Why oilsands emissions demeanour so opposite in sovereign and provincial reports

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney told an American audience progressing this month that hothouse gas emissions from a province’s oilsands sum around 67 or 68 megatonnes per year, “right now.”

That stirred some confusion, as it differs from numbers gathered by a sovereign government. 

The Globe and Mail was a initial to publicly indicate out a “20-megatonne gap” between Kenney’s numbers and Ottawa’s latest submission to a UN, that pegs oilsands emissions during 87 megatonnes this year.

That, it turns out, was a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison.

The Alberta supervision after simplified that, when Kenney pronounced oilsands emissions are 67 megatonnes “right now,” he was articulate about 2018. That’s a latest year for that a range has estimates of actual emissions. Those estimates aren’t nonetheless publicly accessible in any detail, as experts are still finalizing a accurate numbers.

The sovereign figure of 87 megatonnes, meanwhile, is a projection of what emissions will be for 2020.

So a 20-megatonne gap was mostly due to comparing opposite things (estimates vs. projections) from opposite years (2018 vs. 2020). But, even when we demeanour during past emissions, a notable opening stays — of about 10 megatonnes.

That might not sound like a lot, in a context of Canada’s roughly 700 megatonnes of annual hothouse gas output. But cruise how most domestic wrangling and open criticism there was over a now-withdrawn Teck Frontier oilsands mine. The annual emissions from that plan would have been about 4 megatonnes.

In that context, a 10-megatonne discrepancy positively matters. It represents 2½ Frontier mines.

And even nonetheless a Teck plan is now off a table, a oilsands top stays germane to a inhabitant discuss over balancing apparatus expansion with meridian change.

Legislation though no regulation

Alberta’s 100-megatonne cap on annual oilsands emissions was combined by legislation in 2015 by a province’s prior NDP government, though was never done enforceable by regulations.

As partial of a behind and onward with Alberta’s new UCP supervision over a Frontier project, Ottawa rigourously asked a range to give a top regulatory teeth.

Even though Frontier, a sovereign supervision pronounced a list of oilsands projects that have already been authorized though not nonetheless undertaken would pull Alberta as high as 130 megatonnes, if all those projects were to indeed go ahead. In theory, Teck could also move a Frontier offer behind someday in a future.

And, in a matter withdrawing Frontier, a association described itself as “strong supporters” of “climate policies such as legislated caps for oilsands emissions.”

But for a top to exist, there contingency initial be some agreement on what oilsands emissions indeed are. So given is there such a disproportion between a sovereign and provincial numbers?

That’s not an easy doubt to answer. It took a integrate of weeks of back-and-forth with officials from any turn of government to arrange out.

Here’s what we learned.

Cap-applicable emissions in 2015: 68 Mt or 58 Mt?

First, a discrepancy. Let’s demeanour during 2015 as an instance year, to keep things simple.

According to sum formerly supposing by a sovereign government, there were 68 megatonnes of emissions germane underneath Alberta’s oilsands top that year.

The province, meanwhile, says cap-applicable emissions were indeed 58 megatonnes in 2015.

Why are those sum off by 10 megatonnes?

There are several reasons, including:

• An apparent blunder in a initial sovereign figures, that unsuccessful to comment for Saskatchewan’s emissions.
• Different methods for calculating an emissions grant for cogeneration of electricity.
• Different interpretations of possibly primary bitumen or “CHOPS” (cold difficult oil prolongation with sand) is included.
• “Residual differences” in a methods — and purpose — of a provincial and sovereign calculations.

Here’s how that 10-megatonne inequality breaks down.

Emissions from Saskatchewan: 2 Mt

This one is comparatively easy to understand.

In a matter supposing to CBC News progressing this month, a sovereign supervision pronounced Alberta’s sum oilsands emissions (before top exemptions) totalled 71 megatonnes in 2015.

It after corrected that figure, observant it was a sum for Canadian oilsands emissions, including roughly dual megatonnes from comforts in Saskatchewan.

OK, so that’s dual out of 10 down, withdrawal us with 8 some-more megatonnes to explain.

Differences in cogeneration calculations: 3 Mt

As partial of their operations, some oilsands comforts also furnish electricity that is sole to a provincial energy grid. This is famous as cogeneration and, underneath Alberta’s legislation, it is not counted toward a industry’s emissions cap.

But a provincial and sovereign governments calculate a volume of this grant in opposite ways.

The sovereign government’s numbers are shaped on information reported to Statistics Canada by industrial comforts as partial of an annual survey of fuel consumption. Environment Canada afterwards uses that information to guess greenhouse-gas emissions from cogeneration at oilsands facilities.

This “top-down” routine varies from a province’s “bottom-up” approach, pronounced Justin Wheler, executive executive of emissions law and correspondence with a Alberta government.

“The sovereign … adjustment for cogen is going to be a small bit opposite than what we have,” he said.

“When we adjust for cogen, we take a whole cogen — possibly it’s on-site or off-site, given there are both — and we provide them both a same.”

For 2015, a range distributed about 6 megatonnes of cogen exemptions, while a feds came out with three.

That three-megatonne disproportion accounts for another cube of a discrepancy.

And it leaves us with 5 megatonnes left to explain.

Primary bitumen or CHOPS: 2 Mt (roughly)

This partial of a inequality comes down to incompatible interpretations of possibly to embody emissions from primary bitumen descent toward a cap.

The province doesn’t embody this form of oil production — also famous by a acronym CHOPS, that stands for cold difficult oil prolongation with sand — in a calculations, though a sovereign supervision does.

How most in emissions are we articulate about, exactly? The range won’t say. Wheler pronounced a accurate numbers are confidential but did offer a severe guess of “two to 3 megatonnes, depending on a year you’re looking at.”

In a recent, independent analysis, meanwhile, a Pembina Institute projected emissions from primary bitumen to be roughly dual megatonnes for 2020. So we’ll go with two, as well, for 2015.

That leaves roughly 3 megatonnes’ value of inequality to comment for.

And this is where things get a small fuzzy.

‘Residual differences’

As partial of a general obligations, Canada frequently prepares a high-level accounting of a hothouse gas emissions. This is a vast and difficult request famous as a National Inventory Report or NIR, and it contingency accommodate United Nations standards for verification.

Meanwhile, Alberta’s facility-by-facility stating is used to calculate what a association owes (or gets credit for) underneath a province’s large-emitter carbon-pricing policy.

This is where those “top-down” contra “bottom-up” approaches that we talked about progressing come behind into play.

Wheler, with a Alberta government, pronounced a range has always accepted the NIR “as a central and sum register for a nation and a province.” But it’s a essentially opposite form of report, he said, than what Alberta produces for a purpose of calculating provincial carbon-price obligations.

“They’re not going to puncture into a facility-by-facility information for that kind of inhabitant register gathering and capitulation process,” he said. “So there’s always going to be some teenager differences there … that conjunction we nor, we suspect, my sovereign counterparts would be fussed about.”

Wheler pronounced he’s confident that these simple differences in proceed comment for any remaining inequality between a provincial and sovereign numbers, or during slightest put them within a rounding blunder of one another.

So that might explain a 10-megatonne inequality in theory — though what does it mean, in practice?

If a provincial and sovereign governments use opposite calculations, interpretations and approaches to quantify Alberta’s oilsands emissions, whose chronicle reigns supreme?

That could be as most a matter of politics as policy.

Cap as a negotiate chip

Around this time final year, there was some contention among a United Conservative Party about scrapping a top altogether, though eventually Kenney opted not to, once his celebration won a Apr 2019 election and shaped government.

The premier has given described a top as “academic” given Alberta, by his math, is “nowhere tighten to attack it.”

Not so fast, sovereign Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson has said: “Our modelling shows we’re indeed coming a 100-megatonne top in 2030.”

That modelling is based, of course, on federal interpretations of cap-applicable emissions that — as we’ve seen — produce some significantly opposite formula than what a range comes adult with.

During a Teck deliberations, the top became something of a negotiate chip between a sovereign and provincial governments. And so, too, could some of those interpretations, even now.

In his new minute seeking Alberta to give a top regulatory teeth, Wilkinson also laid out a quandary new oilsands projects emanate for a sovereign supervision in perplexing to change mercantile expansion with meridian commitments.

Those embody a Paris Agreement, underneath that Canada affianced to revoke a annual emissions to 511 megatonnes by 2030, and a sovereign government’s longer-term guarantee to move emissions to net 0 by 2050.

Federal officials who do emissions projections, meanwhile, told CBC News those projections would expected change if Alberta were to deliver specific regulations for a 100-megatonne cap, for dual categorical reasons.

Firstly, enforcing a top could change a forecasts for oil production put out by a Canada Energy Regulator, that are a primary source of information used to make projections of destiny emissions.

Secondly, they pronounced if Alberta were to spell out accurately how to appreciate some of a issues that have led to a discrepancy — such as cogeneration calculation methods and possibly to embody or bar primary bitumen — a sovereign supervision would incorporate those interpretations into a projections. Up until now, a sovereign officials pronounced they’ve been relying on their best interpretations of Alberta’s 2015 legislation.

The province, for a part, hasn’t ruled out controlling a top though hasn’t shown a ton of unrestrained for a idea, either, accusing a sovereign supervision of changeable a goalposts and bringing a top brazen during a 11th hour in discussions about Teck Frontier.

“We are peaceful to have a review about intensity regulations around a cap,” Environment Minister Jason Nixon said before a plan was withdrawn.

Of course, possibly they are counted as partial of Alberta’s top or not, all oilsands emissions count toward Canada’s sum hothouse gas inventory. And that same Pembina research we listened about progressing also found that ongoing expansion in oilsands outlay has done a attention a fastest-growing source of emissions in a country, putting it on a “collision course” with inhabitant meridian goals.

So even with Teck off a table, a regulated top might still figure into a development-versus-emissions debate. But to have a awake contention about a merits of putting a tough extent on oilsands emissions, we initial need to come to a common know of what those emissions are.

Article source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/oilsands-cap-federal-provincial-emissions-discrepancy-analysis-1.5464251?cmp=rss