While emissions have started to fall in recent years, they were just 8 per cent below 2005 levels as of 2023, according to estimates by the Canadian Climate Institute.JASON FRANSON/The Canadian Press
Ottawa is opting for a moderate increase to Canada’s climate ambition, as it meets a legislated requirement to set new national targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault announced on Thursday that the federal government is committing to cut emissions between 45 per cent and 50 per cent from 2005 levels by 2035.
Achieving that 2035 goal, which the government was required to set by the end of this year under its own climate-accountability legislation, depends upon major acceleration of the country’s emissions-reduction trajectory, even as Ottawa struggles to balance its climate goals with other domestic economic and political realities.
While emissions have started to fall in recent years, partly because of federal carbon pricing and other policies, they were just 8 per cent below 2005 levels as of 2023, according to estimates by the Canadian Climate Institute.
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However, the new 2035 pledge only goes relatively narrowly beyond Ottawa’s existing commitment to cut emissions between 40 per cent and 45 per cent by 2030.
It is also somewhat less ambitious than what was recommended by the government-appointed Net Zero Advisory Body, whose input Mr. Guilbeault requested. In a report this fall, it called for the 2035 target to be set between 50 per cent and 55 per cent.
In an interview, Mr. Guilbeault suggested that while the 2030 target was more of a stretch goal, under international pressure to be ambitious back when it was set in 2021, the government erred more on the side of caution this time.
“Although we have analysis that shows how we can get to the high forties or fifty [in percentage reductions from 2005], we also want to account for what might happen in the coming years and have some flexibility in case some of the things we would want to put forward become more difficult,” he said.
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Those variables, he said, include international trends – especially climate policy likely less of a priority under incoming U.S. president-elect Donald Trump – as well as uncertainty about the willingness of provinces to do their part. (Washington currently has a more ambitious target than Ottawa, promising to cut emissions at least 50 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030, but that may soon change along with the policies aimed at reaching it.)
Left unsaid was that Ottawa also faces major headwinds in fully implementing the federal policies needed to reach both the 2030 and 2035 targets.
Analysis by the Climate Institute, which is publicly funded but operates independently as an accountability body and think tank, has shown that a 40-per-cent reduction by 2030 is within reach, if Ottawa fully implements promised policies that are not yet in place, and strengthens pivotal existing ones such as the carbon-pricing system for heavy industrial emitters.
But some of the measures that the government is hurrying to implement before an election expected next year – in particular its proposed Clean Electricity Regulations and a cap on emissions by the oil-and-gas sector – are among the most controversial aspects of its strategy, and provinces are pushing back hard against them.
Meanwhile, the opposition Conservatives, who hold a double-digit lead in opinion polls heading into the coming federal campaign, are promising to scrap many of the existing climate policies.
The Conservatives responded to Thursday’s announcement with a statement from their environment critic, Gérard Deltell, dismissing the 2035 goal as meaningless because of failures to date to meet emissions-reduction goals, while reiterating their opposition to “wacko policies” such as carbon pricing. They did not indicate whether they would maintain the target if they form government.
At the same time, several environmental groups expressed disappointment that the government was not bolder.
“This weak target is deeply disconnected from Canada’s fair share of the global climate effort, and from the level of ambition we are seeing in other countries,” said Climate Action Network Canada executive director Caroline Brouillette.
Net Zero Advisory Body co-chair Simon Donner, a prominent University of British Columbia climate scientist, struck a more measured tone by expressing hope that the government will aim for the upper end of its new target range.
The advisory body’s analysis, Prof. Donner said, found that cuts of less than 50 per cent by 2035 would put Canada too far behind in its ultimate goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. He also said that would “represent insufficient ambition in comparison to the rest of the G7 and other major international partners,” noting commitments such as Britain promising an 81-per-cent emissions reduction from 1990 levels by 2035, and Japan pledging a 60-per-cent cut from 2013 levels by the same date.
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One way that Canada could surpass its minimum 45-per-cent commitment, if emissions-reduction measures fall short, is through so-called carbon management, which potentially includes carbon-removal technology as well as purchasing offsets through carbon markets.
Mr. Guilbeault raised that possibility in the interview, noting that the government is acting on the Net Zero Advisory Body’s advice to develop a carbon-management strategy.
Thursday’s announcement did not endorse another recommendation by the advisory body, which could help inform decisions such as carbon-credit purchases: that the country begin adopting carbon budgets, which would set limits for cumulative emissions over multiyear periods.
That mechanism could also help avoid statistical noise from benchmark years, while providing a more complete picture of the extent to which Canada is exceeding the emissions needed to achieve global goals such as limiting planetary warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius.
Mr. Guilbeault left the door open to pursuing carbon budgets subsequently, saying the government simply had too much else on its plate to fully consider it this fall.