Financing fossil fuel infrastructure via Cedar LNG wrong for climate, nature and economy

VANCOUVER | UNCEDED xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (MUSQUEAM), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (SQUAMISH) AND səlilwətaɬ (TSLEIL-WAUTUTH) TERRITORIES — The David Suzuki Foundation reissues a call to stop supporting or approving new liquefied “natural” (methane) gas export terminals in B.C. following a positive final investment decision announcement for the Cedar LNG project on June 26.

The Foundation was one of four organizations who issued a letter to the federal minister of finance and the president and CEO of Export Development Canada urging them to respect Canada’s climate commitments and reject the financing proposal for Cedar LNG. EDC is reported to be contributing up to $500 million in funding for the project.

Thomas Green, Senior Climate Policy Adviser, David Suzuki Foundation, said:

“We fully respect the Haisla Nation’s authority on their territory. But we disagree with the decision to move ahead with this project because of the damage it will wreak on climate, nature and people at the point of extraction, as well as the economic risks this industry is creating.

“Any new fossil fuel infrastructure — including fracked methane, or as industry calls it, ‘natural gas’ — contradicts Canada’s climate commitments. The International Energy Agency and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change clearly state that no new fossil fuel projects should be developed if we’re to limit global heating to safe levels (1.5 C above pre-industrial levels).

“Cedar LNG claims its upstream operations will be ‘net-zero,’ but this claim largely relies on carbon offsets, which have been proven to be problematic and do not represent credible climate strategy. This net-zero claim also does not include the bulk of emissions that the project will create, including fugitive (leaked) emissions during extraction and downstream emissions when the fuel is burned.

“Moving ahead with LNG projects like Cedar jeopardizes the federal and B.C. governments’ commitment to reduce methane emissions by 75 per cent below 2012 levels by 2030. We’re also concerned that EDC’s financing of Cedar LNG also contradicts Canada’s commitment to end public finance for fossil fuels in Canada.

“New peer-reviewed research, “Drilling into the Montney: How LNG Expansion Will Accelerate Drilling, Fracking and Environmental Impacts in Northeast B.C. and Adjacent Alberta,” shows how plans to expand the LNG industry by extracting gas from Canada’s largest carbon bomb (the Montney Play) will decimate landscapes with massive land intrusions, surging water use and chemical injections deep underground. Meanwhile, global demand for LNG is set to decline rapidly in the coming decades, creating a significant risk of stranded assets for project proponents and the governments that support them.

“As a major historical polluter — largely through massive fossil fuel exports — and a wealthy country, Canada should be leading the transition off of fossil fuels toward the inevitable clean-energy economy. We should not be clinging to harmful, fading industries as the rest of the world sets its sights on the promises of renewables.”

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For more information or media interviews, please contact:

Theresa Beer, tbeer@davidsuzuki.org, 778-874-3396