Ministry of Labour and Citizens' Services

Total greenhouse gas emissions in 2010 from all reporting operations emitting 10,000 tonnes or greater was 18.7 Mt CO2e (million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent).

Report summaries have been published for single facility operations, linear facilities operations, individual facilities within linear facilities operations with emissions equal to or greater than 10,000 tonnes CO2e, and the aggregate of facilities with emissions less than 10,000 tonnes CO2e within linear facilities operations.

Since 2010 is the first year of industrial emissions reporting, it is too early to know if these emissions are increasing or decreasing.

124 reporting operations (from 100 companies) reported, three of them voluntarily since their emissions totals are less than the 10,000 tCO2e threshold for reporting.

83 reporting operations had verification requirements.

In total, 200 individual facilities had emissions equal to or greater than 10,000 tonnes of CO2e. Of these, 77 were single facility operations and 123 were individual facilities within linear facilities operations.

There are 431 individual facilities within linear facilities operations with emissions between 1,000 and 10,000 tonnes CO2e. Mainly within the oil and gas industry, these facilities had total emissions of 1.7 million tonnes CO2e.

The three companies with the largest emissions in 2010 (excluding wood biomass) were:

• 1. Spectra Energy Transmission: 4.3 Mt CO2e
• 2. Encana: 1.1 Mt
• 3. Canadian Natural Resources Limited: 1.1 Mt

The individual facilities with the largest emissions in 2010 (excluding wood biomass) were:

• 1. Fort Nelson Gas Plant - Spectra Energy Transmission: 1.3 Mt CO2e
• 2. Pine River Gas Plant – Spectra Energy Transmission: 1.1 Mt
• 3. Kitimat Works – Rio Tinto Alcan: 0.92 Mt

Reported emissions for the different industry sectors are as follows:

Carbon dioxide from biomass listed in Schedule C of the Reporting Regulation is not included in reporting operation totals following international greenhouse gas accounting protocols. These emissions are reported and published to provide transparency and an understanding of the complete emissions profile.

The categories of emissions classify the emissions from the various source types used for emissions quantification into a standard classification. Section 1 of Schedule A of the Reporting Regulation defines stationary combustion, industrial process, venting, flaring, fugitive, on-site transportation, waste and wastewater emissions.

These two categories are aggregated for confidentiality reasons.

The Reporting Regulation is designed to cover industrial emissions in British Columbia. It does not require reporting of emissions from biomass decomposition in landfills, on-road transportation, facilities covered by the Carbon Neutral Government Regulation or forestry and agriculture biological processes.

Electricity use is not attributable under the Regulation to the facility but instead associated emissions are reported by the facility generating the electricity.

The facility either did not have a reporting obligation as per the answer to question 14, or is an individual facility with emissions less than 10,000 tCO2e within a linear facilities operation and its emissions are bundled in the aggregated report summary for its linear facilities operation.

The Reporting Regulation specifically excludes on-site transportation emissions from being reported at a linear facilities operation due to the highly spread-out nature of most of these individual facilities.

Industrial emissions reported in 2010 under the Reporting Regulation represent 28% of the total emissions reported in the 1990-2009 British Columbia Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report. The Provincial Inventory Report summarizes total emissions occurring within B.C. for all sectors.

Greenhouse gas sources in British Columbia that are not covered by the Reporting Regulation but that are included in the British Columbia Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report include on-road transportation (individual and industrial), agriculture, waste, commercial, institutional and net deforestation. Further detail on public sector emissions can be found in the Carbon Neutral Government reports, and information on community-wide emissions can be found in the Community Energy Emissions Inventory reports.

Since the Reporting Regulation prescribes quantification methods and since third party verifiers review all emissions reports for reporting operations with emissions greater than or equal to 25,000 tonnes CO2e, there is assurance that the published data is a fair and accurate representation of actual facility emissions. There is on-going review by the Ministry of Environment to ensure data quality. Emissions have not been fully verified by the Ministry and may be subject to modification if errors are found.

There are two reports for smaller linear facilities operations since the first report is for the entire linear facilities operation and the second one is for the sum of all facilities with emissions of <10,000 tonnes of CO2e. When a linear facilities operation does not have any individual facilities with emissions equal to or greater than 10,000 tonnes, the two reports will be identical.

The Ministry is currently reviewing the verification reports and will be releasing the results of the verifications once the review is completed.

Accurate and consistent emissions reporting forms the necessary foundation for a transparent cap and trade program.

Since the Reporting Regulation prescribes quantification methods and requires third party verification, in most cases the facility reports may be more precise than those reported previously to Environment Canada. There are also different emission thresholds between the two reporting systems.