Trudeau: Canada Will Outperform Methane Reduction Goals

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada is on track to meet or outperform its goals for cutting methane emissions, one of the most potent greenhouse gases.

Canada is on track to achieve and even exceed its methane emissions objectives, Trudeau said at an event held on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

“Canada has committed to reduce by 2030 methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by at least 75 per cent below 2012 levels,” said Trudeau in front of world leaders. “Today, I can announce that the draft regulations we will share soon will be designed to help us exceed this ambitious target.”

The Prime Minister did not specify to what degree Canada could exceed its goals. Additional details will be given when the government unveils its upstream oil and gas methane regulations this fall.

According to a press release from Environment and Climate Change Canada, the regulations  “will achieve significant methane emissions reductions” through performance standards and increased stringency for sites at “highest risk of unintentional releases (fugitive emissions).”

In 2021, Environment and Climate Change Canada confirmed that the country was on track to achieve its interim 2025 goal of a 40 to 45 percent cut in methane emissions under current federal and provincial methane regulations.

Trudeau also said on Wednesday that by the end of 2023, “a framework to cap emissions” in the oil and gas industry would be delivered.

However, some attendees at the climate ambition summit voiced concerns that Canada’s policies and practices were at odds with its stated goals.

“Canada was one of the largest expanders of fossil fuel last year,” said United Nations Under-Secretary-General Melissa Fleming while introducing Trudeau.

If Canada meets or exceeds its methane targets, it will be a great success, according to the David Suzuki Foundation. However, the real effort comes in improved methane emissions accounting, according to Tom Green, the foundation’s senior climate policy adviser.

“We have a bigger problem in Canada, which is that we’re very poor at actually measuring and knowing how much methane we have today and how much we had in the past,” he said. “So we’ve got to improve on what’s called measurement, reporting and verification.”

Green stated how the ministries of natural resources and innovation have a joint responsibility to create a world-class center for methane detection and elimination