Part 3 in a series on Canada’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan

Canada has a greenhouse gas emissions reduction plan. The purpose of the plan is to reduce emissions by 40% to 45% by 2030 compared to the levels in 2005.

It’s a critical goal for our country to achieve. How do we know if we are on track or not?

They say that “what gets measured gets done”, so before we get into the details of how Canada’s plan works, let’s take a closer look at what we know about the greenhouse gas emissions we are trying to cut.

Where do the numbers come from?

With the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, countries worldwide committed to produce and submit National Inventory Reports (NIRs) of their greenhouse gas emissions. Like other signatories to the UNFCCC, Canada must submit an annual NIR, covering the period from 1990 to the current year.

The term “current year” is a bit of a misnomer because the reports are always two years behind. For example, the NIR Canada submitted in April 2024, contained the latest best estimates of Canada’s emissions for 2022, plus any adjustments to previously reported years going back to 1990.

It’s disappointing that there is such a lag in the data for the key measures of one of our nation’s most important efforts. Other countries, such as Finland, the Netherlands, and Sweden, report emission data with a 3-month to 1-year time lag. Canada is able to produce other important data, like economic indicators, on a timely basis – we should be capable of doing the same with climate change data.

What do the numbers say?

In April 2024 NIR, Canada reported that its 2022 total emissions were 708 million tonnes. On a more recent basis, the Canadian Climate Institute, an independent climate think tank, estimates that the 2023 results will be a bit lower at 702 million tonnes.

The question we need to ask ourselves is: Is that any good?

The short answer is no – it’s terrible. Let’s walk through why.

The “Total” is not even really the total.

You should know that when you hear about Canada’s “total” emissions, that only represents part of Canada’s impact on global warming.

First off, in national reporting, total emissions exclude emissions from Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry (LULUCF).  Logically, LULUCF emissions are part of the total that contributes to global warming, but they are reported separately from “total” emissions and are also excluded from target setting.

There are some good reasons for that.  LULUCF emissions are tough to count because it is difficult to estimate how much carbon a forest holds and how much is released when parts are cut down. It’s so variable that depending on the counting method used, the results will vary drastically and there is no globally agreed accounting standard.

Separating these LULUCF emissions from the “total” provides clearer insights into the impact of fossil fuel consumption and industrial activities, which are more stable and easier to compare over time. This ensures transparency in policy discussions, avoiding the risk that land-use changes could mask or exaggerate progress in reducing emissions from energy and industry.

In 2022, Canada reported 51 million tonnes of LULUCF emissions. These would increase our total by about 7% if reported together.

On top of that, other types of emission are also excluded from the “total”.

• Emissions from wildfires are excluded because they are considered “natural” emissions, not caused by human activity.
• Exported emissions, such as from the oil and gas Canada sells to other countries, are excluded from our national total. These are instead reported by the importing nation.
• Emissions from international transport – planes and ships when in international airspace – also don’t count against our totals even if arriving or departing from Canada. These international transport emissions fall into a global grey zone where no nation has responsibility.

All these factors, if included, would increase Canada’s responsibility for emissions by orders of magnitude. But make no mistake – all emissions have to come to net zero by 2050 to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

It means that at minimum, Canada should be urgently cutting the emissions it does count.

But that hasn’t been happening so far.

Reductions to date have immaterial

Sorry to be blunt, but we have been trying to reduce emissions since the early 1990’s. That’s almost two generations of trying. During this time, Canada’s emissions have not gone down. Instead, they have gone up by 15%.

At the federal level, we are now on our 10th emissions reduction plan. Despite all the work and billions of dollars of spending, the reality is that for Canada, the only “programs” that had a discernable impact on emissions were the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

That’s not to say the current plan won’t work. There are a lot of reasons to believe that our efforts today are more serious and substantial than they’ve ever been.

But it should cause us all to pay close attention to these programs and the expected results because we are running out of time to hit the targets we need to hit. Having squandered nearly 35 years, we now have only five years to cut 40%-45% and another 20 years to cut the rest.

It can be done, but it will be more difficult because of past failures.

As we scrutinize today’s plan, we should be concerned because it is inadequate – we are not expecting to hit the targets we promised to achieve.

Our current plan does not get us there

According to the most current forecast of emissions, Canada expects its 2030 emissions to be 10% to 20% higher than the level we committed to achieving.

To assess the effectiveness of the plan, Canada relies on plan projections – estimates of how much the programs being rolled out will cut emissions in the future.

Such forecasts are updated and released every year. We have to rely on forecasts because most of the projects that make up Canada’s 2030 Emission Reduction Plan will take several years to make material impacts on emissions.

For example – Canada just rolled out new clean electricity regulations that limit the amount of greenhouse gasses utilities can emit in producing electricity. But the emission limits don’t take effect for another 10 years. That’s to allow utilities time to transition to cleaner energy sources and implement technological advancements to meet the new standards.

Emission reduction plans often have such long lead times because the government needs to give people, businesses, and industries time to adapt to new rules. Otherwise, there would be chaos in our economy.

Forecasting is complicated, but a key thing to understand is that forecasts usually include plans and programs that are fully implemented, as well as programs that have been announced but are in various stages of development.

That means there’s a lot of risk in these forecasts – risks that announced programs may be delayed or cancelled, risks that they don’t perform as expected, and even the risk that fully implemented programs get cancelled.

Considering these factors, we should think of these plan projections as optimistic scenarios. It should upset us that even with an optimistic view, where all announced programs roll out on time and perform as expected, the current plan does not get us to our target.

In framing their assessments, government officials emphasize that we are doing so much better than if we had done nothing (the “no action” scenario) and that we are forecasted to be on track with the 2026 interim goal of a 20% reduction. Some might even rationalize that achieving 80% to 90% of the target is a good outcome.

But this is not a grade like in school – 80% is nothing to be proud of. The plan’s purpose is to achieve 100% of our commitments (optimally more), and this one is falling short at the design phase, let alone if there are delays or other setbacks in execution.

We need a better plan that gets us to our targets – at a minimum on paper – because right now we are planning to fail. Missing the 2030 target only makes getting to net zero even harder.

The numbers change – and rarely for the better

The other problem we have is that projected emissions are based on historical emissions – which are regularly being updated and revised.

You might have noticed that in the chart above, Canada’s emissions forecasts for the years that have already occurred don’t correspond to the actual results reported. You would be right to wonder how a forecast that isn’t consistent with the past can be relied on to predict the future.

The forecast numbers don’t correspond to real results because the projection was published in December 2023, but when Canada published its latest actual emissions data in April 2024, all the historical numbers were revised upwards.¹

It’s common for prior year reports to be updated. Over time, our methods for tracking greenhouse gases get better and our understanding of how these gases impact warming also improves. The bad news is that the improvements almost always result in upward revisions of previously reported results – all the way back to 1990.

The revisions made in this year’s report were particularly bad.

One big driver was that new research has advanced our understanding of methane’s impacts on warming. That resulted in an upward revision to the weighting methane emissions carry in calculating CO2 equivalent emissions.² It’s a change that affects all countries’ reports this year.

This year, there were also improvements in how Canada measures its managed forests and how they are used in the lumber industry. These changes resulted in Canada concluding that its LULUCF sector added 2,326 megatonnes³ more CO2 equivalent emissions since 1990 than previously thought. That’s about three to four years’ worth of Canada’s annual emissions.

Until this year, we thought Canada’s LULUCF sector was an emissions “sink”, removing CO2 emissions from our total. We now recognize the sector as a net “source” of emissions.

The changes in the LULUCF sector, combined with all other historical changes mean that we now think that Canada emitted 3.2 gigatonnes more emissions since 1990 than previously thought.

That’s a lot – about four or five years worth of our annual emissions at current levels.

With better information, our ambition slips

More accurate data is a good thing – but these upward revisions mean that Canada’s consumption of the remaining global carbon budget is even worse than we thought. That should cause us to be even more aggressive with our reduction plans.

Sadly, Canada does the opposite. Despite our worsening results, when our historical numbers increase, Canada also increases its emissions targets so they are easier to achieve.

That’s because our targets are expressed as a percentage of the 2005 base year. With better data increasing our 2005 emissions report, our 2030 targets also increase because we committed to a percentage reduction of that larger base year number. As we get better information, our ambition slips.

To keep our ambitions from sliding, it would be better for Canada to set absolute targets or “carbon budgets”. A carbon budget specifies the total allowable greenhouse gas emissions over a set period. These budgets can be distributed among regions or industries, ensuring everyone knows what’s expected to stay on track. Countries like the UK use legislated 5-year carbon budgets to support their goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. 

Canada could boost its effectiveness and avoid lapses in ambition by adopting a similar approach.

Lagging our peers

The more I understand the data, the more disappointed I am in Canada’s emissions-cutting record.  But, is this too harsh a view?  Aren’t all nations struggling to cut emissions?

The embarrassing answer is that among the countries we consider our peers – everyone is doing better than Canada.

Canada’s peers are the G7 groups of countries: France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US, plus the EU as a whole. All these countries have a similar set of government structures, social values and economic resources. Canada’s ability to cut emissions should be comparable to these nations.

Unfortunately, we stick out as the consistent laggard in this group.

If we look at emissions since 1990 when all these countries signed onto the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Canada is the only country in the group that has increased emissions.

Compared to 2005, the base year Canada uses for its commitments under the Paris Agreement, we are again last, with an 8% reduction.

Other countries such as the UK, France and Germany have cut their emissions by between 25% and almost 50% over the same period.

Even the US – despite all the issues and setbacks we hear about our neighbour to the south – has doubled our rate of emission reductions since 2005.

The examples of our peers show that it is possible to achieve far more significant cuts to emissions than we are realizing. We should expect and demand more in our country.

A deeper dive into Canada’s emissions record shows us that we are way behind our goal. We need to get on track and cut emissions more quickly than we ever have. There can’t be any more setbacks.

As of 2022, we are following a new plan. What are the key elements of that plan and should we have confidence in it?

That’s what we will look at in a series of upcoming articles.

1. Canada is expected to release revised emissions forecasts in December 2024 ↩︎
2. CO2 equivalent emissions is a measure of the combined effect of all major greenhouse gases by weighting the warming effect of different gases (like methane and nitrous oxide) in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that would produce the same effect over a specific time period, typically 100 years. ↩︎
3. Sorry to be interchanging terms : megatonne = 1 million tonnes, gigatonne = 1 billion tonnes ↩︎