Parkhill predicts that the federal government’s proposed system could shrink the potential Canadian market. He also argues against carbon taxes and for a “transparent, liquid, trustworthy” trading system. “The fact is that the Canadian market, as is true in so many things, is too small to support a liquid, efficient carbon market on its own,” Parkhill warns. “We need the world.”

What producers need, especially in the oil sands, is market certainty and a strategy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions beyond buying environmental credits. Oil sands economic viability, developed on technological innovation and greenhouse gas reduction, tops the agenda for producers searching for a market edge. It’s also the right thing to do environmentally. Buying carbon credits to help industrializing nations achieve better environmental standards is a worthy global goal. To do that at the expense of the environment where oil sands are mined and processed is folly. Technology is the key to reducing emissions.

“Lots of little things are happening in the oil sands world to make producers more environmentally and energy efficient,” says Molyneaux. “Dry tailings will be the next step change.” The tailings ponds at Syncrude’s Fort McMurray site caused an uproar when nearly 500 migrating ducks drowned in the sludge.

Molyneaux points to companies like Canadian Natural Resources, Total and Petrobank that are actively working on reducing emissions. Petrobank started up the world’s first well bore with the upgrading catalyst underground. Canadian Natural has heat exchangers at its Horizon oil sands project.
“People have been fixated on the oil sands but they aren’t the cheapest place to cut emissions,” says University of Calgary climate change scientist David Keith. “Coal-fired power plants emit more carbon dioxide. I’d like to see the province produce more systemic long-range policy for managing carbon that really does set some kind of standard – enough so that it reduces regulatory uncertainty for firms.”

Keith goes beyond walking the tech talk. He and his fellow researchers are developing a machine that takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. While still in its infancy, the “air capture” technology could one day help eradicate greenhouse gas emissions.

With all the research underway by scientists in the energy industry, at universities and other institutes, genuine physical reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are bound to become attainable. Once that goal is reached, it could wipe out the need for carbon-credit trading altogether.

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