World needs Canada’s 'dirty oil', says IEA

We will see emissions at 50% of what they were in 2008 OTTAWA — On the eve of global climate talks that will put Canada’s contentious policies under the microscope, Ottawa has introduced its next set of rules to cut greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks. Under regulations proposed on Tuesday, vehicles built between 2017 and 2025 will be required to cut emissions by an average of five per cent a year, every year.

In the 2012 edition of the World Energy Outlook, the International Energy Agency (IEA) announced that the US could grow to overtake Saudi Arabia and become the largest producer of oil in the world, and achieve energy independence, by as soon as 2017.Unconventional sources, such as shale gas, and shale oil, will enable the US to reduce its reliance upon Middle Eastern oil, however, developing such resources in such large volumes will lead to huge increases in greenhouse gas emissions, putting any hopes at limiting climate change well beyond reach.Fatih…

Barack Obama cannot deliver on his promise to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 17% without decisive new actions, a report warned on Wednesday.

Coal will nearly overtake oil as the dominant energy source by 2017, and only a drop in world gas prices could curb the use of the dirtier fossil fuel in the absence of high carbon prices, the International Energy Agency said. The IEA, the energy agency for developed countries, said earlier this year that without a major shift away from coal, average global temperatures could rise by 6 degrees Celsius by 2050, leading to devastating climate change.

The ability of the oil and gas sector to absorb tough government controls on their greenhouse gas emissions depends on Canada getting a better price for its oil, Environment Minister Peter Kent says. The extra revenue would allow companies to invest heavily in leading-edge technology that would curtail pollution, he said in an interview from London.

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be in New York today, pitching Canadian energy prospects to a leading U.S. think-tank. At the same time, critics of Canada’s green record are taking to the Internet to warn that the Alberta oil sands are an environmental threat.

Soaring U.S. oil production should be enough to allow consumers withstand most potential supply shocks, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Wednesday, as it cut estimates for global oil demand. “The oil-producing world today is in the midst of a onceinageneration transition of farreaching consequences,” the IEA, which coordinates the energy policies of major consuming nations, said in its monthly oil market report.

OTTAWA — The oil and gas sector will need to lower greenhouse gas emissions by 42 per cent if Canada has any hope of meeting overall reductions targets by the end of the decade, says a new report from an environmental think-tank. The Pembina Institute report also says the only way that’s going to happen is if upcoming federal regulations on the sector go much farther than those already in place in Alberta.