October 30 – Correcting common misconceptions…

…about Canada’s place in the world of greenhouse gas emissions

Not long ago, I attended a conference where a member of the audience asked a speaker (I’m paraphrasing), “When will other countries start doing all the things Canada is doing to reduce emissions?”  The underlying premises behind the question were clear:

  • We’re doing a lot
  • It’s putting us at an economic disadvantage
  • It’s not fair
  • And even: why should we Canadians be working so hard to reduce our emissions when the real culprit is China?

Unfortunately – and sorry if I’m bursting a few bubbles here – those underlying premises are largely false – or to put it more gently, they’re ‘misconceptions’.  Consider:

Yes, Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions have declined by 7.1 per cent since 2005 – but that’s not nearly enough, given that our official target is a 40-45% reduction by 2030.  Achieving our target means that our emissions need to drop 33-38% (or 419 to 457 million tonnes/year) over the next six years – a very steep and challenging reduction by any measure.  Alas, it’s the consequence of years of inaction, as can be seen in this graph of Canada’s official emissions.

According to the world’s leading climate scientists, global emissions need to be reduced by 45% by 2030 if global warming is to be limited to 1.5°C.  So Canada’s emission reduction target of 40-45% by 2030 isn’t over-the-top ambitious; it’s simply the average reduction needed by 2030 in every country of the world.  You could call it ‘doing our part’.  Some countries have considerably more ambitious targets than Canada; the EU’s legally binding target is at least 55% below 1990 levels by 2030, and Finland has passed a law to be net-zero by 2035.

Many Canadians believe that we’re already doing our part to fight climate change, but here are two unfortunate realities: Canadian emissions per capita are among the highest in the world; and Canada has set many emissions reduction targets in the past, but never achieved a single one.

China is widely blamed for climate change, and it’s true that as a country its emissions are the highest in the world.  But – and sorry if I’m bursting a few bubbles again here – consider:

And are measures like carbon pricing putting Canada at an economic disadvantage?  Ironically, scrapping carbon pricing – a policy centrepiece of the party likely to form our next federal government – may put us at an economic disadvantage, as countries with carbon pricing can be expected to impose tariffs on imports from countries without carbon pricing.

The point to all of this: if someone is asked to do something when they already believe they’re doing more than everyone else, they’ll be more inclined to resist and push back than to act – even if their basic belief is wrong.  So it’s important that the basic beliefs that guide us be correct. 

I hope the above information can help with that (without being too blunt, of course!).

In the news:

Arg: the UN warns that “current national climate plans fall miles short of what’s needed to stop global heating from crippling every economy, and wrecking billions of lives and livelihoods across every country.”

Who’s a leader, who’s a laggard: Clean Energy Canada releases a scorecard rating provinces on their climate and energy transition actions.

The International Energy Agency forecasts that the world will add 5,500 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030 – triple what was added between 2017 and 2023.  (For context, 5,500 gigawatts is nearly 2,000 times what NB uses on a cold winter day.)

Quotable

“Putin switched off the gas.  He cannot repeat that with the sun.”

Kadri Simson, EU Energy Commissioner

Share This Post

More to Explore