PNNL

Abstract

Canada, a party to the Paris Agreement, has proposed an ambitious climate target of net-zero emissions by 2050. The country also holds the world’s third largest oil reserves in the Alberta oil sands. In 2017, the oil sands sector employed 140,000 people, had a capital investment of 21 billion USD, and accounted for 11% of national greenhouse gas emissions. Achieving Canada’s net-zero emissions target requires significant decarbonization of the oil sands sector. In this study, we incorporate additional technology and market detail for the Canadian oil sands in the Global Change Analysis Model (GCAM). We then explore the sector’s evolution, under a deep decarbonization context, across a range of future technological scenarios and international mitigation pathways. We find that Canadian unconventional oil production is highly dependent on the availability of lower-carbon intense extraction technologies and international demand for oil, which to a certain extent relies on the availability of negative emissions technologies.