VANCOUVER – Canada’s plans for reviewing the climate impacts of major industrial projects exclude the worst offenders and ignore the nation’s targets under the Paris Agreement, says the Wilderness Committee.

Physical Activity Regulations published in the Canada Gazette today make it clear the worst tar sands projects and fracked gas projects, which are some of the nation’s highest carbon emitters, will not receive an Impact Assessment under the government’s implementation of Bill C-69. 

“After withstanding the fossil fuel industry’s relentless lobbying on Bill C-69 in the Senate earlier this year, the government has now caved to Big Oil’s interests in its implementation,” said Climate Campaigner Peter McCartney. “Exempting polluting oil and gas projects from reviews is unconscionable.”

Meanwhile, for projects that do qualify for a review, the government’s draft Strategic Assessment of Climate Change does nothing to evaluate those emissions within Canada’s climate targets. That means projects with enormous greenhouse gas footprints can still be approved.

“Canada keeps missing these climate targets because there’s no legislation that requires them to be met,” said McCartney. “Impact Assessments were supposed to determine whether or not a project can move forward within our Paris Agreement commitments, but the federal government blew it.”

These regulations also neglect to include greenhouse gas emissions from consumers burning Canada’s oil and gas elsewhere, a key ask of environmental groups for years. They will, however, allow companies to claim credit for any climate benefits their projects might have on a global scale.

“Environmental reviews will ignore the global climate impact of projects — often the vast majority of emissions — unless it works in favour of the company,” said McCartney. “That just shows you how these rules are still being written for the benefit of oil and gas companies, not the climate.”

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For more information, please contact:

Peter McCartney | Climate Campaigner
778-239-1935, peter@wildernesscommittee.org