Alberta's emissions down slightly but still make up lion's share of Canada's greenhouse gas

The oil and gas sector remains by far the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Alberta, which remains by far the largest emitter of all the provinces, but its share of Canada's total emissions has declined — slightly.

Alberta's emissions totalled 270 megatonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent in 2022, according to the latest National Inventory Report, which was released Thursday.

That's down ever so slightly from the province's 271 megatonnes in 2021.

Alberta accounted for 38 per cent of the country's total emissions in 2022, down from 39 per cent the year before.

The declines are due largely to plummeting emissions from Alberta's electricity generation as the province continues to phase out its coal-fired power plants.

Alberta produced 19 megatonnes of emissions from its electricity sector in 2022, which is less than half of what the sector was emitting five years earlier.

"It's significant … especially considering that our province is growing and electricity demand is growing," said Marie Christine Bouchard with the Pembina Institute, a clean-energy think tank.

"You're still seeing that substantial reduction associated with not producing electricity with coal."

Emissions from the oil and gas sector totalled just over 158 megatonnes in 2022.

That's down by half a megatonne compared to a year earlier, even while oil production in the province increased.

Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault highlighted that as some "good news" in latest inventory report, which Canada is required to submit to the United Nations under the terms of the Paris Agreement.

"Methane emissions are going down in the oil and gas sector," Guilbeault told reporters in Ottawa on Thursday.

"They will need to come down substantially more," he added.

Guilbeault said the country remains on track to meet its 2030 emissions-reduction goals, even though total emissions grew to 708 megatonnes in 2022, compared with 698 megatonnes in 2021.

A big part of that growth, he noted, was due to revisions in the way methane emissions are measured and included in the national inventory.

"We've known for many years that methane was being under-reported … and we're deploying a lot of effort to ensure we're getting the most accurate measurements as we can," Guilbeault said.

Those efforts include aerial surveys to measure actual emissions, he said.

In the past, methane emissions were calculated based on fuel use reported by companies, but experts have noted large discrepancies between those figures and actual measurements of methane taken by aircraft above oilsands operations and other industrial facilities.

The methane revisions had an outsized — and retroactive — effect on Alberta's emission totals in the National Inventory Report, dating back decades.

In the latest report, the revised emissions from Alberta's oil and gas sector were 10 to 15 megatonnes higher for each year between 1990 and 2021, compared to the previous report.

Looking at the sector in finer detail, emissions have been generally trending upward from the oilsands while trending downward from natural gas production and processing. 

While Alberta remains the largest contributor to Canada's greenhouse gas emissions of all the provinces, it's second on a per-capita basis.

Saskatchewan is the largest emitter by that measure, with about 6.4 megatonnes per 100,000 people in 2022, compared to six megatonnes for Alberta.

Quebec had the lowest emissions at 0.9 megatonnes per 100,000 people.