• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
Biden Approves $8B Oil Extraction Plan in Ecologically Sensitive Alaska March 14, 2023
U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse March 14, 2023
$30.9B Price Tag Makes Trans Mountain Pipeline a ‘Catastrophic Boondoggle’ March 14, 2023
UN Buys Tanker, But Funding Gap Could Scuttle Plan to Salvage Oil from ‘Floating Time Bomb’ March 9, 2023
Biden Cuts Fossil Subsidies, But Oil and Gas Still Lines Up for Billions March 9, 2023
Next
Prev

Cenovus Sets ‘Aspirational’ Net-Zero Target, Pledges 30% Carbon Intensity Cut by 2030

January 12, 2020
Reading time: 4 minutes
Primary Author: Compiled by The Energy Mix staff

Dru Oja Jay/Dominion

Dru Oja Jay/Dominion

1
SHARES
 

Alberta tar sands/oil sands fossil Cenovus Energy is promising to cut its carbon emissions per barrel produced 30% by 2030, reclaim 1,500 decommissioned oil wells by the same year, hit “net zero” emissions by 2050, and expand its work with Indigenous businesses by C$1.5 billion.

CEO Alex Pourbaix said the new targets were intended to “position us to thrive in the transition to a lower-carbon future,” adding that “I’m confident we have the right business model and talent in place to achieve them.”

  • The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
  • You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
  • The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
Subscribe

But “reaching the 2050 goal will require advances in technologies including carbon capture and storage that are not currently economically practical,” Bloomberg News reports, citing an interview with Al Reid, the company’s executive VP of environment, corporate affairs and legal. “But he said the company has a clear path forward to the 2030 target, adding the announcement is designed to draw the attention of both internal and external stakeholders.”

Reid admitted to CBC the 2050 target is “aspirational”, based on “technologies that are in a nascent state today that could allow that to happen,” even though “they’re not commercial today.” He said carbon offsets might also be a part of the picture.

“In an interview with The Canadian Press, Reid said the company is hopeful that its commitments—which include ramping up spending by $1.5 billion with Indigenous businesses—will help make peace with opponents and allow growth to take place,” CBC states.

“The impetus, to some extent, is political pressure,” writes the Globe and Mail’s Adam Radwanski, citing the connection to Canada’s current plan to cut emissions 30% by 2030 and hit net-zero by 2050. “More so, the pressure is financial. With environmental, social, and governance or ESG considerations increasingly factoring into investors’ decisions, Alberta’s oil producers are at risk of being badly starved for capital.”

The company’s plan “echoes Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s promise during last fall’s federal election that Canada would cut its national GHG emissions to net zero by 2050,” Bloomberg agrees. “Cenovus said its 2030 emissions target will be reached via a multi-pronged approach including operational optimization, incorporating electricity cogeneration capacity into future oilsands phases, more use of solvent technology to reduce steam needed to produce bitumen, methane emissions reductions in its conventional drilling operations, and through increased use of data analytics.”

Bloomberg says the release drew a positive reception from financial analysts who saw it as an extension of Cenovus’ standing as one of the lowest-intensity producers in the tar sands/oil sands.

Pembina Institute Senior Analyst Benjamin Israel called the 30% intensity target “commendable”. He said it signalled the company’s “willingness to go beyond current government requirements in response to investor and market pressure”, sending “a clear message to Canadians and to governments that companies are ready and willing to accept more stringent climate policies.”

But reducing emissions intensity is still just a first step. “We’ve moved beyond the time of talking about oilsands’ emissions intensities to focusing on absolute emissions,” he said in a release. “Meeting Canada’s 2030 and 2050 climate commitments will require credible plans for substantial decreases in the oil and gas sector’s overall emissions as quickly as possible.”

Greenpeace Canada Senior Energy Strategist Keith Stewart said the announcement amounts to a “tweak” of Cenovus’ existing business strategy, adding that it doesn’t help much to hold emissions steady when Canada faces a looming deadline to reduce them. “I liken it to saying the captain of the ship has spotted the iceberg and has pledged to maintain course and speed,” he told CBC.

“What we should be hearing from Cenovus and from others…is, ‘We recognize we need to get out of the oil business. It’s not going to happen tomorrow. But we have to start planning for it now. And we have to start shifting our investments in that direction,’” Stewart added.

Israel and Stewart “both pointed out that plans to cut emissions in the upstream energy sector do little to reduce emissions in the downstream, where burning fuel creates more than 70% of the emissions,” Bloomberg adds.

Warren Mabee, director of the Queen’s Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy, told CBC the announcement showed fossils taking climate change and the need to decarbonize seriously. “Clearly, there’s more and more pressure on these companies to look at their carbon footprint and to start to come up with some real strategies to address those carbon footprints,” he said.



in Canada, Carbon Levels & Measurement, CCS & Negative Emissions, Community Climate Finance, Ending Emissions, First Peoples, Methane, Sub-National Governments, Tar Sands / Oil Sands

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

U.S. Bureau of Land Management/flickr
Oil & Gas

Biden Approves $8B Oil Extraction Plan in Ecologically Sensitive Alaska

March 14, 2023
64
David Dodge, Green Energy Futures/flickr
Community Climate Finance

U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse

March 14, 2023
97
EcoAnalytics
Media, Messaging, & Public Opinion

Canadians Want Strong Emissions Cap Regulations, Not More Missed Targets

March 14, 2023
71

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Behrat/Wikimedia Commons

Hawaii Firm Turns Home Water Heaters into Grid Batteries

March 14, 2023
295
U.S. National Transportation Safety Board/flickr

$30.9B Price Tag Makes Trans Mountain Pipeline a ‘Catastrophic Boondoggle’

March 14, 2023
138
David Dodge, Green Energy Futures/flickr

U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse

March 14, 2023
97
EcoAnalytics

Canadians Want Strong Emissions Cap Regulations, Not More Missed Targets

March 14, 2023
71
Rebecca Bollwitt/flickr

Fossils Stay ‘Oily’, Gibsons Sues Big Oil, U.S. Clean Energy Booms, EU Pushes Fossil Phaseout, and Fukushima Disaster was ‘No Accident’

March 14, 2023
70
U.S. Bureau of Land Management/flickr

Biden Approves $8B Oil Extraction Plan in Ecologically Sensitive Alaska

March 14, 2023
64

Recent Posts

Raysonho/wikimedia commons

Purolator Pledges $1B to Electrify Last-Mile Delivery

March 14, 2023
47
United Nations

UN Buys Tanker, But Funding Gap Could Scuttle Plan to Salvage Oil from ‘Floating Time Bomb’

March 10, 2023
89
Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons

Biden Cuts Fossil Subsidies, But Oil and Gas Still Lines Up for Billions

March 10, 2023
171
jasonwoodhead23/flickr

First Nation Scorches Imperial Oil, Alberta Regulator Over Toxic Leak

March 8, 2023
364
MarcusObal/wikimedia commons

No Climate Risk Targets for Banks, New Guides for Green Finance as 2 Federal Agencies Issue New Rules

March 8, 2023
234
FMSC/Flickr

Millions Face Food Insecurity as Horn of Africa Braces for Worst Drought Ever

March 8, 2023
241
Next Post
Americasroof/Wikimedia Commons

World’s Biggest Fund Manager BlackRock Joins Climate Accountability Campaign

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}