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?

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Canada will almost certainly not meet its international greenhouse gas emission reduction target by 2020 and doesn’t even have a plan showing how the nation might achieve its climate change goals, according to a blistering new report released Tuesday.

Julie Gelfand, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, said a climate change audit found current federal measures will have little effect on emissions by 2020, the year Canada committed under the Copenhagen Accord to reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions 17 per cent below 2005 levels.

Gelfand said in her report that the government has introduced regulations in the transportation and electricity generation sectors.

She noted, however, that regulations in the oil and gas sector — where emissions are growing the fastest — are still not in place eight years after the government first indicated it would regulate this area.

“There is strong evidence that Canada will not meet its international 2020 greenhouse-gas-emission reduction target,” she said. “The federal government does not have an overall plan that maps out how Canada will achieve this target. Canadians have not been given the details about which regulations will be developed, when, nor what greenhouse gas reductions will be expected.”

"Canadians are being grossly misled if they think that this government has even the remotest intention of ever trying to achieve any greenhouse gas targets, let alone join the realm of civilized nations," Liberal environment critic John McKay said in response to the audit.

As DeSmog Canada has previously reported, Canada’s total lack of national climate legislation became international news after a major report highlighted its absence.

Gelfand added the federal government has also not provided the necessary coordination so that all levels of government, working together, can achieve the national target in six years’ time.

The report plays into the growing impression that Canada, often seen as a pariah internationally for its lack of climate change leadership, is too-heavily invested in the fossil fuel industry, especially in Alberta.

The Harper Government, which currently came under fire after Prime Minister Stephen Harper declined to attend the UN Climate Summit in New York City, recently released a public document to highlight Canada’s climate achievements. Critics called the document “Orwellian” for suggesting Canada had made climate progress.

Another audit found that joint Canada-Alberta monitoring projects looking at air, water and biodiversity need to be better integrated to understand the long-term environmental effects of oilsands development, including cumulative impacts.

“Among other questions, the government does not know what Environment Canada’s role will be in oil sands monitoring beyond March 2015,” Gelfand said.

“It has not made clear the rationale for what projects will be subject to environmental assessments, and I am concerned that some significant projects may not be assessed.”

Gelfand’s comments are in line with concerns raised by First Nations in the oilsands’ region, many of which are currently embroiled in legal battles against government and industry for permitting new projects without addressing cumulative impacts that negatively affect treaty rights.

A third audit of the Canadian Arctic revealed that many higher-risk areas are inadequately surveyed and charted with some maps and charts over 40 years old.

“I am concerned that there seems to be no overall vision of what the federal government intends to provide in this vast new frontier, in terms of modern charts, aids to navigation and icebreaker services, given the anticipated increase in vessel traffic.”

Gelfand added this year’s audits show that, despite some initiatives and progress in certain areas, there remain many unanswered questions.

“In many key areas that we looked at, it is not clear how the government intends to address the significant environmental challenges that future growth and development will likely bring about.”

In conclusion, she said Canadians expect the government to prepare for the future and that the difficulty of addressing climate change will only increase as the nation delays.

The environmental footprint of oilsands development is steadily increasing, Gelfand concluded, adding that increased Arctic shipping routes due to melting sea ice will create higher environmental risks.

NDP environment critic Megan Leslie said the results of the audit are “disappointing,” especially given the resource push in the north.

"We have delicate ecosystems in the Arctic. Further to that, there is a really small window right now of when we could actually do that cleanup. We've seen a lot of discussion about drilling in the Arctic and that's one of the major concerns is that if something were to happen, the ice comes pretty quickly,” she said.

“Is there enough time to even clean up the damage that could be done?"

Gelfand also noted an absence of preparatory knowledge. “In each case it is likely that a lack of action today will translate into higher costs tomorrow,” she stated.

Image Credit: Prime Minister Photo Gallery.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Julie Gelfand, Canada’s new environment commissioner, has ties to both environmental advocacy and industry.

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Gelfand was a staunch advocate for environmental legislation. As executive director of the Canadian Nature Association and a founding member of Mining Watch Canada, she spoke out on issues of biodiversity, the future of national parks and endangered species legislation. While chairing of the Green Budget Coalition in 2006, Gelfand was unequivocal in her calls for ending tax subsidies to the oil and gas sector, nuclear power and mining exploration.

Then in November 2008, Gelfand was appointed as vice president of sustainable development for the Mining Association of Canada, a group that advocates for the mining sector. Its members are companies that engage in mineral exploration, mining smelting, refining and semi-fabrication.

"I am pleased to report that over 75 percent of companies and facilities have crisis management plans developed and reviewed under TSM" she noted in the 2010 Toward Sustainability Mining Progress Report. "Between 60 and 70 percent of Canadian facilities have now reached or exceeded good performance in dealing with their communities of interest."

She was then appointed as vice president of social responsibility and environment for Rio Tinto Alcan where, according to a video on the website, her job was to find “that spot where those three areas, the social, the economic and the environmental meet, that’s when you can say that we’re working toward sustainable development.”

In an interview with Postmedia, Gelfand said she sees her experience with industry as a boon to the position. “I really hope to add value to the auditor general’s office in whatever way I can because I’m not an auditor, per se, and I think I can bring in new perspectives, and as much balance as possible.”

Whatever her experience, the new commissioner will have a difficult road ahead, according to former commissioner Scott Vaughan.

Vaughan left the position in April 2013 after five years of calling out the federal government on its inability to meet environmental targets.

Though he never expressed frustration or anger, Green Party leader Elizabeth May said Vaughan experienced an extraordinary level of criticism while appearing before parliamentary committees. “I apologized to him once,” May told Postmedia. “I just thought it was so awful that I apologized on behalf of MPs.”

In November, interim minister Neil Maxwell continued offering a scathing report on biodiversity.

Under the auspices of the Office of the Auditor General, the job of the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development is to provide “parliamentarians with objective, independent analysis and recommendations on the federal government’s efforts to protect the environment and foster sustainable development.”

The office collects data from a variety of governmental and non-governmental organizations and then compares that information to other countries to gauge the effectiveness of federal environmental policy.

Given the complexity of the data involved, simply creating metrics for success is often a challenge. During his tenure, Vaughan made a point of paying attention to environmental NGOs, which he saw as having a much quieter voice than industry within federal politics. 

Vaughan, who has always asserted complete political neutrality, believes the environment commissioner has become an even more crucial position of reason since the government’s recent attitude toward NGOs.

“It’s a really important role, particularly now given how this government has basically walked away from many longstanding relationships with environmental groups,” he says. “Not only walked away, but there’s been an openly hostile approach to many of them. It’s been quite unfortunate and it’s also been noticed around the world.”

“If the government has done a great job, then great job, but if the government is dropping the ball, for example on the 2020 climate targets — there’s no way they’re going to meet them — there’s somebody who has the objectivity and the perspective and access to all that information to be able to make those calls.”

Image Credit: Leila Mead via the International Institute for Sustainable Development

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

By David Suzuki with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Communications Manager Ian Hanington. This post originally appeared in the Science Matters blog on the DSF website.

When the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform exploded in 2010, killing 11 people and spewing massive amounts of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, it cost more than $40 billion to mop up the mess. In Canada, an oil company would only be liable for only $30 million, leaving taxpayers on the hook for the rest.

That’s just one of a litany of flaws Canada’s environment commissioner identified with the government’s approach to environmental protection. According to environment and sustainable development commissioner Scott Vaughan, who released a final series of audits before stepping down, the federal government’s failure to protect the environment is putting Canadians’ health and economy at risk.

Vaughan says the government has no real plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and is not even on track to meet its own modest targets (already watered down from the widely accepted emission-levels baseline of 1990 to 2005). It is unprepared for tanker accidents and oil spills in coastal waters. It lacks regulations governing toxic chemicals used by the oil industry.

He noted the federal government does not even require the oil and gas industry to disclose chemicals it uses in fracking, which means there is no way to assess the risks. And despite the fact that Canada has committed to protecting 20 per cent of its oceans by 2020, we have less than one per cent protected now and are not likely to meet our goal within this century.

“We know that there is a boom in natural resources in this country and I think what we need now – given the gaps, given the problems we found – is a boom in environmental protection in this country as well,” Mr. Vaughan told the Globe and Mail. He added that not dealing with the risks will cause economic losses as well as damage to human health and the environment because it will cost more to clean up problems than prevent them.

Remember, this is not coming from a tree-hugging environmentalist but from the government’s own independent office of the auditor general. It should concern all Canadians. We have a beautiful country, blessed with a spectacular natural environment and a progressive, caring society. But we can’t take it for granted. Beijing was probably a nicer city when you could breathe the air without risking your life.

Often, the justification for failing to care for the environment is that it’s not economically feasible. It’s not a rational argument – after all, we can’t survive and be healthy ourselves if we degrade or destroy the air, water, soil and biodiversity that make it possible for us to live well. But Vaughan shows the folly of this way of thinking on a more basic level. Beyond the high costs of cleaning up after environmental contamination or disasters, he notes the government doesn’t even have a handle on some of the financial implications of its policies.

“The government does not know the actual cost of its support to the fossil fuel sector,” he reports, adding that it has no idea how much its sector-by-sector approach to greenhouse gas emissions will cost either, even though that was a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, which the government bailed on, arguing it was too expensive.

The government has also steadfastly refused to consider putting a price on carbon, through a carbon tax and/or cap-and-trade, even though economists point to the ever-growing mountain of evidence that those are effective ways to reduce carbon emissions.

With an expected doubling of fracking wells, from 200,000 to 400,000, and tripling of tanker traffic off the West Coast, we can’t afford such a lax approach. Our prime minister has responded mostly with slogans and platitudes, but others in government say the issues will be addressed. For the sake of our country’s future, we must demand that they keep that promise and recognize the crucial role the environment commissioner has in analyzing Canada’s environmental practices and recommending improvements for environmental performance.

Given our government’s current record of ignoring scientific evidence and gutting environmental laws and programs, it will have to do a lot more to convince Canadians that it doesn’t see environmentalists and environmental regulation simply as impediments to fossil fuel development.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.