Canada falls further behind its Paris climate promise

Canada’s latest data on greenhouse gas emissions do not look good: the country is falling further behind its 2030 target, at the halfway mark of Paris Agreement.
As of 2023, according to initial estimates last week from the Climate Institute, Canada’s emissions were 702 megatonnes. That’s down 1 per cent from a year earlier and 8 per cent from 2005. Canada has pledged to cut emissions by 40 per cent by 2030 from the 2005 number, as part of the international treaty, and the country isn’t even a quarter of the way there, at the halfway mark. The Paris Agreement, drafted in late 2015, became official in 2016.
The early emissions estimate is an important effort to gain a more timely sense of Canada’s progress. Official data submitted to the United Nations for 2023 won’t be published until next spring.
There are three clear lessons from the latest numbers. First, as this space has repeatedly argued, emissions need to come down across the economy, from passenger transport to the oil sands. Both rose last year. The big polluters in Canada are all of us.
Second, policy works. “Significant progress is achievable,” the Climate Institute said. It pointed to the electricity sector, where emissions are down almost two-thirds from 2005, after Ontario and Alberta set a course to get off coal power.
Policies on methane in the oil and gas sector have also helped cut emissions there by about 5 per cent from a mid-2010s peak, though increases to a record output of fossil fuels pushed emissions higher by 1 per cent in 2023.
The third lesson? Given the shortfall to date, a redoubled push, across the economy, is necessary.
But what that looks like is uncertain, with a federal election set for a year from now, or possibly earlier.
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The federal Liberals have two major plans pending. The first is a cap on oil and gas emissions. This space and others see the rules as overly complicated and instead favour strengthening the industrial carbon pricing system. The Liberals’ second proposal, however, is key: the rules to reduce most of the remaining emissions from electricity by 2035.
The Conservatives have offered few ideas, beyond the mantra of ending the carbon tax on fuels such as gasoline. Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre has talked of nuclear power and increased fossil fuel exports. He has avoided talking about industrial carbon pricing and the potential of clean power from solar, wind and batteries. Mr. Poilievre has also avoided committing to a goal. In 2021, before he was leader, the Conservatives said they’d cut Canada’s emissions-reduction target to 30 per cent from 40 per cent.
Conservative commentators at The Hub, a public policy opinion website, this month proposed “an abundance agenda rooted in technological progress.” This is a welcome view, endorsing a position put forth by the centre-left in the United States. In this outlook, renewable power plays a central role.
The Liberals’ clean electricity regulations aim to speed the adoption of renewable energy but industry calls them unworkable. Alberta, which has actively slowed clean power, is also opposed. If a Poilievre government scraps the rules, which are supposed to be finalized this fall, it would require a new plan.
A future of abundance means building new energy infrastructure – and fast. Canada has been slow to improve the approval process for industrial projects. In late 2022, the Liberals budgeted $1.3-billion through to 2028 to bolster government reviews. Ottawa this year announced work to get large projects approved within five years.
Regulatory reform is likely an area of interest for Conservatives. Germany has shown what change can look like. The country is overhauling its power system – more than half of electricity is now renewable – and permitting reforms there have accelerated approvals for solar and wind power. Changes in law include designation of clean power in the public interest for national security and setting aside land for such projects.
Clean power and an expansion of the grid are the primary pillars of an abundance agenda. Widespread use of electric vehicles fuelled by clean power would help Canada slash its greenhouse gas emissions.
The challenge is how to get to that future. At the halfway mark to Paris’s 2030 milestone – and beyond that to net zero – Canada is falling behind.