Senate report looks at how chemistry sector can reduce carbon emissions

CIAC President and CEO Bob Masterson underscored the chemistry sector’s crucial role to achieving Canada’s emission reduction challenge when he appeared before the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources in February 2017.

The resulting recommendations were published earlier this month in a report called Decarbonizing Heavy Industry: The Low-Carbon Transition of Canada’s Emission-Intensive and Trade-Exposed Industries.

“We have among the highest and richest reserves of natural gas and natural gas liquids that allow for chemical production from methane, ethane and propane, which have the lowest greenhouse gas potential of all the remaining chemical feedstocks,” Mr. Masterson told the Committee.

However, he raised concerns that the uncertainty over carbon pricing after 2020 created a poor environment to attract investment.

“When we can’t tell people what the regulatory and pricing environment looks like after three years from today, in 2020, they’re going to be very hesitant to put their money into Canada,” he said.

Read the full report here.