This story has been updated with comment from the federal Department of Finance.
With Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland set to deliver a federal budget next week that’s meant to “invest aggressively” in clean technology, Monday’s synthesis report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) includes some strong guidance on which technologies should qualify for government support—and which ones shouldn’t.
The agency’s Summary for Policymakers spotlights solar, wind, and methane reductions from fossil fuels as “feasible, effective, and low-cost options” that can quickly and massively drive down greenhouse gas emissions in this decade, largely at a cost of less than US$20 per tonne of carbon dioxide or equivalent.
In sharp contrast, a chart toward the end of the 37-page report shows carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology delivering about one-tenth the benefit at far higher cost. Nuclear, geothermal, hydropower, and electricity from biomass do little better.
Overall, the IPCC’s path to decarbonization begins with “a substantial reduction in overall fossil fuel use,” with minimal reliance on fossil systems that don’t have some form of carbon capture attached. Electrification is widespread, electricity systems emit no net carbon dioxide, “alternative energy carriers” serve uses that are less easily electrified, energy conservation and efficiency are maximized, and energy systems are more effectively integrated.
Freeland struck a similar note yesterday, the Globe and Mail reports, after a speech to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Oshawa, Ontario.
“Canada right now is really at a crucial crossroads. This is a moment when the great economies of the world have decided to embrace the clean economy,” she told media.
“We also can invest aggressively in the clean economy of the 21st century in a smart, focused, Canadian way—or we can be left behind,” she added. “Not making those investments is also a choice. And a choice, I believe, that would be really irresponsible, really reckless.”
But that messaging didn’t necessarily rule out further subsidies for CCS technologies that received C$7.1 billion in Freeland’s 2022 budget, and have been the subject of continuing, intensive lobbying by fossil fuel interests. Despite record profits last year, Canadian fossil executives are holding back their own funds for the carbon capture hub they want to develop in Alberta, demanding at least $10 billion in taxpayer support before they decide whether to proceed.
A Finance Canada spokesperson did not respond directly to questions about how or whether the federal budget could incorporate the IPCC’s findings, but sounded a positive note for continued CCS funding.
“Canada is taking significant steps towards reducing our emissions by 40 to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030, and towards reaching net-zero by 2050,” he told The Energy Mix in a March 23 email. “Carbon capture, utilization, and storage technologies are an important tool for reducing emissions in high-emitting sectors and a key part of the government’s broader plan to work with industry towards the goal of decarbonization.”
The latest push for those subsidies came earlier this week from the Geneva-based International Petroleum Corporation, the “first foreign oil company to sanction a project in Canada’s oil sands in more than a decade,” Reuters reported Sunday.
“The company joins Canada’s biggest oil producers in urging policy-makers to boost public funding for the costly technology that is seen as key to cutting emissions from the carbon-intensive oil sands,” after approving the first phase of the 30,000-barrel-per-day Blackrod project in northern Alberta last month, the news agency writes.
“There’s still an opportunity—if we can have some sensible government decisions about getting serious about meeting climate targets—that if the right incentives come along, we’re in a very good position to look at carbon capture down the line,” said CEO Mike Nicholson.
But that wasn’t the kind of sensible decision-making or serious targeting on offer when the IPCC released its report Monday morning.
For even a 50-50 chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C, countries must cut their emissions 43% from 2019 levels by 2030, 60% by 2035, 69% by 2040, and 84% by 2050, the IPCC warned. If annual emissions stayed at 2019 levels through the rest of this decade, they would exhaust the remaining carbon budget to hold average global warming at 1.5°C.
But Canadian fossil executives are working on the assumption, at least for now, that they can steadily increase production through 2033, with subsidized carbon capture projects giving them political cover to keep on extracting oil and gas. Even though those projects, even if they succeeded, would do nothing to capture or store the 80% of carbon in a barrel of oil that is emitted after the product reaches its end user.
Canadian climate hawks were quick to connect those dots in their reactions to the IPCC release.
“We know that carbon capture and storage in the oil and gas sector isn’t effective here in Canada, since existing CCS projects capture less than 2% of the sector’s emissions, even after decades of development and billions of dollars of public investment,” Angela Carter, energy transition specialist with the Winnipeg-based International Institute for Sustainable Development, said in a release. “The growing consensus is that CCS for oil and gas won’t be enough and costs too much, and the IPCC research supports that view.”
“Any argument that we can delay the global energy transition by capturing massive amounts of carbon from fossil fuel is out of touch with the challenges facing these expensive, unproven technologies,” agreed IISD policy analyst Olivier Bois von Kursk. “Without a sharp decline in the production and consumption of all fossil fuels, the remarkable progress on renewable energy deployment over the past years will be meaningless for the climate.”
“Decades of obstruction by the fossil fuel industry have led us to the brink of catastrophe,” said Julia Levin, associate director, national climate at Environmental Defence Canada. “And now those same actors are trying to delay climate action by advancing dangerous distractions like carbon capture. Fossil fuels are causing the climate emergency. A rapid and equitable phaseout of fossil fuels must be the centerpiece of any science-based strategy.”
“Canada’s government faces a critical moment with its federal budget next week,” said Sabaa Khan, director of climate solutions at the David Suzuki Foundation. “It must stop public spending on fossil fuels and instead direct public funding to proven, cost-effective, widely available climate solutions. This includes wind, solar, clean electricity, electrification of cities, energy efficiency, investment in natural infrastructure, and reducing food waste.”
