The Government of Canada has committed to setting a cap on emissions generated by the oil and gas sector at a pace and scale needed to achieve net-zero by 2050. In this submission, the Pembina Institute provides key principles for setting the oil and gas cap, setting 2025 and 2030 targets, and developing the regulatory pathway to ensure these targets are met or exceeded.

During the pandemic, the Emissions Reduction Fund has been one of the few programs around the world that addresses the economic impacts of the ongoing health crisis while creating jobs and contributing meaningfully to reducing emissions in the oil and gas sector. Minister Wilkinson should renew this fund to address methane - a critical step in reducing Canada's overall oil and gas emissions.

Pembina Institute welcomes the conclusion of the Public Inquiry into Anti-Alberta Energy Campaigns that it has not acted in an improper manner or displayed conduct that should be in any way impugned. Given that your report is focused on our work over a 20-year period, and that over the past two years we received no invitations for meetings or requests for information about our work from the Inquiry, we find the other representations to be unreasonable, largely misinterpreting our work.

Alberta’s 2021 budget included the establishment of a $2-million-a-year ESG Secretariat in the premier’s office. This gives ESG a special resonance at the highest levels of government, making it part of a long-term strategy to prove Alberta’s value to investors, especially in the oil and gas sector. But those investors may notice that what’s missing from the strategy so far is a real commitment to climate policy and planning.

On behalf of the Pembina Institute, Chris Severson-Baker, Nina Lothian and Jan Gorski submitted comments in February, 2021, to the Government of Alberta following a request for feedback that will inform the province’s Natural Gas Vision and Strategy, and hydrogen strategy.