The Federal Government is moving towards cleaner economic growth while reducing pollution and providing a healthy environment for future generations.
Today, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna, announced regulations to reduce methane emissions and air pollution from Canada’s oil and gas sector.
It’s part of the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change to reduce methane emissions by 40-45% by 2025.
Canada’s oil and gas sector is the country’s largest emitter of climate-warming methane gas and a source of air pollutants known as volatile organic compounds, some of which are toxic to human health and are a big reason for smog.
The proposed regulations will help Canada’s oil and gas industry conserve valuable natural gas that is now wasted and certain facilities, such as refineries, to reduce their volatile organic compound emissions.
Canada has already made excellent progress in reducing emissions through regulations for the transportation sector and industries outside of oil and gas.
Reducing methane emissions is one of the lowest cost actions Canada can take to reduce greenhouse gases.
Greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced by about 20 megatonnes a year, equal to removing about five million passenger vehicles from the road each year.
Furthermore, this will help Canada avoid the economic impact of global climate-change events such as drought and floods.
Using affordable, proven technologies to reduce pollution will create new clean-technology jobs for Canadians in the oil and gas industry.
In total, 26 refineries, oil-sands upgraders, and petrochemical facilities would be affected by these regulations.
There are already over 170 Canadian companies providing clean-technology services, and they will hire more workers as these regulations are phased in.
Cleaner air leads to healthier Canadians and fewer hospital visits for those with existing health conditions, like asthma and heart-related issues.
The Government of Canada estimates the proposed regulations would result in at least 40 fewer premature deaths from 2017 to 2035.
Under Canada’s proposed approach, provinces and territories will have the flexibility to develop their own regulations to replace the federal ones if they can achieve similar outcomes.
The Government of Canada is supporting this growth, through the 2017 budget, by committing $200 million to support clean-technology research, development, and demonstration and adoption of clean technology in Canada’s natural resources sectors