Canadian Energy Centre
A Matter of Fact: The IEA’s updated net zero scenario is still unrealistic

From the Canadian Energy Centre
By Deborah JaremkoCanada can lead the world with reliable, affordable energy supply and clean technology as countries work to reduce emissions
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has updated its net zero scenario, pushing for governments to implement more aggressive climate policies on the energy industry.
The IEA itself acknowledges the scenario is “a pathway, but not the only one” for the energy sector to reduce emissions to net zero by 2050.
The agency acknowledges the world is not on this trajectory, but the Government of Canada uses the net zero scenario as the basis for policies like its proposed oil and gas emissions cap, which will hurt Canadians without environmental gain.
“We’re the fourth-largest oil producing country, and we’re the only ones that are saying oil and gas is not here to stay. That’s a huge roadblock for all of us,” Gurpreet Lail, CEO of Enserva, the national trade organization representing energy service and supply companies, told the Globe and Mail during the World Petroleum Congress last week.
Canada can lead the world with reliable, affordable energy supply and clean technology as countries work to reduce emissions. But the sector needs to be allowed to thrive rather than being phased out while it is needed.
Here are the facts.
Fact: The IEA net zero scenario is not a forecast
The IEA’s updated net zero scenario envisions that the world does not need any new coal, oil and natural gas projects. By 2030, it imagines world oil demand will drop by 23 per cent, natural gas demand by 18 per cent, and coal demand by 44 per cent.
It’s difficult to see how this could actually come about, given that even with accelerating investment in low carbon energy resources the world’s consumption of oil, gas and coal is as high or higher than it has ever been. And rising.
The IEA reports both oil and coal demand are at record levels. The agency itself projects the world’s total energy consumption – which increased by 15 per cent over the last decade – will increase by a further 24 per cent by 2050.
On the world’s current trajectory, the IEA says oil, gas and coal will still account for 62 per cent of world energy supply in 2050, compared to 78 per cent in 2021.
“There’s no evidence that oil demand is going to peak any time soon,” Arjun Murti, former partner with Goldman Sachs, said at the recent Global Business Forum in Banff.
“Oil is not in its sunset phase.”
Fact: The IEA net zero scenario is unrealistic
The IEA’s net zero scenario includes components that are unrealistic.
For example, it says electricity transmission and distribution grids need to expand by around two million kilometres each year to 2030. But it also acknowledges that today, building these grids can take more than a decade, putting that scale and timeline already out of reach.
The net zero scenario also hinges on a “unified effort in which governments put tensions aside and find ways to work together.” But the IEA also acknowledges the world today is “a complex and low-trust geopolitical environment.”
Consider that Russia is trying to boost trade with Asia as economic ties with the West shrivel over Moscow’s actions in Ukraine, according to Reuters News. In just one example, state-owned Gazprom plans to start gas deliveries to China through the Power of Siberia pipeline in 2025 and expand that service in 2030 with Power of Siberia-2.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine accentuated the world’s reversal away from the concept of globalization, where everyone benefits from the global economy, leading energy analyst and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Yergin said on a recent ARC Energy Ideas podcast.
“The era of globalization was what I call the WTO consensus: we’re all in this global economy together. In China, hundreds of millions of people come out of poverty. India enters the global economy, standards of living go up and you get really impressive economic performance,” Yergin said.
“Well, that era is ending and it’s heading pretty fast now as we move into this new era of great power competition, which hopefully does not become great power confrontation.”
Energy is at the heart of the “new map,” as Yergin calls it.
Responsibly produced, reliable energy from Canada can benefit world energy security while helping reduce emissions. That is why it is essential the sector is not phased out through government policy.
Fact: Canadian energy and clean technology can help reduce world emissions
One of the fastest and most effective ways to reduce emissions is to switch from coal-fired power to power generated from natural gas, traded globally as LNG.
Consider that between 2005 and 2019, emissions from the U.S power sector dropped by 32 per cent because of coal-to-gas switching, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Natural gas from the LNG Canada project alone could reduce emissions in Asia by up to 90 million tonnes annually, or the equivalent of shutting down up to 60 Asian coal plants, the project says.
That’s a reduction of more than the entire emissions of the province of British Columbia, which were 64 million tonnes in 2022.
Expanding Canada’s LNG exports to Asia could reduce emissions by 188 million tonnes per year, or the annual equivalent of taking all internal combustion engine vehicles off Canadian roads, according to a 2022 study by Wood Mackenzie.
One of the reasons LNG from Canada has a lower emissions intensity than LNG from other jurisdictions is the success producers have seen reducing methane emissions. It’s an opportunity for technology exports.
The IEA views cutting methane emissions from oil and gas as a critical component of achieving climate targets.
The latest data shows that oil and gas producers in Alberta decreased methane emissions by 44 per cent between 2014 and 2021, a 10 per cent drop from 2020. The sector is expected to surpass the target of reducing methane emissions by 45 per cent by 2025.
“I don’t know of any other jurisdiction that is as far forward in terms of its methane management as Canada,” says Allan Fogwill, chief operating officer of Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada.
“There’s nothing to suggest we couldn’t have similar impacts in the United States, the Middle East, or former Soviet countries that also are involved in oil and natural gas production.”
Fact: Canada’s carbon capture and storage leadership can benefit the world
The IEA says “rapid progress” is required to deploy more carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) projects to reduce emissions.
This is another area where Canada’s energy sector can take the lead.
Since 2000, CCS projects in Saskatchewan and Alberta have removed more than 47 million tonnes of emissions, or the equivalent of taking more than 10 million cars off the road. This work has helped inform development of major CCS projects globally including Northern Lights in Norway.
Canada has five of the world’s 30 commercial CCS facilities, accounting for about 15 per cent of global CCS capacity even though Canada generates less than two per cent of global CO2 emissions, according to the Global CCS Knowledge Centre.
Among CCS projects under development in Canada is one of the largest in the world, proposed by the Pathways Alliance of oil sands producers.
The first phase of the Pathways CCS project will connect 14 oil sands facilities to a CO2 storage hub in northern Alberta. The target is to reduce emissions from operations by 22 megatonnes by 2030 on the way to net zero in 2050.
Fact: Oil and gas still needed in IEA net zero scenario
Even in the IEA’s net zero scenario, in 2050 about 14 per cent of world energy needs are still supplied by oil and gas.
This includes non-combustion uses like petrochemical feedstock and asphalt, which crude from Canada’s oil sands is particularly well suited to supply. Researchers with Queen’s University recently found that asphalt from Alberta’s oil sands can extend pavement lifespan by 30 to 50 per cent.
The world needs more Canadian oil and gas, not less.
2025 Federal Election
Canada’s pipeline builders ready to get to work

From the Canadian Energy Centre
“We’re focusing on the opportunity that Canada has, perhaps even the obligation”
It was not a call he wanted to make.
In October 2017, Kevin O’Donnell, then chief financial officer of Nisku, Alta.-based Banister Pipelines, got final word that the $16-billion Energy East pipeline was cancelled.
It was his job to pass the news down the line to reach workers who were already in the field.
“We had a crew that was working along the current TC Energy line that was ready for conversion up in Thunder Bay,” said O’Donnell, who is now executive director of the Mississauga, Ont.-based Pipe Line Contractors Association of Canada (PLCAC).
“I took the call, and they said abandon right now. Button up and abandon right now.
“It was truly surreal. It’s tough to tell your foreman, who then tells their lead hands and then you inform the unions that those three or four or five million man-hours that you expected are not going to come to fruition,” he said.

Workers guide a piece of pipe along the Trans Mountain expansion route. Photograph courtesy Trans Mountain Corporation
“They’ve got to find lesser-paying jobs where they’re not honing their craft in the pipeline sector. You’re not making the money; you’re not getting the health and dental coverage that you were getting before.”
O’Donnell estimates that PLCAC represents about 500,000 workers across Canada through the unions it works with.
With the recent completion of the Trans Mountain expansion and Coastal GasLink pipelines – and no big projects like them coming on the books – many are once again out of a job, he said.
It’s frustrating given that this could be what he called a “golden age” for building major energy infrastructure in Canada.
Together, more than 62,000 people were hired to build the Trans Mountain expansion and Coastal GasLink projects, according to company reports.
O’Donnell is particularly interested in a project like Energy East, which would link oil produced in Alberta to consumers in Eastern and Atlantic Canada, then international markets in the offshore beyond.
“I think Energy East or something similar has to happen for millions of reasons,” he said.
“The world’s demanding it. We’ve got the craft [workers], we’ve got the iron ore and we’ve got the steel. We’re talking about a nation where the workers in every province could benefit. They’re ready to build it.”

The “Golden Weld” marked mechanical completion of construction of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project on April 11, 2024. Photo courtesy Trans Mountain Corporation
That eagerness is shared by the Progressive Contractors Association of Canada (PCA), which represents about 170 construction and maintenance employers across the country.
The PCA’s newly launched “Let’s Get Building” advocacy campaign urges all parties in the Canadian federal election run to focus on getting major projects built.
“We’re focusing on the opportunity that Canada has, perhaps even the obligation,” said PCA chief executive Paul de Jong.
“Most of the companies are quite busy irrespective of the pipeline issue right now. But looking at the long term, there’s predictability and long-term strategy that they see missing.”
Top of mind is Ottawa’s Impact Assessment Act (IAA), he said, the federal law that assesses major national projects like pipelines and highways.
In 2023, the Supreme Court of Canada found that the IAA broke the rules of the Canadian constitution.
The court found unconstitutional components including federal overreach into the decision of whether a project requires an impact assessment and whether a project gets final approval to proceed.
Ottawa amended the act in the spring of 2024, but Alberta’s government found the changes didn’t fix the issues and in November launched a new legal challenge against it.
“We’d like to see the next federal administration substantially revisit the Impact Assessment Act,” de Jong said.
“The sooner these nation-building projects get underway, the sooner Canadians reap the rewards through new trading partnerships, good jobs and a more stable economy.”
Canadian Energy Centre
First Nations in Manitoba pushing for LNG exports from Hudson’s Bay

From the Canadian Energy Centre
By Will Gibson
NeeStaNan project would use port location selected by Canadian government more than 100 years ago
Building a port on Hudson’s Bay to ship natural resources harvested across Western Canada to the world has been a long-held dream of Canadian politicians, starting with Sir Wilfred Laurier.
Since 1931, a small deepwater port has operated at Churchill, Manitoba, primarily shipping grain but more recently expanding handling of critical minerals and fertilizers.
A group of 11 First Nations in Manitoba plans to build an additional industrial terminal nearby at Port Nelson to ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe and potash to Brazil.
Robyn Lore, a director with project backer NeeStaNan, which is Cree for “all of us,” said it makes more sense to ship Canadian LNG to Europe from an Arctic port than it does to send Canadian natural gas all the way to the U.S. Gulf Coast to be exported as LNG to the same place – which is happening today.
“There is absolutely a business case for sending our LNG directly to European markets rather than sending our natural gas down to the Gulf Coast and having them liquefy it and ship it over,” Lore said. “It’s in Canada’s interest to do this.”
Over 100 years ago, the Port Nelson location at the south end of Hudson’s Bay on the Nelson River was the first to be considered for a Canadian Arctic port.
In 1912, a Port Nelson project was selected to proceed rather than a port at Churchill, about 280 kilometres north.
The Port Nelson site was earmarked by federal government engineers as the most cost-effective location for a terminal to ship Canadian resources overseas.
Construction started but was marred by building challenges due to violent winter storms that beached supply ships and badly damaged the dredge used to deepen the waters around the port.
By 1918, the project was abandoned.
In the 1920s, Prime Minister William Lyon MacKenzie King chose Churchill as the new location for a port on Hudson’s Bay, where it was built and continues to operate today between late July and early November when it is not iced in.
Lore sees using modern technology at Port Nelson including dredging or extending a floating wharf to overcome the challenges that stopped the project from proceeding more than a century ago.
He said natural gas could travel to the terminal through a 1,000-kilometre spur line off TC Energy’s Canadian Mainline by using Manitoba Hydro’s existing right of way.
A second option proposes shipping natural gas through Pembina Pipeline’s Alliance system to Regina, where it could be liquefied and shipped by rail to Port Nelson.
The original rail bed to Port Nelson still exists, and about 150 kilometers of track would have to be laid to reach the proposed site, Lore said.
“Our vision is for a rail line that can handle 150-car trains with loads of 120 tonnes per car running at 80 kilometers per hour. That’s doable on the line from Amery to Port Nelson. It makes the economics work for shippers,” said Lore.
Port Nelson could be used around the year because saltwater ice is easier to break through using modern icebreakers than freshwater ice that impacts Churchill between November and May.
Lore, however, is quick to quell the notion NeeStaNan is competing against the existing port.
“We want our project to proceed on its merits and collaborate with other ports for greater efficiency,” he said.
“It makes sense for Manitoba, and it makes sense for Canada, even more than it did for Laurier more than 100 years ago.”
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