Canada’s oil and gas: held to a higher environmental standard

Canada’s oil and gas industry has invested about $1 billion each year for the last 10 years on research and development of clean-technology solutions. This research includes work to advance carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), an area where Canada is a global leader.

Since 2000, carbon-capture projects in Canada have safely stored more than 44 million tonnes of CO2. That’s the equivalent of taking over 9 million cars off the road. In the coming years, Canada’s CCUS operations are set to significantly expand.

Average emissions per barrel in the Canadian oil sands have been going down for over 10 years. Producers are set to achieve reductions in total emissions within the next five years.

Canada is also a global leader in reducing methane emissions. While worldwide methane emissions have been going up over the past two decades, Canada’s methane emissions are falling – even though Canadian oil production has increased. Canada’s methane emissions went down by 16% between 2000 and 2018, while worldwide methane emissions grew by 27%.

The largest producers in Canada’s oil sands industry have come together to commit to an ambitious goal: achieving net-zero emissions in their operations by 2050. This will be led by carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) – technology that is already in use in the oil sands today.

Canada is one of only a few countries in the world with industrial-scale CCUS operations. Alberta is home to the world’s largest CO2 transportation system – and this system is built to expand significantly. With CCUS, carbon emissions are stored deep underground, where they remain permanently trapped and out of the atmosphere.

Natural gas is the cleanest-burning carbon-based fuel: it emits only about half the amount of CO2 as coal. And Canada is one of the world’s largest natural gas producers. Switching energy generation from coal to natural gas is one way that countries like the US can significantly reduce their emissions.

The US is the world’s largest natural gas producer, but it still imports a substantial amount of natural gas every day. Virtually all of that natural gas comes from Canada, thanks to a vast interconnected network of pipelines.

Natural gas has helped reduce America’s use of coal for power generation. In 2021, coal made up about 22% of US electricity generation, down by more than half from 2005. At the same time, natural gas increased to provide 38% of US power, up from 19%. The increased use of natural gas is reducing emissions from the US power sector.