2022 Cap & Cut Emissions Consultation

You can jump straight into the Climate Messengers Consultation Toolkit, or use the links below.

Executive Summary

Environment and Climate Change Canada (“ECCC”), on behalf of the federal government, has opened an online public consultation process on capping and cutting greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions from the production of oil and gas.  It has released a Discussion Document and is asking for suggestions from members of the public until 30 September 2022. [See details here.]

GHG emissions from the production of oil and gas is Canada’s single largest source of GHG emissions.  It makes up 27% of all of Canada’s emissions, and that is just from the production, not the consumption of them.  The nature of our oil and gas production means that Canadian production emits significantly more GHGs per barrel of oil produced than most of the world’s other oil production .  [Details here.]

Expert international bodies have told us that, although there should be no new oil and gas production developed, the world’s governments plan on producing around 110% more fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with the median 1.5°C-warming pathway, and 45% more fossil fuels than would be consistent with the median 2°C-warming pathway.  [See details here.]

Canada is among the most prominent contributors to that production gap problem:  It plans to increase its production of oil and gas through, and past, 2030.  [Details here.]

The federal government is limited in what it can do about oil and gas production because oil and gas production is the exclusive jurisdiction of the provinces.  [Details here.]

Two of the tools that the federal government can use are the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (“CEPA”) and the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act (the “GGPPA”) because, in both instances, the federal government is addressing GHG emissions from production and not oil and gas production itself.  We provide a general explanation of CEPA and the GGPPA in this Toolkit, and provide links to more details.  [Details here.]

The federal government has promised to reduce GHG emissions from the production of oil and gas in Canada by 81 Megatonnes (“Mts”), or 42%, compared to 2019 emissions, by 2030. [See details here.]  In the Discussion Document, the federal government is proposing two alternative options:

Option 1 – Using the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (“CEPA”) to create a regulated cap-and-trade system; or 

Option 2 – Using the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act (the “GGPPA”) to create a modified (almost certainly higher) “carbon tax” that will apply only to oil and gas production.

The announcement for the Public Consultations is found at this link, and a link to the Discussion Document appears near the bottom of the page:

Government of Canada outlines next steps to develop an oil and gas emissions cap

The email address to which you can send your submissions is found in the Discussion Document.  It is:

PlanPetrolieretGazier-OilandGasPlan@ec.gc.ca

The deadline for submissions is 30 September 2022.

This Toolkit generally favours Option 1 [See details here.], but either option could work.  Whichever one you choose, it is even more important that you answer one or more of the questions that the Discussion Document proposes.  [See details here.] 

It is extremely important that you and every one of us does this  because the government is already facing fierce, and sometimes extreme, opposition from the oil and gas lobby and from some of that lobby’s political allies, and there are already indications that the government is buckling under the pressure.  [See details here.]

We made this Toolkit because we need many, many climate concerned citizens, including you, to learn a bit about this issue and then to participate in the federal government’s Public Consultation.  We must pressure the federal government to act with stringency and with speed on this extremely important issue, and press them not to cave to the forces calling for leniency and delay, which would ultimately lead to even greater climate catastrophe.