No, Canada cannot get credit for its low-carbon exports
that it intends to seek credit toward Canada’s emissions reduction
targets for the GHG-reducing effects of Canadian exports. It argues that
supplying Canadian clean energy such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) can
reduce other countries’ emissions by displacing more
emissions-intensive energy sources such as coal. Minister of Natural
Resources Amarjeet Sohi has suggested that a provision in article 6 of
the Paris Agreement would allow Canada to use these reductions in meeting its own GHG goals.
The low-carbon goods and services that Canada exports do have a role
to play in reducing global emissions, but article 6 does not offer a
path to getting GHG credit for them. And in any case, low-carbon exports
don’t relieve us of the responsibility for cutting our own emissions.
Why we don’t get credit?
Countries don’t get credit toward their emissions reduction targets
for low-carbon exports because the global GHG accounting system doesn’t
work that way. The accounting system used by the 197 parties to the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) covers
“territorial-based” GHG inventories, which measure only those emissions
that happen within a nation’s geographical borders.