“Cost and Carbon Competitiveness” was an Alberta rallying cry for years. What happened?

Reducing methane emissions to zero is important for Canada’s competitiveness as global markets increasingly price carbon

For all the noise surrounding climate policy, this is the rare file where ideology doesn’t change the physics, and the economics are as plain as daylight: methane is the cheapest, fastest, most practical emissions reduction lever available to Canada’s oil and gas sector. And yet, we still move too slowly — not because the solutions are unclear, but because some governments refuse to raise their sights.

Nowhere is this resistance more visible than in Alberta. While the federal government and most major producing jurisdictions around the world have embraced the need for deeper methane cuts, Premier Danielle Smith’s government has consistently resisted calls to strengthen Alberta’s targets. Even as provinces like British Columbia meet their methane goals early — and even as U.S. states such as Colorado and New Mexico push ahead — Alberta continues to argue that higher targets would harm competitiveness. The evidence suggests the opposite.

Pembina Institute’s Meeting the Moment

The report is unambiguous: methane abatement is the low-hanging fruit of climate and energy policy. Solutions are proven. Costs are low. Many fixes pay for themselves. And on the global stage, methane performance is becoming the new measure of energy credibility.

Contrast that with other oil and gas emissions. Deep decarbonization of heavy oil, upgrading, bitumen extraction and processing remains expensive. Carbon capture, utilization and storage is slow to scale and costly to deploy. Electrification in remote regions is challenging. None of these pathways move quickly or cheaply. That is why, as Pembina notes, other oil and gas emissions remain stubbornly high, locked behind technological, economic and regulatory barriers that will take years to resolve. Methane stands alone: fast, cheap, and immediately achievable.

This is not theory. It is field-tested reality. British Columbia proved it. Colorado proved it. New Mexico proved it. Even the European Union — with a massive reliance on imported gas — has set methane standards so ambitious they will force exporting nations to clean up or lose market access.

Canada cannot afford to pretend this shift isn’t happening. And yet, Alberta’s approach does exactly that. The province still does not require the full phase-out of emitting pneumatics, a major methane source, even though zero-bleed alternatives are widely available and already required in peer jurisdictions. Alberta also recently weakened its flaring rules, eliminating a long-standing ceiling after the industry exceeded the limit two years in a row.

This is the opposite of leadership.

Federal amendments offer a blueprint for credible action

Quarterly inspections at high-risk sites, monthly instrumented screenings, annual third-party audits, and strong restrictions on venting and flaring together form one of the most rigorous methane regimes in the world. Canada is not “acting too fast,” as some claim. If anything, it is struggling to keep pace with the jurisdictions shaping the new global rules.

The stakes are not abstract. They are profoundly economic. As the report notes, methane cuts in Canada cost roughly $11 per tonne of CO₂e, far lower than almost every other emissions pathway in the sector. Imagine if any other emissions source offered reductions at that price. It would be the centrepiece of national policy. Instead, methane is treated as just another line item in the climate debate,  when in fact, it is the strategic hinge between maintaining competitiveness and falling behind.

The reason is simple: you cannot sell energy to the world in the 2030s without proving its emissions profile. The EU knows this. The United States (outside of Washington’s current political turbulence) knows this. International buyers know this. Methane intensity is becoming the passport for participation in global markets, and Canada’s current performance — roughly ten times the emerging best-practice benchmark — is not good enough.

In this environment, refusing to strengthen methane targets is not a defence of Alberta’s industry. It is a disservice to it. The companies that invest early in low-methane operations will command premiums and secure market access. The ones that wait will find themselves negotiating from a position of weakness.

This is why the report argues so strongly for finalizing Canada’s methane regulations without further delay and why provinces, including Alberta, must modernize their frameworks to align with the world’s leading jurisdictions. The economic logic is straightforward: strong methane policy is not a cost. It is a competitive advantage.

There is a broader lesson here. Climate policy is often framed as a series of hard trade-offs. And in many areas, that is true. But methane is the exception — a policy space where the climate benefits, economic savings, public health improvements and competitiveness gains all point in the same direction.

The only real question is whether Canada chooses to lead or whether it allows political resistance to delay the inevitable.

Because on methane, the facts are clear. The solutions are ready. The advantages are obvious. And the world is already moving. Canada can either meet the moment or watch the moment pass by.