Reading Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand’s report on Canada’s climate action, we’d have to say that the woman sounds … ticked.

Here are five reasons Gelfand is wagging a disappointed finger at Canada’s environment officials.

1. Never met a climate target I actually…met

Canada has introduced several climate targets during the last 25 years but has failed to meet a single one.

As Gelfand puts it, “Since 1992, the government has repeatedly promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, adapt to the impacts of climate change, and support clean energy technology. However, since then, Canada has missed two separate emission reduction targets and is likely to miss the 2020 target as well; in fact, emissions have increased by over 15 percent.”

What are the details?

Canada set its first target, to reduce annual emissions to 613 megatonnes (Mt) by 2000, at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. In 2000, Canada was 20 per cent over the mark.

In 2005 the Kyoto Protocol aimed to reduce emissions to 576 Mt by 2012. Canada missed that target by 25 per cent.

In 2012 the Copenhagen Accord aimed to cut emissions to 620 Mt by 2020. That target was replaced by the Paris Agreement, which aims to reduce Canada’s emissions to 524 Mt by 2030.

According to Environment and Climate Change Canada’s own estimates, Canada will emit 814 Mt of carbon dioxide equivalent per year by 2030 — that’s 55 per cent over the target.

2. Climate Action Plan. We’ve done a lot of work on the plan part.

Gelfand’s audit found that when it comes to actually implementing plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Canada keeps kicking the can down the road.

On implementing regulatory changes, for example, “the federal government has yet to do much of the hard work that is required to bring about this fundamental shift,” Gelfand wrote.

“Instead of developing a detailed action plan to reach the 2020 target for reducing emissions, the government changed its focus to the 2030 target.”

The government has failed to actually implement new greenhouse gas regulations, like methane emission rules, “thereby losing opportunities to achieve real reductions in emissions,” Gelfand said.

Last year Canada did announce the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change, which calls for policies aimed at reducing emissions in a number of sectors.

“It is crucial that the government turn its plan into actions,” Gelfand said.

3. Climate adaptation? That’s a movie with Nicolas Cage, right?

The government is also nowhere near ready to adapt to the impacts of climate change, according to Gelfand. According to recent research, Canada can expect more frequent and severe storms, droughts, floods and fires as a result of a warming climate.

Canada has done very little to prepare for this new reality. That’s despite the fact a 2011 report by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy estimated every dollar spent now on adaptation will result in $9 to $38 worth of avoided damages.

In 2011 Environment and Climate Change Canada developed a Federal Adaptation Policy Framework, but then did nothing to actually implement it or work with departments to identify what climate risks actually mean.

Gelfand found only five of 19 departments and agencies analyzed have fully assessed their climate change risks and taken action to address them. The other 11 have “taken little or no action to address risks that could hinder their ability to deliver programs and services to Canadians. “This means that the government does not have a complete picture of the risks it faces from climate change. If Canada is to adapt to a changing climate, much stronger leadership is needed.”

Five Reasons Canada’s Environment Commissioner Gave Ottawa a Failing Grade on #Climate https://t.co/tlA15WR62x #cdnpoli @cathmckenna

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) October 10, 2017

4. Well shucks, you’re right! We DID promise to phase out fossil fuel subsidies…

The federal government simply doesn’t have a solid strategy for eliminating fossil fuel subsidies, Gelfand found.

In 2009 Canada promised to eliminate inefficient fossil fuel subsidies but has so far done none of the leg work to identify what exemptions, tax breaks or funds fall into that bucket.

In fact, a 2017 spring report to Parliament from the federal auditor general found “a disconcerting lack of real results when [looking] at what the government had been doing” to meet that commitment, Gelfand noted in her report.

“We found that the Department of Finance Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada — the two departments tasked with delivering on this commitment — had yet to determine which subsidies would require phasing out, according to the commitment,” Gelfand wrote.

“It is unclear how Canada will meet this international commitment by 2025 without a clear roadmap to get there.”

5. What do you mean climate change is here? NOW?

Canada warmed at twice the global average between 1948 and 2007.

And according to a 2016 federal auditor general report, disaster funds released through the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements in the previous six years is greater that all funds released in the previous 39 years.

Gelfand said Canada has been stuck in a “seemingly endless planning mode” and Parliamentarians are ready to move “into an action mode.”

But she adds, “that shift needs to happen, and it needs to happen now, because Canada is already experiencing the impacts of a changing climate.”

On a positive note, Canada does seem to be making progress on clean energy investments. Yaaaaaay?

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If you’ve been watching headlines about the historic signing of the Paris Agreement this past weekend, you may be understandably confused.

Does the world’s first climate treaty represent the beginning of the end for fossil fuels or a mere free-market cop out?

Both arguments hold some truth. That’s because the agreement is more form, less substance. That’s what it was intended to be. The real meat of the deal remains entirely undetermined because it has yet to grow on the bones of the treaty.

What countries like Canada actually do to implement the intended outcome of the Paris Agreement — to keep temperatures from rising two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by eliminating greenhouse gas emissions — will determine whether the torrent of analyses we’re seeing, dire or otherwise, have any merit.

“There’s this Buddhist idiom that says: first Enlightenment, then the laundry,” Glen Murray, Ontario’s Environment Minister, said at the climate summit in Paris. “This has been the Enlightenment and now we all have to go home and do the laundry to make sure this happens.”

Same Finish Line, Different Starting Lines

Ontario received praise in Paris for its complete phase out of coal-fired power plants in 2014 and Murray spent time advising other jurisdictions, including Alberta, how they could do the same.

Yet, Ontario’s bold climate move — more than 25 per cent of the province’s power previously came from coal — and Alberta’s new climate plan highlight just how disparate efforts to limit wildly different amounts and sources of emissions are from province-to-province.

According to Environment Canada, between 1990 and 2013 Canada’s absolute emissions increased by 18 per cent, primarily from the growth of fossil fuel industries in Alberta, Saskatchewan and B.C. Emissions from the oil and gas sector are responsible for nearly one quarter of all national emissions.

During that time, Alberta’s provincial emissions grew by 53 per cent, Saskatchewan’s by 66 per cent, B.C.’s by 21 per cent and Manitoba’s by 14 per cent.

The absolute emissions of Ontario, Quebec, the Atlantic provinces and the territories all fell during this same period.

As the saying went in Paris, we’re all trying to get to the same finish line, but don’t all have the same starting line.

Feds Need to Implement Harmonized GHG Targets

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to meet with the premiers within 90 days of the Paris climate talks to discuss how Canada will move forward in a post-Paris Agreement world.

The federal government has promised both to work with the provinces but also to implement a pan-Canadian framework for addressing the country’s growing emissions profile.

According to Erin Flanagan, policy expert from the Pembina Institute, how the federal government will wrangle the provinces together under a national climate framework is still a complete mystery.

“In large part, the federal government has been highly cooperative and collaborative with provinces in these first few weeks,” Flanagan said, adding she doesn’t think Ottawa will be unfairly prescriptive when it comes to establishing a policy pathway.

“At the same time,” she said, “if Canada makes good on that commitment of a pan-Canadian framework within 90 days of Paris, one of the things they talked about is instituting harmonized targets.”

Tensions Likely to Emerge Between Provinces

Differing opinions on what that harmonized target should be and what each province must do to achieve it could mean troubled water between premiers and the federal government.

Flanagan said Alberta’s much celebrated climate action plan did not include specific emission reduction targets.

Alberta promised to phase out its 18 coal-fired power plants, introduce a carbon tax to match B.C.’s $30/tonne price to put a cap on oilsand’s emissions.

“But they didn’t frame any of that in terms of what Alberta should do to reduce its emission between now and 2030,” Flanagan said. “So there will be an additional conversation now about what Alberta’s contribution to a national target will be.

I think that’s where some of the challenges over the next little while will emerge.”

What steps the federal government might take if a province like Alberta fails to meet its targets will also form a part of that challenging conversation, Flanagan added.

B.C. is often celebrated for its climate leadership after instituting the country’s first carbon tax. Yet at the Paris climate talks, B.C. was on the hook for freezing that carbon tax back in 2012 and now working to build a carbon-heavy liquefied natural gas (LNG) empire.

“I don’t want to pick on the west too much,” Flanagan said, “but B.C. is a good example where you’ve got a world-winning carbon tax…but if you look at modeling coming out of that province they’re not likely to hit their 2020 or 2030 climate targets.”

“So how do you penalize a jurisdiction that has a carbon tax but isn’t doing enough to actually contribute nationally?”

“That’s going to be a tough one,” she said.

“As much as subnational climate action has been exciting — that’s the best climate story coming out of Canada right now — it does pose the risk of fragmentation. None of these conversations have been about what Canada’s emissions look like in a climate safe world. They’ve been about what it means for Ontario or Quebec or B.C. to be a climate leader.”

Living Up to Paris Agreement Means Quick Transition Off Fossil Fuels

Those are important conversations, but they need to be brought into the context of Canada’s contribution on the global stage.

If Canada is to do its fair share to keep global temperatures from increasing beyond 1.5 or even two degrees Celsius, it must reduce its emissions 80 per cent by 2050.

According to Mike Hudema, climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace Canada, that charts a clear course for decarbonization.

“In order to live up to this deal we must, as a country, quickly transition off fossil fuels and usher into the renewable age,” he said. “This means saying no to tarsands pipelines and other carbon infrastructure.”

In Paris, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna avoided commenting on specific projects like the TransCanada Energy East pipeline, proposed to carry 1.1 million barrels of oil a day from Alberta to ports in New Brunswick.

“I don’t like just looking at one particular development,” McKenna said in Paris when asked about the climate impacts of Energy East. “We are looking at how we are going to make progress towards a low-carbon economy.”

Last month, President Barack Obama rejected the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline, saying the project’s climate impacts were intolerable. Now many onlookers from within the climate movement are saying Canada should evaluate energy projects and infrastructure according to a similar “climate test.”

Feds May Have to Step in and Reject Projects

Critically, Canada’s position within a global context must be drawn into the national decision-making process, Flanagan said. This may mean rejecting oilsands projects, natural gas extraction or coal-fired power plants at the federal level.

Canada’s overall climate targets should not be up for negotiation with the provinces, Flanagan added.

“You let climate scientists at Environment Canada determine what that trajectory looks like and you then negotiate with the provinces how you share that burden,” she said.

“Ultimately if they want to achieve these goals they have to be bad cop and good cop — not just good cop.”

Image: Twitter

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For more than two decades, Mark Jaccard has been penning “report cards” about Canada’s environmental track record. The results haven’t been pretty.

Jaccard, a veteran professor in Simon Fraser University’s School of Resource and Environmental Management, notes his annual evaluations were harnessed in the mid-2000s by Stephen Harper (then serving as federal opposition leader) as arguments for why the Conservatives deserved a shot at governing the country.

Those report cards were used as “a way of saying ‘look how incompetent the Liberals are, they haven’t done anything on climate, we’re not going to achieve Kyoto but let us get into power and we will set a new target in 2020 and implement regulations immediately to achieve that target,’” Jaccard recalls.

The Conservatives eventually formed a minority government in 2006 and became the majority government after the 2011 election.

Jaccard’s latest report card, released on October 6, concludes the Conservative Party has since “implemented virtually no policies that would materially reduce emissions” despite making significant emissions pledges for 2020 and 2050.

The five-page report notes the Conservative government has scored a “failing grade” for neglecting to introduce easily realizable policies in the sectors of transportation, electricity generation, construction and industry. Jaccard concludes the absence of such actions shows “they must have had no intention” of dealing with climate change.

“I know there are a lot of people in the Conservative Party — because they talk to me — who are disgusted that the current leader is so against implementing policies that would have no political cost to him but would reduce emissions,” he says. “I don’t know what [Harper’s] issue is, I don’t try to guess what’s in his mind, but he could do so much more.”

Harper’s Climate Policies Insignificant

Of course, the Conservative government has consistently told a different tale, pointing to regulations on coal-fired power plants built after 2030 and vehicle energy efficiency rules as instances of action on the climate change front.

However, Jaccard notes there are no new coal plants planned in the near future and that vehicle efficiency standards introduced under Prime Minister Harper don’t have nearly the same impact as regulations introduced in jurisdictions like California.

In short: the policies that Harper has introduced technically exist but are by no means enough to get Canada as close as it needs to be to emissions targets.

“Any academic will give you the same answer I did,” Jaccard says. “It’s got nothing to do with partisanship.”

In the report, Jaccard outlines three primary reasons why politicians like Harper don’t act on environmental policy: the absence of compulsory policies such as carbon taxes or sector-by-sector regulations, the global nature of climate change (requiring far larger jurisdictions such as China to cut emissions before seeing obvious impacts) and the absence of an independent monitoring service that provides feedback about progress.

It’s the latter factor that Jaccard has attempted to change with the annual “report card.”

Canada’s 2020 Climate Target Now Unachievable

Jaccard also notes his conclusions aren’t born from a particular animosity towards conservative parties, pointing out that Gordon Campbell, long-time premier of British Columbia, introduced very effective climate change policies such as the Clean Energy Act while sharing similar ideological stances as Harper.

Canada’s 2020 target is now unachievable due to the country’s laggard approach, Jaccard writes.

The 2050 target, requiring a 65 per cent cut in emissions, would require “an almost complete transformation” of the economic system. As a result, every day counts.

If the country opted for an economy-wide carbon tax — a move favoured by many economists — Jaccard estimates it would need to be introduced at $50/tonne, increasing to $150/tonne by 2020 (for reference, B.C. taxes carbon at $30/tonne).

But for Jaccard, the technicalities of a future transition — whether it’s a carbon tax, cap-and-trade or sector-by-sector regulation — doesn’t matter so much as some sort of move being made. The longer the country waits, he warns, the more economically catastrophic such moves will be given the potential stranding of fossil fuel assets and compounding of climate change-related costs.

“If the Conservative Party had overthrown [Harper] in the last year, I would be saying ‘let’s see what they do,’” Jaccard concludes.

“But because they have not and given the idea of him continuing as prime minister, any of the other parties would be better.”

Image: Mark Jaccard via Running on Climate

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