How Do You Want To Invest Your Tax Dollars to Stop Climate Change?
Op-ed by Jen Lash, November 19, 2021
Canada’s oil and gas companies are using carbon removal technology to present themselves as part of the climate solution. In reality, they are perpetuating the fossil fuel-driven economy that is the root cause of climate change. And they are asking taxpayers to foot the bill.
In November, the Oil Sands Pathways to Net Zero initiative, a collaboration of six major companies operating in Canada’s oil sands, announced a massive carbon capture project in the oil sands. This project, if built, will capture 8MT CO2e by 2030 and 68MT CO2e/year by 2050 and they call for 3.6 billion in support from the Governments of Alberta and Canada to bring this project to fruition. In contrast, in July 2021, 500 environmental and Indigenous groups from Canada and the US called on their respective governments to stop supporting the development of CCUS, citing that it is a subsidy that prolongs the life of the fossil fuel sector. (Center for International Environmental Law, 2021).
Before we try to make sense of this, there are a few things about the science of climate change that it is essential to remember. Greenhouse gases, of which carbon dioxide is the biggest, are changing the natural system that keeps the temperature of our planet in balance, driving up global temperatures, which, in turn, results in a changing climate, including extreme weather events. The only way to prevent this is to stop putting GHGs into the atmosphere. As of 2019, Canada emits 730MT(Environment Canada and Climate Change, 2021) of GHGs per year, and we need to get this number to net-zero by 2050.
The “net” in net-zero is the problem. Net-zero means we stop burning fossil fuels. Suppose any carbon is released from burning coal, oil, or gas. In that case, it is removed from the atmosphere using carbon removal technology or carbon offsets (offsets is a topic for another article). Canada has not yet clarified how much of the 730MT currently emitted will be addressed through carbon removal technology or offsets, and here lies the rub. With the release of the IPCC AR6 report, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres claimed, “This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet.” (Chestney, 2021).
On the flip side, oil and gas companies, such as those involved with the Oil Sands Pathways to Net Zero (2021), believe that oil and gas will be part of the energy mix in 2050 and beyond and require carbon removal technology to keep them in business.
Carbon removal technology can broken into two categories.: Direct Air Removal (DAR), which removes carbon from the air, and Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS), which, for the most part, is what the oil companies are advocating. CCUS technology extracts carbon from the smokestacks at power generation stations and oil, gas, cement, and steel industrial facilities. The carbon is stored deep underground where, from a climate perspective, it is rendered harmless. Or it is used for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), a process that injects the carbon into the existing oil production sites where it helps to access hard-to-reach reserves and increase production.
So which vision is correct? Can we eliminate the use of fossil fuels? And if not, why can’t emissions from the oil and gas sector be addressed using CCUS?
The World Energy Outlook, released in 2021 by the International Energy Agency (IEA), confirms that the world needs to switch from fossil fuel to non-polluting energy to keep temperature change to 1.5°C. (IEA, 2021). That means transitioning the current economy built on gas cars, natural gas fireplaces, oil furnaces, coal or gas fired electricity to a new economy that uses non-polluting energy from solar, wind, and hydro. While this may sound daunting, according to the IEA, the transition is already underway, with oil demand plateauing and clean energy availability increasing, resulting in cheaper, fairer, and safer energy and an increased global GDP (IEA, 2021). CCUS is used to capture the last 10% of global emissions (IEA, 2021).
Emissions are generated from the production of oil and gas. These are the emissions that the oil and gas sector is claiming can be reduced using CCUS. So the oil sands currently emit 70MT of GHGs per year (Government of Alberta, n.d.), and the Oils Sands Pathway to Net Zero Initiative (2021) claims they will use CCUS to capture 68MT so on the surface, making the oil sands almost net-zero by 2050. But oil and gas companies are not being sincere. They intentionally ignore that emissions are also generated when the oil and gas they produce is burned, becoming the primary source of global GHGs. And they do not consider themselves responsible for those emissions, putting the onus on consumer demand (Rathi, 2021), so they continue to feed the fossil fuel economy at the exact time that we need to transition to non-polluting energy. It is as if they have no control or influence over the world’s addiction to fossil fuels while they continue to feed the energy system that is the root of the problem. Reading between the lines, they also say that if the world stops demanding oil and gas, they will not produce it.
This boils down to fossil fuel companies using smoke and mirrors to confuse the public. They pose as climate champions and advocate for taxpayers’ money to build massive facilities to reduce their emissions while propping up the energy system that is the cause of climate change. However, the IEA states that the transition away from oil and gas is already underway and needs to speed up (IEA, 2021), which will, in turn, reduce the demand for oil and gas and the companies that produce it. And those billions of dollars in subsidies CCUS? That will be your money wasted.
So what about the 10% of emissions that will require CCUS to ensure global emissions reach net-zero as identified by the IEA? Much of that will be for industries that are hard to decarbonize, such as cement, steel, and heavy transportation (Langlois-Bertrand, 2021).
Government must not subsidize the very companies that are perpetuating the world’s dependence on oil and gas because it is both a waste of taxpayer money and delays the transition to a non-polluting energy system. Government should support the development and implementation of carbon removal technology for industries where decarbonization is difficult such as cement and steel. And the government needs to tell Canadians how they are using our money to transition to a non-polluting energy system, not prop up oil companies’ pipe dreams.
Addendum
In Assignment three, I wrote a briefing note to the government that recommended policies to ensure that federal support for carbon removal technology should not go to oil and gas companies. For the Remix, I decided to target a public audience of people who are informed about climate change but know nothing about this issue and build support for stopping government funding of this technology for oil companies. For Remix 1, I chose to write an op-ed for the National Observer. The National Observer is an online digital news media that covers extensive climate issues and has an audience of 7 million viewers in most urban areas across Canada. I used language that assumed an audience with some knowledge of climate but limited understanding of carbon removal technology and how this affects the ability to transition off fossil fuels. In terms of storytelling technique, I tried to use the story spine as described in Rotman (2017 )and Cunningham (2017.) The article lays out the perspectives of the oil companies versus the environmental groups, provides the information needed to understand the conflict, and shows how the government can help resolve the dispute.
Center for International Environmental Law. (2021, July 19). Carbon Capture and Storage. Retrieved October 26, 2021, from https://www.ciel.org/issue/carbon-capture-and-storage/
Chestney, N., & Januta, A. (2021, August 9). “Death knell for coal and fossil fuels”: IPCC report sounds “deafening” warning on climate change. Financial Post. Retrieved November 19, 2021, from https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/oil-gas/u-n-sounds-deafening-warning-on-climate-change
Clifford, C. (2021, February 1). Carbon capture technology has been around for decades — here’s why it hasn’t taken off. CNBC. Retrieved November 18, 2021, from https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/31/carbon-capture-technology.html
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Morgan, G. (2021, August 9). “The world still needs fossil fuels:” Canada’s oilpatch sees future for the industry despite “death knell” warning. Financial Post. Retrieved November 19, 2021, from https://financialpost.com/commodities/the-world-still-needs-fossil-fuels-canadas-oilpatch-sees-future-for-the-industry-despite-death-knell-climate-warning
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