For many of us the oil industry is one of those big divisive subjects that you just avoid like the plague for the sake of a little less arguing. Oil and gas has been and is hugely important in a lot of people’s lives, and played a role in making Canada the rich and successful country it is today. But cleaning up Canada’s carbon-heavy energy sector is crucial in fighting climate breakdown, protecting people’s health and building a more sustainable economy.
So how can we find the words to talk to people we don’t agree with?
Part of the reason oil is so divisive is because there’s a lot of misinformation out there. In this short series we’re going to break down and evaluate some of the most common pro-oil or anti-regulation arguments that you might hear around the dinner table:
1. Environmentalists want to shut down the oil industry immediately
Canada’s environmental movement knows that phasing out the oil and gas industry tomorrow, or even over the next few years, is neither possible nor practical. But that doesn’t mean it should keep expanding. Canada’s oil and gas industry will have to be phased out over the next few decades to avoid dangerous climate change impacts.
There are already enough power plants, industrial plants, buildings and cars in the world to warm the planet by more than 2 degrees C, and well beyond 1.5 degrees. That means that to address climate change the fossil fuel projects we already have need to be retired early. And there is definitely no space for building new oil, coal, and natural gas projects that will further increase greenhouse gas emissions.
Want more detail? Click ‘read more’ to reveal a more in-depth answer.
Part of the reason why we can’t just keep expanding now and transition to clean energy later is because building new infrastructure contributes tocarbon lock-in. Fossil fuel projects and pipelines have a big upfront cost. That means that when they’re built we have to use that infrastructure for as long as possible in order to get the best bang for our buck.
Fossil fuel infrastructure projects like mines, refineries and pipelines often have a long lifespan, sometimes between 30-50 years. So if the Trans Mountain pipeline is completed as scheduled in 2022, it could be in commission until as late as 2072. We just don’t have that kind of time! So while the government has said that projects like the Trans Mountain will help finance the transition to renewable energy, building any new fossil fuel infrastructure actually acts as an incentive to keep using fossil fuels and delays the transition to renewable energy.
A sixty-foot section of pipe is lowered into a trench during construction of the Gulf Coast Project pipeline in Prague, Oklahoma, U.S.
2. Canada’s oil is cleaner/ lower carbon than oil from other countries
In short, unfortunately this is not true.
A 2018 study that evaluated the carbon intensity of 50 oil producing countries found that oil produced in Canada is the fourth most carbon intensive oil in the world. We came in just after Algeria, Venezuela and Cameroon.
Oil from Canada is, on average, 70 per cent more polluting than the global average.
Let’s dig a little deeper into carbon or emissions intensity. It can mean a few different things and politicians often don’t specify.
What is emissions intensity?
Emissions intensity is a ratio. It is often calculated as the amount of carbon emissions associated with GDP, but it can mean the amount of greenhouse gases emitted during the production or lifecycle of a barrel of oil.
The Canadian Energy Centre, the official name for Alberta Premier Jason Kenny’s pro-oil “War Room”, likes to promote the statistic that “Canada’s emissions intensity has fallen by 30 per cent since 2000.” What they mean is that the proportion of GHG emissions per billion dollars of Canadian GDP has declined. But actual emissions from oil and gas production within that time period went up 23%. Mainly because of increased oil sands production.
The fact that our economy has a decreasing emissions intensity is a good thing. But this doesn’t mean that the fossil fuels sector in Canada is suddenly producing “clean” oil or going “green”. It’s just a ratio that looks at emissions production compared to the country’s economy. Actual emissions are still going up in the oil and gas sector.
Pro-oil advocates and the fossil fuel lobby also talk about Canada’s declining emissions intensity per barrel. It’s true that over the last decade advances in technology have reduced the emissions intensity of a barrel of oil produced in Canada. But the average barrel of Canadian crude oil was still ranked fourth most emissions intensive in the world. And worse, oilsands oil actually produces above average emissions.
Another oilsands study done in Canada found that emissions per barrel from the oilsands was more than double the North American average.
Why is Canadian oilsands oil so polluting?
It’s because much of Canada’s oil reserves are bitumen. Commonly referred to as oil sands or tar sands, bitumen is a dense substance with a high viscosity. It’s harder to extract, transport, and requires more refining than conventional crude, making the process very resource and energy intensive. The bitumen upgrading process requires specialized refineries. Only one refinery in Canada can process ultra-heavy diluted bitumen straight from the oil sands, so the vast majority needs to be transported and processed in the US before it can be used.
Technological improvements have made this process more efficient, which is how the oil lobby claims to be lowering emissions. But there’s only so much more efficient it can become. Those carbon savings will never offset the industry’s actual emissions. The extraction and production of fossil fuels is still Canada’s largest and fastest growing source of emissions.
Keep in mind that this doesn’t even include the emissions from actually using the oil. Just extracting and producing fossil fuels is Canada’s largest source of emissions.
A large hydrolic excavator stripping away layers of oil loaded sand.
3. Oil is the backbone of the Canadian economy
This is a big one.
The pro-oil lobby tells us we have to choose between jobs or the environment. But the choice isn’t between jobs and the environment, it’s between the fossil fuel industry and a livable climate. We can have good jobs and a healthy environment, if we have a managed phase-out of oil and gas and support for workers to move into other industries.
Resource extraction has played a significant role in the Canadian economy. Hardworking people have supported their families and communities with well-paying jobs in oil and gas. But pro-oilers have been caught on numerous occasionsexaggerating the sector’s economic importance and taking statistics out of context to inflate employment.
Jobs
The oil and gas sector hit peak employment in 2014, and has been shedding jobs ever since. Over 53,000 jobs were lost from 2014 through 2019 – even before the combined crises of 2020 brought another round of massive layoffs. Supporting workers to transition into new industries or clean tech jobs is going to be crucial to managing the sector’s decline.
Most recently, Suncor Energy, one of the country’s largest oil and gas producers, announced that it will eliminate up to 15% of its workforce over the next year and half, affecting 2,000 jobs.
A report on the future of employment in oil and gas said, before the pandemic, that these jobs aren’t coming back. Companies always prioritize improving the bottom line. Over the years they’ve invested in new technologies that reduce manual labour, automating jobs formerly done by people.
Economics
The economic story is similar. For most of the past 20 years the oil and gas industry has averaged about five per cent of Canadian GDP, and about 0.4 per cent of employment, not the 10 per cent claimed by some pro-oil lobbyists. The finance, manufacturing, real estate, public administration, health care and professional services sectors all take larger shares of Canada’s economy.
The fossil fuel industry has one of the lowest ratios of full-time employment per million dollars of output. That’s been good for the companies making big bucks in the sector, but it means for every million dollars of economic output, they create just 2.7 jobs. Compare this to healthcare which creates 13.5, forestry and logging creating 8.8, or breweries, wineries and distilleries that create 10 jobs per million. Arts, entertainment and recreation create a whopping 15 jobs per million of sector output.
Source: CBC. Employment per million dollars in output
The Canadian Energy Centre also likes to talk about the “ripple effect” of jobs created from investment in the industry. They claim that “for every 1 direct job in oil and gas, 3 indirect and 2 induced jobs are created in other sectors.” But here’s the catch, analysis shows that by their own metric, investment in just about any other sector of the economy will generate more jobs than an investment in oil and gas. Basically the economic multiplier is just not a very good metric to begin with.
More questions answered in part two
Of course, more knowledge is always a good thing. But sometimes the best thing you can do is listen, connect on a personal level, and ask questions. As important as they are, facts rarely change people’s opinions. But hearing someone out and having an open conversation is one way we can build bridges and shift perspectives.
Watch out for part 2 of this series! We’ll look at more of the most common arguments you’ll hear about Canada’s oil and gas industry.
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