Canada’s new natural resources minister has defended the country’s promotion of exports from its controversial oil sands projects even as he vowed to enforce ‘aggressive” greenhouse gas emissions cuts on the energy sector.
Jonathan Wilkinson, appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in October, said Ottawa was “going to be very aggressive in reducing emissions from the sector” and would work with other countries to drive down long-term crude demand.
But he insisted Canada still had the right to keep pursuing exports from one of the world’s most carbon-intensive sources of oil.
“For the [oil] demand that continues to exist, Canada needs to extract value from its resources, just like the United States, the United Kingdom in the North Sea, and Norway,” Wilkinson said.
The minister’s comments highlight the tricky task facing the federal government of Canada, the world’s fourth-biggest crude producer and largest foreign supplier to the US, as it tries to decarbonize the economy without jeopardizing an industry that accounts for about 5 percent of GDP.
Wilkinson’s remarks will spark concern in Alberta, the western province that is home to the high-carbon oil sands projects and has tussled for decades with
Ottawa over energy policy, including losing a Supreme Court battle to stop the Trudeau government’s federal carbon tax.
Canada’s oil and gas sector is the country’s largest and fastest-growing source of emissions. Greenhouse gas pollution from the oil sands — huge bitumen producing projects where output has soared in the past two decades — has risen more than 225 percent since 2000, according to the government.
The country’s energy regulator last month forecast oil sands production would increase 18 percent to almost 4m barrels a day in 2030, although Wilkinson has asked the forecasters to include the federal government’s plan for a net-zero emissions economy by 2050 in future modeling.
Trudeau in November reiterated a pledge to impose a cap on oil sector emissions that could be lowered every five years, although details would follow a consultation period and advice from a federal net zero advisory body.