Canada is one of 19 oil and gas-producing countries that must reduce production by three-quarters this decade and phase it out completely by 2034 to keep a 1.5°C climate future within sight, while allowing less wealthy, more fossil-dependent economies more time to catch up, according to a new analysis released this week by the United Kingdom’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.
The report by Tyndall climate scientists Kevin Anderson and freelance researcher Dan Calverley “warns that there is no room for any nation to increase production, with all having to make significant cuts this decade,” the University of Manchester and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) said in a release. “The richest, which produce over a third of the world’s oil and gas, must cut output by 74% by 2030; the poorest, which supply just one-ninth of global demand, must cut back by 14%.”
The analysis is the first to apply an international fairness lens to the rapidly-diminishing atmospheric space available for emissions of any sort, said Greg Muttitt, IISD’s senior policy adviser, energy supply.
“We’re in a situation today where action to mitigate climate change is really urgent,” Muttitt told The Energy Mix. “The authors looked at how we can share the effort to stay within this atmospheric space in a way that is as fair as possible.”
That effort won’t be easy in any community or country that depends on fossil fuel production, and “there has to be a just transition for workers. We have to ensure that communities aren’t thrown under the bus. That is crucial, and it’s really the starting point for this research,” he said.
“But when you consider the challenges of delivering a just transition in Canada as a whole, or even in Alberta, while not suggesting that it is easy, it’s an order of magnitude less difficult than it is in a country like Iraq, where oil is the majority of the economy and the country doesn’t have the financial resources” to support the transition.
People everywhere tend to focus on their own immediate difficulties, Muttitt added. But “if you put it in context, whatever challenges Canada faces in a just transition are magnified manifold in poorer countries of the world, where oil dependency is that much greater.”
After factoring in those “difficulties and challenges, combined with other really pressing developmental needs, it is fair that wealthier countries that are less dependent on oil and gas need to step up and move faster than the poorer countries of the world.”
Particularly because “wealthy nations that are major producers, typically remain wealthy even once the oil and gas revenue is removed,” the report concludes.
To give humanity 50-50 odds of limiting average global warming to 1.5°C, Anderson and Calverley conclude that:
• 19 wealthiest countries representing 35% of global oil and gas production, including Canada, the U.K., the United States, Australia, Norway, and the United Arab Emirates, will have to cut their output 74% by 2030 and 100% by 2034.
• A second tier of 14 countries responsible for 30% of production, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Kazakhstan, must cut production 43% by 2030 and phase out oil and gas by 2039.
• Three groupings of poorer countries, collectively accounting for 35% of oil and gas production, will have to achieve 14 to 28% production cuts by 2030 and complete their phaseouts between 2043 and 2050.
“There is very little room for manoeuvre if we want to limit warming to 1.5°C,” Calverley stressed in the release. “Although this schedule gives poorer countries longer to phase out oil and gas production, they will be hit hard by the loss of income. An equitable transition will require substantial levels of financial assistance for poorer producers, so they can meet their development needs while they switch to low-carbon economies and deal with growing climate impacts.”
While the research was complete before Russia invaded Ukraine four weeks ago, the “rocketing oil and gas prices” triggered by Vladimir Putin’s war “only serve to strengthen the case we make in our report,” Anderson added. “Had we spent the last 20 years establishing an efficient and sensible use of energy alongside a massive rollout of renewables, we would not now be scrabbling around for alternative oil and gas supplies and facing the impacts of volatile prices. Now is exactly the time we should be planning for a renewable 21st century rather than reliving the oil-based 20th.”
Muttitt acknowledged that no jurisdiction in Canada or anywhere else is close to adopting the targets in the Tyndall Centre analysis.
“The honest answer is that no national government, at least no significant oil and gas producers, have signed up to these kind of timelines,” he said. But many of those countries have endorsed the 1.5°C target in the Paris climate agreement, and “where a report like this one is really important is that it shines a light on that gap.”
And big as the gap may be at the moment, Muttitt cited the growing momentum to end coal-fired electricity production as an example of how quickly momentum can shift.
“Any big change can feel out of reach, even quite close to when it actually happens,” he told The Mix. “The timeline for phasing out coal by 2030 in developed countries and 2040 or 2050 in developing countries was first proposed in 2016,” and “at that time it felt politically impossible. It felt out of reach. These were such vast timelines for transforming something that is quite fundamental to many countries.”
But in just over five years, “the idea that coal has to be phased out on those timelines has been mainstreamed,” as dozens of countries joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance and the need for fast action “quickly came into the political discourse and became accepted policy by many.”
The Tyndall report sets a “much faster pace than any government is committed to at this stage, but identifying what is needed is the first step,” Muttitt said. “After that, things can move quickly.”
Let’s face it, there is no way the world will cease using 75% of its current hydrocarbon fuels within the remaining lifetimes of those accustomed to them. Anyone who has spoken to a post-war or baby boomer knows that they will never give up their comfort or ability to travel wherever & whenever they please. Perhaps the young generation that is witnessing the destruction of its future habitat might have the motivation to change, yet they won’t be in positions of power for at least another 30 years.
Only severe natural catastrophes will convince nations to curtail demand. I predict nations will begin to outlaw the combustion of hydrocarbon fuels when they feel their own mortality, yet not before, and by then it will be much too late.
Of course, a significant reduction of the populations of the three biggest offenders, namely China, India, & the USA, could effectively reduce fuel demand. That has happened many times throughout history by war, famine, or disease. We are on the brink of another world war due to Russian aggression, and sadly, the war machines would emit even more GHGs & pollution.
This does not even begin to address fuels required to heat & cool buildings. It is practically impossible to eliminate fuel combustion to heat homes & other buildings in counties with cold climates like Canada, it is needed just to survive. Mechanical cooling is widely used for comfort, yet we see a trend developing in certain southern climates of deaths by heat, making cooling essential for survival in those areas.
I’m afraid it all seems rather hopeless.