This is the 1st affidavit of

Kirsten Zickfeld
made April 26, 2017

Court File No.: T-1836-16

FEDERAL COURT

BETWEEN:

SKEENAWILD CONSERVATION TRUST

Applicant

and

HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF CANADA,

MINISTER OF ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE,
CANADIAN ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT AGENCY, and
PACIFIC NORTHWEST LNG LIMITED PARTNERSHIP

Respondents

APPLICATION UNDER SECTIONS 18 & 18.1 OF THE FEDERAL COURTS ACT,

R.S.C. 1985, c. F-7

AFFIDAVIT

I, Kirsten Zickfeld, Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, Simon

Fraser University, of 2244 Ferndale Street, Vancouver, BC, V5L1Y5, AFFIRM
THAT:

1. I am a climate scientist who has reviewed the Canadian Environmental

Assessment Agencys environmental assessment report respecting the Pacific
NorthWest LNG Project (the CEAA Report), and as such I have personal
knowledge of the facts and matters hereinafter deposed to save and except
where the same are stated to be based upon information or belief, and where so
stated I verily believe the same to be true.
 2

Qualification

2. I have been retained by SkeenaWild Conservation Trust as an expert in these

proceedings. The retainer between SkeenaWild Conservation Trust and myself
is attached to this affidavit as Exhibit A.

3. I am a climate scientist and Associate Professor in the Geography Department

at Simon Fraser University, which I joined in September 2010. From 2008 to
2010 I was a Research Scientist at the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling
and Analysis in Victoria, BC. I hold a PhD in Physics (2004) from the
University of Potsdam, Germany. My research addresses questions pertaining
to the effects of human activities on climate. Specifically, I am interested in
exploring the long-term climate impacts of anthropogenic greenhouse gas
emissions and interactions between climate change and the carbon cycle. I am
internationally recognized for my work on carbon budgets and climate change
irreversibility. I have published forty scientific articles in peer-reviewed
journals, including high-impact journals such as Nature, Science, Nature
Geoscience, Nature Climate Change. I serve as Lead Author of the Special
Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the 1.5
degree target and was Contributing Author to the Third (2001) and Fifth (2013)
Assessment Reports of the IPCC. My current curriculum vitae is attached to
this affidavit as Exhibit B.

What is the role and importance of cumulative effects in assessing the climate
impact of greenhouse gas emissions?

4. Scientific evidence suggests that the climate effects of emissions of long-lived

greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as carbon dioxide (CO2), are proportional to
the cumulative emissions of these gases 1, i.e. the total emissions added up over

1
IPCC (2013), Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis.
Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf
 3

the time period over which they occur. This proportional relationship arises due
to the long atmospheric lifetime of these GHGs.

5. Human activities, such as combustion and production of fossil fuels,

deforestation and agriculture, release large amounts of GHGs into Earths
atmosphere. The principal GHGs released by human activities are carbon
dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and halocarbons (HCs).
These gases have different atmospheric lifetimes (i.e. remain in the atmosphere
for different amounts of time), depending on the natural processes that absorb
(sinks) or release (sources) these gases from/into the atmosphere.

6. CO2 stands out among these gases because its removal from the atmosphere
involves processes that operate on extremely long timescales. CO2 is
continuously exchanged between the atmosphere and its reservoirs on land
(vegetation, soils, freshwater), in the ocean and the Earths crust. Several
natural processes (collectively referred to as the carbon cycle) contribute to
this exchange: on land, photosynthesis by plants removes CO2 from the
atmosphere; CO2 fixed into plants is then cycled through plant tissues, dead
plant material and soil carbon and is released back to the atmosphere by plant
respiration, microbial decomposition of plant material in soils and disturbances
(e.g. fire). In the ocean, CO2 dissolves in surface waters and is transported to
deeper waters by ocean circulation and by the biological pump. Tiny
organisms (phytoplankton) at the ocean surface take up CO2 through
photosynthesis producing plant tissue that is consumed by organisms higher up
in the food chain. Litter (dead organisms, fecal matter) then sinks to deeper
ocean waters, where it is decomposed and releases CO2. These processes result
in an effective pumping of CO2 from the sea surface to the deep ocean,
removing it from contact with the atmosphere. CO2 is also exchanged between
the atmosphere and geologic reservoirs (carbonate sediments at the sea floor
and silicate rocks).

7. The processes involved in the cycling of carbon through the different reservoirs
operate on a wide range of timescales. While CO2 absorption and release by
 4

plants and soils and CO2 dissolution in the ocean surface layer occur on
relatively fast timescales (seconds to centuries), transport of CO2 to the deep
ocean takes centuries to millennia and cycling of carbon through the geologic
reservoirs takes tens of thousands to millions of years. As a result, removal of
human-emitted CO2 from the atmosphere by natural processes will take
thousands of years. 15 to 40% of CO2 emissions will remain in the atmosphere
longer than 1000 years, depending on the amount of CO2 released (the
percentage of CO2 remaining in the atmosphere increases with larger amounts
of emissions) 2.

8. Due to its long atmospheric lifetime, CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere when
it is continuously emitted, leading to a rise in the atmospheric CO2
concentration. Due to this accumulation in the atmosphere, the long-term
climate effects of CO2 are controlled by the cumulative amount of CO2 emitted
over a specific period of time. For instance, it is now well established that the
global surface air temperature change in a specific year is proportional to the
cumulative CO2 emissions emitted up to that year1,3,4. In other words, the long-
term temperature effects of CO2 emissions depend only on the cumulative
amount of emissions and not on the time when they are emitted.

9. The other major GHGs emitted by human activities (CH4, N2O, HFCs) have
shorter atmospheric lifetimes than CO2 (about a decade for CH4, 120 years for
N2O and 1 to 100 years for most HFCs). Therefore, a smaller amount of these
gases accumulates in the atmosphere, and the climate effects of these gases are

2
Eby M, et al. (2009) Lifetime of anthropogenic climate change: Millennial time-scales of potential
CO2 and surface temperature perturbations. J Climate, 22:25012511. A copy of this article is attached
to this affidavit as Exhibit C.
3
Matthews, HD, N Gillett, PA Stott, and K Zickfeld (2009) The proportionality of global warming to
cumulative carbon emissions, Nature, 459: 829-833. A copy of this article is attached to this affidavit
as Exhibit D.
4
Zickfeld, K, M. Eby, HD Matthews, and AJ Weaver (2009) Setting cumulative emissions targets to
reduce the risk of dangerous climate change, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science,
106(38): 16129-16134. A copy of this article is attached to this affidavit as Exhibit E.
 5

more closely related to the rate of emissions leading up to the time when the
impacts are assessed, than to cumulative emissions 5.

In its final report, did the CEA Agency assess the cumulative effects of the
greenhouse gas emissions associated with the Project?

10. In its report the CEA Agency acknowledges the importance of cumulative GHG
emissions in determining climate change: "...the Agency concurs with
Environment and Climate Change Canada that the Project would be one of the
largest greenhouse gas emitters in Canada and that the accepted science links
environmental effects globally and in Canada to cumulative greenhouse gas
emissions." 6

11. However, the CEA Agency assesses the significance of GHG emissions
associated with the project in terms of annual emission rates. It does so by
comparing Project emissions to 2014 provincial and national GHG emissions
levels 7. It estimates that [u]pstream greenhouse gas emissions associated with
the Project of 8.8 to 9.3 million tonnes CO2e per year would represent 1.2 to
1.3 percent of national emissions based on 2014 levels8. Considering direct
emissions of 4.5 million tonnes CO2e per year in addition to upstream
emissions, GHG emissions from the project would represent 1.8 to 1.9 percent
of national 2014 emissions levels 9. In its report, the CEA Agency does not
provide an assessment of the cumulative GHG emissions over the lifetime of
the Project (>30 years 10).

12. In a cumulative GHG emissions framework, cumulative Project GHG

emissions should be assessed, especially in relation to the long-lived GHG CO2,

5
Smith MS, et al. (2012) Equivalence of greenhouse-gas emissions for peak temperature limits, Nature
Climate Change 2:535538, doi:10.1038/nclimate1496. A copy of this article is attached to this
affidavit as Exhibit F.
6
CEAA Report, p. 43.
7
CEAA Report, p. 41.
8
CEAA Report, p. 41.
9
National Inventory Report 1990-2014: Greenhouse Gas Sources and Sinks in Canada - Executive
Summary https://www.ec.gc.ca/ges-ghg/default.asp?lang=En&n=662F9C56-1.
10
CEAA Report, p. 5.
 6

in terms of their share of a provincial or national carbon budget. A carbon

budget defines the total CO2 emissions that can be emitted over all times in
order to limit warming to a given global mean temperature target.

13. Under the Paris Agreement Canada and other nations committed to limit global
temperature increase to ... well below 2C above pre-industrial levels, and to
pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C 11. To achieve a
climate target of below 2C of global warming, total global CO2 emissions need
to remain below 2,550 to 3,150 billion metric tonnes of CO2 12. Given that
approximately 2000 billion tonnes of CO2 have already been emitted, total
future global emissions of CO2 must not exceed 590 to 1,240 billion tonnes so
as to stay below 2C 13. At current global CO2 emissions of 40 billion metric
tons of CO2 per year this budget will last about 15 to 30 years, which illustrates
the urgency to reduce CO2 emissions to stay within a 2 degree Celsius-
compatible budget.

14. There is considerable uncertainty surrounding 2C carbon budget estimates due

to uncertainties in the climate system response to human-induced CO2
emissions and in our ability to mitigate emissions of non-CO2 GHGs. Carbon
budget estimates are therefore usually associated with a probability of meeting
a given target. The carbon budget estimate given in the previous paragraph
corresponds to a probability of limiting global warming to below 2C with a
larger than 66% likelihood (i.e. odds of two in three), a likelihood level that is
commonly used in cumulative CO2 emissions analysis (e.g. references in
footnotes 12, 13).

15. Different sharing principles can be applied for allocating a global carbon budget

11
Paris Agreement (2015), http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php
12
IPCC (2014): Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III
to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. IPCC, Geneva,
Switzerland, 151 pp. (http://ar5-syr.ipcc.ch/). Table 2.2; the budget for Simple model, WGIII
scenarios and 66% of simulations meeting goal is given here.
13
Rogelj J, et al. (2016), Differences between carbon budget estimates unravelled, Nature Climate
Change, 6:245252, doi:10.1038/nclimate2868. A copy of this article is attached to this affidavit as
Exhibit G.
 7

quota to nations. These range from allocating global carbon budget quotas
based on current emissions (emissions based) to equity-based principles that
require an equal-per-capita allocation (equity based) of the global carbon
budget. An approach that blends these two principles is considered the most
viable 14, but here the two sharing principles at opposite ends of the spectrum
are used to assess the full range of outcomes.

16. These two sharing principles (emissions-based and equity-based) can readily be
applied to calculate the remaining carbon budget for Canada that is consistent
with a >66% likelihood of limiting warming below 2C. This calculation yields
that Canadas remaining carbon budget is 3.6 billion metric tons of CO2 if it is
allocated according to Canadas fraction of the worlds population (equity-
based budget), or 14.4 billion metric tons of CO2 if the global carbon budget is
allocated according to Canadas fraction of the worlds CO2 emissions
(emissions-based budget) 15.

17. The CEAA Report estimates GHG emissions from the Pacific Northwest LNG
project at 13.3-13.8 million tons CO2 equivalent (CO2e) per year (4.5 million
tons direct, and 8.8-9.3 million tons from upstream CO2e emissions 16). A
cumulative GHG emissions analysis is especially helpful in understanding the
climate effects of long-lived GHGs such as CO2. Therefore only the CO2
emissions from the Project GHG emissions arising from CO2 are considered 17.
Direct Project CO2e emissions are generated almost exclusively by combustion,
and are therefore assumed to be emitted entirely as CO2. Upstream Project

14
Raupach R, et al. (2014), Sharing a quota on cumulative carbon emissions, Nature Climate Change,
4:873879, doi:10.1038/nclimate2384. A copy of this article is attached to this affidavit as Exhibit
H.
15
Donner S, and K Zickfeld (2016), Canadas contribution to meeting the temperature limits in the
Paris climate agreement. http://blogs.ubc.ca/sdonner/files/2016/02/Donner-and-Zickfeld-Canada-and-
the-Paris-Climate-Agreement.pdf; the calculation is based on a central global carbon budget estimate
of 850 billion metric tons of CO2 from 2015 for a >66% probability of meeting the target (reference in
footnote 12, Table 2.2, Complex models, RCP scenarios only). A copy of this article is attached to
this affidavit as Exhibit I.
16
CEAA Report, p. 41.
17
Non-CO2 GHG emissions are considered implicitly by using a global CO2 budget that has been
adjusted downwards to allow for about 20% of the temperature changes leading to 2C to occur as a
result of additional non- CO2 GHG emissions.
 8

COze emissions include methane emissions from leaks, venting and other
sources. Informed by BC's Inventory Reportls, it is assumed that 160/o of
upstream COze emissions arise from methane emissions.

18. Applying the above assumptions it is estirnated that direct and upstream COz-
only emissions from the Project are 11.9-12.4 million tons COz. Over the
lifetirne of the project (here assumed to be 30 years), these annual emissions
add up to about 360 million metric tons of COz cumulative emissions. These
cumulative COz emissions correspond to l\Yo of Canada's equity-based carbon
budget and2.5o/o of Canada's emissions-based budget. This means that between
2.5o/o and II%o of Canada's all-tirne carbon budget consistent with limiting
warming to 2"C would be used up by the Pacific Nolthwest LNG project alone.

AFFIRMED BEFORE ME
in the City of Vancouver,
British Columbia
on Apri ,2017.

A commissioner for taki Kirsten Zickfeld

for British Columbia

Pak Yan Anthony HO

Barrister & Solicitor
Suite 16 Shoal Point
21 Dallas Road
Victoria, BC V8Y 429
Tel: (778) 678-3818
Email : anho @p acificcell. ca

r8
BC Provincial Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report.
(last
accessed April262017)