Canada talks the talk, but fails to walk the walk on climate change, according to a cross-country audit of climate change planning, emissions reductions and the likelihood of Canada meeting any of its targets.

The audit, conducted by federal environment commissioner Julie Gelfand and auditors general of nine provinces and three northern territories, paints a picture of a patchwork of incomplete plans, lack of clear targets and few roadmaps to show how the country can reach its goals.

The mish-mash of plans showed that no Canadian government has met all its climate change commitments, most of those who have got around to setting greenhouse gas reduction targets will not meet them and no government is fully prepared to adapt to climate change, despite increasing evidence of its ravages, from increased floods and more intense wildfires to rising ocean levels and melting permafrost.

“Most Canadian governments have not assessed and, therefore, do not fully understand what risks they face and what actions they should take to adapt to a changing climate,” says the report.

Gelfand, in a webinar held with B.C. Auditor General Carol Bellringer, Nova Scotia Auditor General Michael Pickup and Glenn Wheeler, audit principal in the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, said more than half the governments did not have overall targets for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and, of the six that had targets, including B.C, only New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are on track to achieve them.

“Governments do not seem to be aiming in the same direction,” she said.

“The majority of provinces and territories have developed high-level strategies to reduce emissions, but they lacked details, timelines, implementation plans and cost estimates. In addition many governments did not know whether their planned actions would be enough to meet their emission reduction targets or they already knew their planned actions would fall short,” she said.

An example is B.C.’s 2016 Climate Leadership Plan, Gelfand said.

“The plan did not build a clear and measurable pathway to meeting the targets and was missing a clear schedule or detailed information about implementing the mitigation plan,” she said.

Adding to the problem, Gelfand found that only five out of 19 federal departments had done complete risk assessments and Environment Canada, which tells other ministries what to do, had not done its own risk assessment.

“Most Canadian governments have not assessed and, therefore, do not fully understand what risks they face and what actions they should take to adapt to a changing climate.” https://t.co/IuN1NzlLgj

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) March 28, 2018

Canada is not expected to meet its 2020 target for reducing emissions and “meeting Canada’s 2030 target will require substantial effort and actions beyond those currently planned or in place,” says the report.

Climate Action Tracker, an independent, science-based assessment that tracks international emission commitments and actions, marks Canada as “Highly Insufficient.” Only Morocco and Gambia are likely to meet their Paris Agreement commitments.

Canada has missed every single target set at a national level since the 1990s and our greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise,Gelfand said.

It is now vital to see action plans designed to meet the Pan-Canadian Framework and to start the emission curve bending downwards, she said.

Although all provinces and territories committed in 2016 to contribute to Canada’s 2030 target only three — New Brunswick, the Northwest Territories and Ontario — set 2030 targets and the federal government does not yet know how it will measure each province’s contribution to meeting its target.

Gelfand also took issue with how governments are reporting to their citizens.

“Without regular monitoring and reporting on progress, the governments cannot assess if actions are working as intended and Canadians cannot hold governments to account for their commitments,” said Gelfand, who wants Canadians to hold their provincial and federal representatives feet to the fire and ask what action they are taking.

“Questions like: What will governments do to demonstrate that they will be able to reach their greenhouse gas emission reduction targets? How will these actions be funded? Or, as governments dedicate resources to adaptation actions, how will they ensure that the most pressing risks are being prioritized?” she said.

Bellringer said B.C. has legislated requirements to submit reports on reducing emissions.

“But we did find that the 2016 report had less detail than reports issued in 2012 and 2014 and the public reporting on adaptation has been limited,” she said.

The Canada-wide report echoes much of what Bellringer found in her February report, which concluded that B.C. is not managing risks posed by climate change and that there is little hope that the province will meet  2050 emissions reduction target.

The province is aiming to reduce emissions to 80 per cent below 2007 levels by 2050.

Bellringer said she was surprised about the lack of attention paid to adaptation.

“There are a lot of ministries involved with it, but the central ministry in the Climate Action Secretariat, for example, only had three employees working on adaptation and 36 working on mitigation. There were some good things happening across the province, but we would have expected something more central in terms of control and leadership,” she said.

More coordination is needed, not only within government, but also with local governments and First Nations, Bellringer said.

It is also important that, as circumstances change, climate action plans are adjusted accordingly, she said.

“As policy decisions are made there should be the context of understanding what it means to the plan and whether there needs to be a major adjustment. In B.C. there’s lots of conversation about LNG and the impact on the plan is an important component.”

B.C. Green Party leader Andrew Weaver said it is encouraging that Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are on target for 2020, but deeply disappointing that the rest of the country is so far off track.

Canada must recognize that the effects of climate change are not in some distant future and that there is a responsibility to younger generations not to leave them worse off, Weaver said.

Global trends are clear, with even fossil fuel companies investing heavily in innovation and clean technologies, and there are opportunities to be seized from the transition to the low-carbon economy, but they will not flow to those who double down on the sunset industries of yesterday, said Weaver, a climate scientist.

“It is simply doublespeak to suggest that, in order to meet our targets, we need to expand fossil fuel infrastructure like the Trans Mountain pipeline and the B.C. NDP’s recent attempt to lure a massive LNG facility to our province through a $6-billion tax giveaway,” he said.

“That is absolutely not climate leadership. We are holding the B.C. NDP government to account on its promise to implement a plan to meet our emissions targets. This is the right thing to do for our province, for our economy and for our international commitments.”

Paying for climate change mitigation and adaptation is one theme running through the provincial and collaborative reports and there are increasing suggestions that industry should foot some of the bill.

Andrew Gage, staff lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law, said B.C. should introduce a bill similar to one introduced in Ontario this week, that holds fossil fuel companies liable for climate impacts and allows people to sue companies for climate damages.

“Chevron, Shell and other fossil fuel companies can no longer assume that they can profit from products that cause climate change while leaving taxpayers and ordinary Canadians t pay for its impacts,” Gage said.

Ensuring that fossil fuel polluters pay will give an incentive for them to work towards a sustainable future, he said.

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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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Canada is “flying under the radar” at this year’s UNFCCC COP20 climate talks in Lima, Peru according to Canada Youth Delegation member Brenna Owen.

Canada’s negotiators are working hard to sidestep the issue of the country’s growing greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector according to Owen, while simultaneously keeping quiet about the oilsands as nations come up with their “intended nationally determined contributions” (INDCs) in the global climate agreement.

“They’re not going to be able to do that much longer,” she added. “And they’re not going to be able to avoid talking about the tar sands.”

Aleah Loney, another member of the 10-person youth delegation, said the group is eager to push Canada’s ministers and negotiators to address the issue of oil and gas emissions rather than employing evasive tactics to avoid the concerns outright.

On Tuesday, as ministers and delegates from around the world continued to arrive at the climate talks to negotiate an internationally binding climate agreement, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the House of Commons he would not regulate emissions from Canada’s oil and gas sector.

“Under the current circumstances of the oil and gas sector, it would be crazy – it would be crazy economic policy – to do unilateral penalties on that sector,” he said. “We’re clearly not going to do that.”

The oilsands are Canada’s fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. In October, Canada’s environment commissioner Julie Gelfand said the country has “no overall vision” when it comes to oil and gas regulations and as a result will not meet its 2020 international greenhouse gas reductions targets agreed to in Copenhagen.

In the House of Commons Harper also claimed “nobody in the world is regulating their oil and gas sector.”

“I’d be delighted if they did, Canada will be there with them. But we are not going to impose unilateral penalties.”

Harper’s comments add another layer of insight into the activities of Canadian negotiators in Lima who are actively skirting the issue of national responsibility by pointing fingers at other nations.

Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq told delegates at the climate talks Canada is interested in an agreement “that would see all major emitters commit to do their fair share.”

Dale Marshall, national program manager with Environmental Defence, told DeSmog that Canada “for the longest time has been trying to…talk about all major emitters to put everyone in the same boat.”

“On the one hand you could argue there are major developing countries that could do more, but from what I see in terms of historical responsibility countries like Canada have much, much greater responsibility to act and much greater resources to act and should take on greater commitments.”

“When you point at countries like China and India,” Marshall said, “you’re essentially deflecting blame and making it easy for Canada to stay with very weak targets.”

Christian Holz, international policy director with the Climate Action Network, said Canada has “maneuvered itself into a corner of insignificance,” at UNFCCC talks.

He said instead of talking about oil and gas regulations and growth in the oilsands, Canada is redirecting attention to a new commitment to reduce hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are used in air conditioning and heating.

“They decided to focus on one of the smallest areas of Canada’s emissions profile. HFCs account for about one per cent of Canadian emissions and the oil and gas sector is about 25 per cent right now. So of course, we’re not picking the right areas to focus on.”

Holz said this kind of diversion tactic isn’t even generating controversy within the negotiations or at home because “nobody’s really taking Canada seriously anymore.”

“I guess that’s why you don’t see the outrage that you would expect from bait and switches like that if Canada was considered a genuine participant in this global effort to address climate change.”

Loney from the Canada Youth Delegation said her group is putting effort into keeping the oil and gas sector relevant to Canada’s participation in the climate negotiations.

“We really want to talk about the oil and gas sector as a whole and that includes fracking. But we feel it’s important to highlight the tar sands as well,” she said. “We’re talking at a very high level at the UNFCCC and people know what the tar sands are here.”

Kelsey Mech from the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition and a member of the youth delegation in Lima said it’s important for their group to keep the pressure squarely on Canada.

“We’re linking the two worlds,” between Lima and Canada, Mech said, “trying to bring back to Canada what’s going on here.”

“One of the reason why it’s important for folks like us to be here is to put that pressure on internationally on our own government. They’re not going to bring something strong to the table internationally if there isn’t that pressure back home domestically.”

“We’re here to put tar sands back on the table.”

Loney added that this process benefits from being complicated. “They take climate negotiations to such a high-brow that it cuts people off.”

“It’s been important for me to bring these issues back down,” she added.

On Tuesday, Loney brought the question of the oilsands to the negotiations, asking Canadian representatives, “what can I bring back to my friends in Alberta? What can I take back to my friends in Fort McMurray and my friends in treaty territory that are dealing with the effects of living downstream of the tar sands?”

“These are real things that impact real people.”

Image Credit: Environment Canada via Twitter

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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.

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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

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