Canada slows down Clean Fuel Standard ambitions

In Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada recognizes the need for additional time to work with interested parties to conduct robust technical and economic analysis to ensure that the Clean Fuel Standard achieves its goal while maintaining Canadian competitiveness.

As a result, ECCC is adjusting its timelines for the development of the Clean Fuel Standard. The revised timelines will allow the standard to support the transition to lower-carbon fuels while maintaining Canada’s competitiveness, encouraging growth in Canada’s low-carbon fuels industry and creating new economic opportunities across the country.

The revised approach starts with the development of the standards for liquid fuels, followed by gaseous and solid fuels together. The new timelines are:

• for liquid fuels:  publish proposed regulations in spring 2019 and final regulations in 2020, with requirements coming into force by 2022
• for gaseous and solid fuels:  publish proposed regulations in fall 2020, final regulations in 2021 with requirements coming into force by 2023

In fall 2018, ECCC plans to publish two documents to guide further engagement on the design of the standard:

• a regulatory design paper that will provide more information about the design of the policy, including the proposed allocation of the overall 30-million-tonne target among the three fuel streams.
• a cost-benefit analysis framework outlining the proposed analytical approach (models, data and key assumptions) for assessing the costs and benefits of implementation of the Clean Fuel Standard for the liquids stream.