in-situ bitumen extraction and upgrading facility,” that were not operating at “peak efficiencies.”

Emissions from a mining category, which includes oilsands extraction, saw a 371 per cent increase in greenhouse gas pollution, according to the report. But other categories showed significant decreases due, in part, to the recession, but also because of changes in use of fuel and manufacturing operations.

Environment Canada’s report recognizes that climate change is occurring, mainly due to an increase in heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. The objective of the UNFCCC is to stabilize these emissions in order to prevent dangerous changes to the climate.

Critics have suggested the Harper government is deliberately trying to delay international action to fight climate change, following revelations, reported last fall by Postmedia News, that it had set up a partnership with the Alberta government, industry and several federal departments to fight pollution-reduction policies from other countries that target the oilsands through lobbying and public relations.

Environment Minister Peter Kent has said the federal government is committed to reducing Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions and will introduce its plan to regulate pollution from the oilsands within months. But he has also acknowledged that existing federal and provincial policies would still result in an increase in emissions over the next decade.

Although the report was due in April, during the last election campaign, Canada was the last country to file its submission. Environment Canada even filed its submission after earthquake-stricken Japan, and was unable to explain in detail why its report was late.

mdesouza@postmedia.com

twitter.com/mikedesouza

© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

Retrieved from http://www.edmontonjournal.com/Canada+leaves+rise+oilsands+pollution+from+climate+report/

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(May 26*) Regulatory fight in a Canadian oil-sands box

By Bill Mann, MarketWatch

May 26, 2011, 12:01 a.m. EDT

PORT TOWNSEND, Wash. (MarketWatch) — A big battle is shaping up over environmental regulation of Canada’s oil sands, the second-largest oil deposits in the world. And, surprisingly, it’s Conservatives against Conservatives.

In this corner, it’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s federal Conservatives, who just gained a majority government. In that corner, it’s Alberta’s conservative provincial government, led by hard-nosed, oil-industry friendly premier Ed Stelmach.

A diplomatic cable recently released by Wikileaks highlights the problems: It revealed an exchange between then-Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice and U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Jacobsen, in which the American said he believed Ottawa was being “too slow” about regulating the expansive oil sands.

The U.S. wants a big part of that “non-terrorist” Alberta oil but it doesn’t want its chief supplier to look environmentally dirty, for obvious political reasons. Canada is now the U.S.’ largest oil supplier.

Canada, being a helpful vendor, apparently agrees, so last week, new Canadian Environment Minister Peter Kent announced that Ottawa will introduce environmental regulations later this year for the oil-sands sector designed to reduce greenhouse gases spewed from one of the country’s most polluting industries.

The water quality at the oil sands — or, as environmentalists call the bitumen mines, the tar sands — is also very much an issue. A leak that fouled the water and killed hundreds of waterfowl in the far-north oil fields two years ago may have spurred the U.S. ambassador’s plea for Ottawa to toughen up environmental controls.

Part of this new Ottawa vow to assume environmental control over what the Alberta government insists is a provincially-owned resource may well be tied in to Harper’s visit this week to the G8 summit in France. There’s a good chance environmental groups will show up with pictures — or billboards — of oil-soaked Alberta waterfowl. Harper doesn’t want Canada to be known on the world stage as the world’s “dirty-oil” producer. (Although extracting crude from bitumen is indeed, at best, a dirty, water-and-energy consuming business).

A group of U.S. Senators visited the oil sands last December and said, not surprisingly, they were satisfied with the environmental protections in place in Alberta. Ottawa apparently isn’t, despite Alberta’s belated environmental-protection moves.

Alberta will fight back

Alberta isn’t going to give up in this battle with fellow Conservatives without a fight.

Provincial finance minister Lloyd Snelgrove criticized Ottawa for regulating a provincial resource, which would add “multiple layers of government trying to the same thing, [where] nobody wins.”

Snelgrove told the Calgary Herald that Stelmach’s Alberta government has been worried for some time Ottawa would step in and regulate the provincial resource, adding unnecessary duplication and costs to the multibillion-dollar sector.

“The federal government has sat on the sidelines for years and years and years. Now they see their little golden goose is under attack and they want to be the voice for Canada on the world stage and we respect that,” Snelgrove told the Calgary Herald.

The Wikileaks cable, little-reported in U.S. media, which is a bit surprising, considering its importance to the U.S. energy future, also revealed that the Obama administration inquired about a possible moratorium on new oil sands development as global criticism mounted over the second-largest proven oil reserves in the world.

A San Francisco-based environmental group has run anti-oil sands billboards and newspaper ads in Canada, the U.S. and in Europe, urging tourists not to come to Alberta. Stelmach, who recently announced he’ll be leaving office soon, replied angrily, buying billboards and print ads of his own saying Alberta is addressing environmental concerns.

Retrieved from http://www.marketwatch.com/story/regulatory-fight-in-a-canadian-oil-sands-box-2011-05-26?pagenumber=1

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(May 30*) Federal government trying to hide that GHGs from the tar sands up 21% in last year

Blogpost by Keith Stewart - May 30, 2011 at 6:57

Update: Based on subsequent media reports, it now appears that tar sands emissions were up 21 per cent from what was reported last year, but this year they have re-stated the 2008 emissions (increasing them from the previous estimate of 5 per cent of national emissions to 5.5 per cent) so that it is roughly an 11 per cent increase year-over-year.

I’m always intrigued when governments stop publishing information, so when the latest report from the federal government to the UN on Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions omitted the table with data on tar sands emissions, I was curious. As reported today, this was a deliberate choice, and I can understand why.

I did some math based on other information in the report and asked Environment Canada to confirm the numbers. It took almost two weeks, but I finally got an answer to my questions.

Total emissions from extracting and processing bitumen (before it makes it to the refinery) were 45 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MT) in 2009, or 6.5 per cent of national emission. This is 21% higher than the 37.2 MT from the tar sands in 2008. This also means that upstream emissions from the tar sands are responsible for more global warming-causing pollution than the tailpipes of every light-duty vehicle (aka cars) in the country.

This will put a lot of pressure on the federal government for stronger action, given Environment Minister Peter Kent’s pledge to introduce regulations on the (now admittedly soaring) greenhouse gas emissions of the tar sands by the end of this year.

The report is even more damaging for the industry’s public relations campaign. The spin coming out of oil companies and governments has been that while total emissions may be going up as production increases, things are really getting better because the emissions per barrel have declined by 39% since 1990.

This is no longer true, although there is conflicting information coming out of Environment Canada. Confusingly, the report to the UN clearly states that emissions intensity in the oil sands went up by 14.5 percent between 2008 and 2009, but the e-mail I got from Environment Canada said that this statement was incorrect. Rather, they had changed the way they calculated intensity and while the increase wasn’t that large between 2008 and 2009, the emissions reduction since 1990 and 2009 has been recalculated as 29 per cent, rather than 39 per cent.

The fact that emissions intensity is (at minimum) no longer improving wasn’t a surprise to us. In our recently-released report on in situ tar sands projects, we predicted that intensity would start to rise as energy-intensive in situ projects formed a larger proportion of tar sands production and companies are forced to pursue deeper and more difficult deposits. This shouldn’t have come as a surprise to the federal government either, however, as we based this assessment on an internal briefing note from Natural Resources obtained under Access to Information legislation.

So it will be really interesting to see what the feds do on regulating this rapidly growing problem.

Retrieved from http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/Blog/federal-government-trying-to-hide-that-ghgs-f/blog/35041

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(June 9*) Canada’s diplomatic spanking at UN hides deeper problems

Blogpost by Keith Stewart - June 9, 2011 at 11:38

Canada’s representatives at the UN climate meeting in Bonn got raked over the coals today for failing to meet our Kyoto target, offloading the burden of dealing with climate change to developing countries and only having in place measures that would achieve one quarter of the reductions required to meet our own (inadequate) target. You can watch the webcast here; Canada does the first presentation and Q&A starts at 1:24 with Canadian answers at 1:42.

Canada’s response was to not really answer any of the questions, but did make two clarifications. First, he clarified that, contrary to Australia's understanding that federal measures would achieve 25 per cent of the 2020 target and provincial measures would achieve the remaining 75 per cent, the reality was that all existing federal and provincial measures would achieve only 25 per cent of the target. And with respect to the EU’s asking about media reports that Canada hadn’t properly accounted for emissions from the tar sands, Canada's representative said that those media reports were "erroneous" (more on that below).

You do have to pity the poor civil servants trying to square all these circles. For example, Postmedia is reporting today that Environment Canada told the UN that federal programs were about 10 times as effective as reducing greenhouse gas emissions as what they told Parliament – with the reports being published just days apart.

This comes on the heels of missing and then contradictory information on greenhouse gas emissions from the tar sands. Normally, we’d clear this up by talking to the people who write the reports (and who are, in my experience, admirably honest and forthright about data). But they aren’t allowed to speak to anyone directly.

Here’s what I do know. Back on May 17, I wrote Environment Canada to say “Last year's GHG Inventory helpfully included a summary of GHG emission from the oil sands (it was Table 2-18). I can't find the equivalent in this year's inventory, but Table 3-18 attributes 36.9 MT to the 2,233 PJ of unconventional oil that is exported, which implies that the 970 PJ that are consumed domestically would be responsible for 16 MT, resulting in a total of a 52.9 MT from the oil sands (or 7.6% of total GHG emissions in Canada).... Could you confirm these numbers for me?”

The answer I got back on May 27 (after reporter Mike de Souza had been pestering them for the same information) said that when calculating the GHGs from the oil sands related to exports (i.e. emissions we’re trying to blame on the Americans), the government includes things like transporting the oil and emissions from the electricity used in the facilities. They don’t include these when calculating emissions from the sector domestically, so emissions were only 6.5% of total GHG emissions in Canada in 2009 (which works out to ~45 megatonnes).

We could argue over which methodology is more appropriate, but at minimum I think the government should pick one and stick with it rather than tailoring the number for the argument they are trying to make.

However, the numbers I got in the May 27 response still didn’t add up and while I’ve never received a reply to my subsequent queries, it is clear based on what they told Mike de Souza that they have now re-stated the emissions for 2008 (raising them by ~10%) and increased their estimate of greenhouse gas intensity (emissions per barrel) from all oil sands production.

All of this would be little more than a tempest in a data teapot, except for the fact that the federal Environment Minister, Peter Kent, has promised to introduce regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from the tar sands by the end of the year.

If you're wondering why the feds would do this over Alberta's objections, you need look no further than the plea from the US ambassador for someone to do something about it so that the Obama administration can justify increasing their imports of the stuff.

But it should matter what they do. My concern is that we could be seeing another instance in the long and not-terribly-honourable tradition of boosting estimates of emissions from an industrial sector just prior to setting regulating reductions (i.e. you set a higher baseline, so reductions are easier to achieve).

Hence in my latest e-mail (June 1) to Environment Canada, I wrote: “I believe it is important to have greater transparency on the numbers and methodology given (a) the Minister's stated intention of issuing greenhouse gas regulations for the oil sands by the end of the year and (b) the role this data will play in setting baselines for regulated reductions from oil sands companies. It would be a shame if we were to replicate the experience of the EU Emissions Trading System where baseline emissions were inflated, undermining the efficacy of the system and resulting in windfall profits for some firms.”

I’m still waiting for a reply. Maybe the folks at the UN will get one for me.

Retrieved from http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/Blog/canadas-diplomatic-spanking-at-un-hides-deepe/blog/35214

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(June 3*) Digging into the data from Canada’s latest greenhouse gas emissions report

Clare Demerse — June 3, 2011

If you think 567 pages of emissions data would make a boring read, this week's news just proved you wrong.

Canada's most recent report to the UN's climate change convention has proven surprisingly controversial, not so much for what's in it as for what was left out. Media reports from across Canada , the U.S . (subscription required)and the U.K. this week took Canada to task for failing to provide an estimate of greenhouse gas emissions from the oilsands in the federal government's annual report.

The media stories have provoked some interesting questions about transparency, accountability and what's really going on in the oilsands. This blog gives a bit of background about what the annual emission reports do, and why we can all benefit from a greater understanding of where Canada's greenhouse gas pollution comes from.

What's in an inventory

Under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, developed countries like Canada have to publish an annual technical account of their greenhouse gas emissions called a National Inventory Report. International experts review these reports each year to make sure that the governments who prepare them use appropriate methodologies, and there are international guidelines specifying what needs to be included.

The data always comes out after a 16-month lag, so this year's edition provides information about Canada's 2009 emissions.

Generating less coal-fired electricity in Ontario helped reduce Canada's greenhouse gas emissions in 2009.

A quick glance at the report's summary shows some good news: Canada's total emissions fell by 6 per cent between 2008 and 2009, a drop that the report attributes mainly to the effect of the recession and to reduced use of coal to generate electricity.

A reduction in Canada's greenhouse gas pollution is certainly something to celebrate, although the effects of phasing out coal in Ontario are likely to be much more permanent than the temporary blip of the recession.

In fact, despite this year's data, Environment Canada's own analysis shows that emissions are projected to keep growing — even once all the policies governments have announced in Canada go into effect — to 785 million tonnes by 2020, or about 12 per cent above the 690 million tonnes Canada produced in 2009.

Internationally, Canada's 6 per cent drop from 2008 to 2009 lines up with some of its peer countries: U.S. emissions also fell by 6 per cent, and the EU's fell by 7 per cent, over the same period.

Inside Canada, provincial emissions results almost always generate some interest. Although Ontario is no longer Canada's top emitter — a title it has lost in recent years to Alberta — the province is still probably the standout emissions story for 2009. Ontario's emissions fell by 13 per cent from 2008 to 2009, moving the province to 7 per cent below its 1990 emission level — a result that (for now at least) puts Ontario ahead of its 2014 target , which is to reduce emissions to 6 per cent below the 1990 level.

What's not in Canada's inventory

As Postmedia journalist Mike de Souza reported this week, this year's report failed to answer a simple question that many Canadians might be curious about: just how much greenhouse gas pollution did the oilsands generate?

The report does account for emissions from Canada's fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas pollution, but it does so under broader categories like "Mining and Oil and Gas Extraction" or "Fugitive Emissions." Reading through the document, there's no way to find out what's happening with oilsands emissions specifically.

Given how much attention that sector generates in Canada and abroad, it's an omission that jumped out at us too. Good information about greenhouse gas pollution in the oilsands is especially critical this year, because Environment Minister Peter Kent now says he's going to set emission regulations that include the oilsands.

Reporting should break out emissions by sector, including the oilsands.

Officials at Environment Canada were able to provide an estimate of oilsands emissions to Postmedia, and it's an interesting one. As of 2009, the sector is responsible for about 6.5 per cent of Canada's national emissions, a jump of over 20 per cent from last year's published level (from 37.2 million tonnes to about 45 million tonnes). That growth occurred despite the recession Canada faced in 2009.

Environment Canada's clarifications

Environment Canada officials have provided new context, both to reporters and to environmentalists, since the original media stories came out earlier this week. In the interests of fairness, I think it's important to give their side of the story too .

In an email to journalist Mike de Souza, Environment Canada explained that its estimate of 6.5 per cent of total national emissions coming from the oilsands is preliminary, and needs to be finalized once the department has more information about electricity use in the oilsands. Based on improvements in methodologies, though, it estimates that the oilsands made up 5.5 per cent of Canada's 2008 emissions, not 5 per cent as previously reported. If that conclusion holds up, it would make the increase in oilsands emissions from 2008 to 2009 smaller than the 21 per cent it looks like right now, at about 11 per cent growth from 2008 to 2009.

Canada's sectors vs. the world's

In response to questions about why you can't find out the oilsands' emissions in this year's inventory, Environment Canada explained that it followed the international guidelines that set emissions categories. Those guidelines don't require countries to report oilsands emissions as a separate category.

But Environment Canada did go beyond the UN's template to publish an estimate of oilsands emissions last year. That information is found in two tables in the 2008 National Inventory Report (2-16 and 2-18) that are a gold mine for people who want to understand where emissions come from. Those tables present our country's emissions in terms that are more familiar to Canadians, using categories like oilsands (mining, in situ, upgrading), cars, buses, cement, forestry, and even service industries.

When we think about Canada's economy, it's those kinds of sectors that most of us consider. Sectoral data allows for comparisons between the parts of the economy we're familiar with, like petroleum refining or pulp and paper production. That information was a step in the right direction towards transparency about emissions in Canada, and possibly even towards greater "literacy" about energy and greenhouse gases. Sectoral data is also the most relevant for setting policies.

Here at Pembina, we used those tables to put together a one-page summary that shows total emissions and rates of growth in the key sectors. I use it at least twice a week in my work, and I bet I'm not alone.

This year, Environment Canada decided to end what it called the "pilot" project of showing sector-by-sector emissions, explaining that it has found "weaknesses in the methodology and gaps in the data" that need fixing.

So while the omission of the oilsands has received most of the attention, they're not alone. This year's report also leaves out emission estimates for sectors across Canada's economy.

We've published a preliminary one-pager for 2009, but without that sectoral data, we had to make estimates in several places. We hope to sharpen it up if the government does publish sector-by-sector emission estimates; fortunately, it has committed to do exactly this. Writing to Mike de Souza, officials at Environment Canada said that they plan to "report economic sector emissions separately once the statistics and methodology are finalized."

We'll work to hold them to that. Reporting on oilsands emissions, along with those from other sectors, was a successful pilot project that needs to be continued. As this week's news stories have shown, failing to be transparent about sector-by-sector emissions just raises new questions — about why the information isn't available and, from some quarters, about whether there's something to hide.

More and more Canadians know that the oilsands are our fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas pollution. Canadians deserve to understand how quickly that growth is really happening, and whether the sector has at least managed to improve its ratio of emissions per barrel produced (emissions intensity), even when its absolute emissions are increasing.

Of course, transparency is only the first step. Once we know the size of the problem, governments — along with Canadians and companies — need to adopt solutions that cut our greenhouse gas pollution.

But let's not get hung up on step one. There are important discussions to be had about how we manage the environmental impacts of oilsands development. Environment Canada can, and should, provide the information that Canadians need to have those conversations.

Learn more about Climate Change, Pembina's Work in Alberta.

Read more blogs relating to Climate Change, Alberta, Federal Action, International, Oil & Gas,Provincial Action.

Retrieved from http://www.pembina.org/blog/545

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(June 2*) Blowing Smoke: Correcting Anti-Wind Myths in Ontario

ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE and ONTARIO SUSTAINABLE ENERGY ASSOCIATION News Release
For Immediate Release: June 2, 2011

Anti-Wind Power Myths Corrected in New Report: No Scientific Basis for Health Impacts Claims – Wind Power Viable and Beneficial

Toronto, ON – A new report released today corrects the misinformation being promoted by anti-wind activists around Ontario. Blowing Smoke: Correcting Anti-Wind Myths in Ontario finds that study after study around the world has concluded that there is no scientific basis for claims about health impacts from wind power projects, and that wind power is both technically viable and has economic and environmental benefits for Ontario.

“There is a tremendous amount of fear-mongering going on right now about wind power in Ontario,” said Adam Scott, Green Energy Program Manager, Environmental Defence. “This report aims to introduce some real facts into the debate so that communities can make well informed decisions about wind projects.”

The report cites studies that show that with setbacks, wind power projects make as much sound as background noise in a regular home, but that whether or not this bothers people is often in the ear of the beholder – those who are more bothered are those who object to the project in the first place on other grounds. Those who benefit are less bothered.

“Communities must be better integrated into the management and benefits of wind power projects,” said Kristopher Stevens, Executive Director of the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association. “Ultimately, community acceptance will determine whether or not Ontario remains a leader in clean energy, or whether we let other jurisdictions take the investment and jobs away from us.”

The report also debunks the arguments that wind power isn’t a viable source of power for the grid. Other jurisdictions like Denmark and Germany are already successfully integrating much larger amounts of wind power into their grids, and are aiming to add even more. Finally, the report also points at job creation taking place around Ontario due to wind projects, dispelling the claims that no job creation is going on.

The report comes on the day that John Laforet, President of Wind Concerns Ontario, is due to speak at the Empire Club in Toronto.

ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE (environmentaldefence.ca): Environmental Defence is Canada's most effective environmental action organization. We challenge, and inspire change in government, business and people to ensure a greener, healthier and prosperous life for all.

ABOUT OSEA (ontario-sea.org): The Ontario Sustainable Energy Association inspires and enables the people of Ontario to improve their environment, their economy and their health by producing clean, sustainable energy in their homes, businesses and their communities.

Retrieved from http://www.ontario-sea.org/Page.asp?PageID=122&ContentID=3086

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