Canada's Carbon Black Eye - Bitumen Peddling

Across Canada, provincial  and local governments have achieved great things in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the Harper government has grabbed as much undeserved credit for that as possible.

Yet Harper and his slackjawed EnviroShill, Peter Kent, can't hide the impacts of their bitumen-peddling policies, no matter how much credit they steal from others.

Canada's annual heat-trapping greenhouse gases continue to level off or decline in most sectors of the economy, outside of Alberta's oilpatch, says the latest annual inventory report submitted by the Harper government to the United Nations.

 

The government report, prepared by Environment Canada, noted the country's average temperatures were 1.5 degrees C above average in 2011, which makes it more likely to observe impacts such as rising sea levels and increasing extreme weather events that could intensify in the future.

"In some regions, the impacts could be devastating, while other regions could benefit from climate change," the report said.

But oilsands companies exploiting Alberta's natural bitumen deposits, which require large amounts of energy and water to extract heavy oil, continue to be the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases in the country, standing in the way of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's target to lower annual emissions by 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020. A report released by Environment Canada in August estimated Canada was on pace to be about 20 per cent above that target in 2020.

The oilsands sector also now represents about eight per cent of Canada's overall annual emissions.

The report said Canada had the largest growth in emissions among G8 countries over the past two decades. It is also among the top sources of greenhouse gases in the world, representing about two per cent of global emissions, and one of the highest sources of greenhouse gases per person.

 Oilsands industrial activities have reduced emissions per barrel of oil produced by about 26 per cent since 1990 because of new technologies, as well as exporting some emissions to the U.S. for some refining and upgrading activities.

Other figures from the report show that Alberta's industrial facilities are responsible for 48 per cent of all industrial emissions in the country in 2011, followed by Ontario at 19 per cent, Saskatchewan at nine per cent and Quebec at eight per cent.