Emissions - The Big Picture...
Burning oil and gas creates emissions which cause global warming which causes climate change..
In this section you will find information on:
Sources of Emissions in Canada
2024 Was the Warmest Year on Record
Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (CS3) have confirmed that 2024 was the first to exceed 1.5 degrees above limit. The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said that all of the internationally produced global temperature datasets show that 2024 was the hottest year since records began in 1850. That individual year reached 1.6C above an estimate of pre-industrial temperatures.
The global average temperature in 2024 was 15.1C, overtaking 2023 – the previous warmest year – by 0.12C.
In January 2025 The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) endorsed the findings by saying that 2024 was the warmest year on record, based on six international datasets, marking “an extraordinary streak of record-breaking temperatures” over the past 10 years.
Sources of Emisssions
https://carbonwise.co/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-by-sector/
Within each sector emissions are categorized as being Scope 1, 2, and 3 and 4. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol provides the standards that most businesses and organizations use to measure and report Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.
Scope 1 Emissions
- Direct emissions from sources owned or controlled by a company
- Examples include emissions from burning fuel in vehicles, boilers, and furnaces
- those that a company causes by operating the things that it owns or controls. These can be a result of running machinery to make products, driving vehicles, or just heating buildings and powering computers.
Scope 2 Emissions
- Indirect emissions from created by the production of the energy that an organization buys.energy purchased by a company
- Examples include emissions from generating electricity, steam, heating, or cooling
Scope 3 Emissions
- All other indirect emissions that occur in a company's value chain
- These are also indirect emissions – meaning those not produced by the company itself – but they differ from Scope 2 as they cover those produced by customers using the company’s products or those produced by suppliers making products that the company uses.
- Examples include emissions from employee travel, transportation of goods, and manufacturing, and the emissions that result from the end use of the products
Scope 4 Emissions are avoided emissions
- a voluntary metric devised by the World Resources Institute in 2013 aimed at reducing emissions outside a product’s lifecycle or value chain as a result of the use of the product. As an example a refillable water manufacturer might state that using their bottle avoids emissions compared to a disposable water bottle.
Scope 3 emissions are the most difficult to measure but they also represent the majority of emissions for most businesses and organizations, estimated to appx 70% for most businesses, as high as 99% for financial services and up to 90% for oil and gas. There is mandatory reporting of scope 3 emissions in the EU but as of 2024 only large financial institutions must report in Canada.
Canada's Emissions
Canada is the 11th largest emitter of cumulative emissions
EDGAR - Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research, 2024 Report GHG Emissions for All Countries - states that in 2023 Canada emitted appx 748 Million Metric Tonnes (Megatonnes) and was responsible for 1.41% of global emissions. This puts Canada as the 11th largest emitter globally. The EDGAR report includes emissions from all anthropogenic sectors and land use, land use change and forestry.
According to the Government of Canada we emitted 694 Megatonnes (million metric tonnes) in 2023, not including land use, land use change and forestry.
Our World in Data tells us that these numbers only takes into account the emissions created within our country (production/consumption based emissions). If we take into account all of the traded goods, oil and gas that Canada exports that is burned elsewhere (territorial emissions) we need to add 549 Megatonnes to our 2023 totals.
If we also take into consideration the 647 Megatonnes of emissions from the 2023 wildfires then Canada emitted 1 890 Megatonnes, which puts us as the 5th largest global emitter for 2023.
image: https://decarbonization.visualcapitalist.com/global-co2-emissions-through-time-1950-2022/
