Date of publication: 06 Apr 2022 • 5 hours ago • 4 minutes reading • 141 Comments Minister of the Environment Steven Gilbo. Photo by Chris Young / The Canadian Press / File
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Canada’s environment minister worked hard Wednesday to ensure that any leaks about a controversial Atlantic oil project did not come from his office.
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Asked about media reports about the imminent approval of the Bay du Nord offshore drilling project by his ministry while testifying before the Commons Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault kept his answers cloudy. “The national news this afternoon reports that your government is approving the Bay du Nord, right?” Committee member and NDP MP Charlie Angus asked the minister. “It is true that the national news is reporting this,” Guilbeault replied. Asked by Angus if the media reports were true, Guilbeault simply stated that no official announcement had been made. Norwegian energy company Equinor is behind the big $ 12 billion project – located about 500 km off the coast of St. Petersburg. John’s, NL, northeast of the Hibernia and Terra Nova offshore wells in Newfoundland Grand Banks and Jeanne d’Arc Basin.
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Estimates say the deep-water project could produce 200,000 barrels of crude oil a day and produce at least 300 million barrels over its lifetime. On Wednesday, CTV reported that approval for the project would be announced later in the day following the closure of North American financial markets. During a somewhat controversial exchange, Angus expressed surprise at the news – telling Guilbeault that he did not remember reading anything in the government’s climate plans for approving new oil projects. Guilbeault responded by warning Angus that he was not paying much attention to government policy. “If you had read the climate plan carefully, you would have seen that the plan is based on a variety of data sources, including the latest study by the Canadian Energy Regulatory Authority which predicts increased production in Canada,” Guilbeault said.
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Angus continued Guilbeault, citing both this week’s landmark report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and remarks by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres accusing world leaders of failing to comply with to deal with the climate emergency. He said government leaders were “lying” and the response would be “catastrophic”, Angus said. “Would you feel it would be unfair for the UN Secretary-General to say that government leaders who came to COP26 to deliver on those promises are lying and then going back and it is usually a job?” Guilbeault disagreed with this assessment, insisting that his government was following the IPCC guidelines to the limit, reducing emissions and putting a price on pollution.
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“It is hailed worldwide as one of the most effective tools in tackling climate change,” he said. As the project is not expected to start producing by the end of this decade, Angus has questioned the government’s ability to meet its 2030 target of reducing greenhouse gases by 40 to 45 percent. “Why do not we just say, ‘We will continue to invest in big oil, we will continue to promote the Bay du Nord, we are not going to achieve these goals,’” Angus said. “It would be better to be honest with us on this than to claim that you will miraculously achieve these goals when, in a week, you alone have signed half a million new barrels a day of new production.”
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The news that the approval of the Bay du Nord was imminent was not accepted by the Canadian environmental groups. The Environmental Defense team described any possible approval of the project as a “slap in the face”. “The approval of the Bay du Nord is another leap forward into an unsustainable future,” spokeswoman Julia Levin said in a statement. “The decision is tantamount to denying that climate change is real and threatens our very existence.” Bloc Quebecois committee member Kristina Michaud reminded Guilbeault of the May report published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) which states that the only way to achieve a clean zero is by banning any new natural gas projects. or coal – asking in French if his government is announcing one thing but doing just the opposite.
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Guilbeault responded in French that Canada was well on its way to achieving its goal of reducing methane emissions by three-quarters by 2025. The discussion on the Bay du Nord announcement came during a meeting that was originally intended to discuss emission ceilings for the oil and gas sector. While Guilbeault explained that there are no formal emission ceilings for other sectors, he said other Trinto government policies could just as easily be considered along the same lines – specifically mentioning the government’s 2035 zero-emission and zero-energy clean-up deadlines. energy through the Clean Electricity Standard. “This approach to reducing and reducing emissions is in fact an approach we have embraced for many sectors of our economy,” he said.
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