Ottawa gets failing grade on climate

Watchdog slams federal government’s record on reducing greenhouse gas emissions

Canada’s independent environment commissioner has delivered a sobering assessment of the country’s failure to fight climate change over the past 30 years, describing the federal government’s decisions as “incoherent” and slamming the Liberals for providing hundreds of millions of dollars to the oil and gas sector without ensuring the money would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Jerry DeMarco, the federal commissioner of environment and sustainable development, tabled five reports in Parliament on Thursday. These included an audit of a pandemic support program for the oil and gas sector called the “Emissions Reduction Fund,” which DeMarco said actually allows oil and gas production to increase and doesn’t ensure “credible and sustained” reductions in greenhouse gas pollution.

“It was a hastily put-together program. But that’s still no excuse. Luckily, most of the funds are still available and they could improve the program before it’s too late,” DeMarco told reporters Thursday.

DeMarco also charted how — despite a series of promises to meet targets dating back to 1992 — national emissions increased 21 per cent from 1990 to 2019, the most recent year for which government data is available. And since 2015, when the Liberals took power, Canada’s emissions increased by around one per cent — making it the “worst performing of all G7 nations” since the international Paris Agreement to fight climate change, DeMarco noted.

He said Canada has missed opportunities to do better, and cited examples of climate policy “incoherence,” including Ottawa’s decision to purchase the Trans Mountain pipeline and finance a $12.7-billion expansion of the oil pipeline. He said the government must implement effective policies to hit the current target of reducing emissions to at least 40 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

‘‘ We need action and results. Not just more targets and plans.

JERRY DEMARCO, ENVIRONMENT COMMISSIONER

“We can’t continue to go from failure to failure,” said DeMarco. “We need action and results. Not just more targets and plans.”

Speaking to reporters after the reports were tabled, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson defended the Liberal government’s climate policies by stating emissions would have been higher today without measures like the national minimum carbon price implemented in 2019.

Wilkinson also said the Emissions Reduction Fund was meant to help the oil and gas sector when commodity prices were lower and was meant to ensure they kept reducing greenhouse gas pollution during a difficult economic period. “On both of those scores it’s succeeded,” he said, adding that he has asked his department to craft “different options” going forward to ensure emissions reductions after the pandemic.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, meanwhile, stated the Liberals have committed more than $100 billion to initiatives linked to climate change since 2015.

“We’re doing more things than any other government has ever done in the history of Canada when it comes to fighting climate change,” he said.

Launched in November 2020, the Emissions Reduction Fund offered up to $675 million in interest-free loans and gave recipient companies five years to pay them back. As DeMarco’s report on Thursday explains, the program was meant to help companies reduce emissions while maintaining jobs and global competitiveness.

But DeMarco found the program failed to ensure the money would lead to lower emissions. The government did not apply “greenhouse gas accounting principles” and failed to ensure any reductions would be on top of those that would have happened even if the program didn’t exist, the audit says.

DeMarco said he was also “surprised” and “disappointed” the department isn’t tracking how much total emissions would drop because of the program. Furthermore, 27 of 40 applications in the first tranche of the program indicated the money would also increase oil and gas production and did not include the resulting emissions from burning that extra fuel, DeMarco’s report said.

“It’s sort of the basics of performance management: you set objectives and you track your progress towards that,” he said.

The oil and gas sector was responsible for 26 per cent of Canada’s national emissions in 2019, while another 25 per cent came from transportation emissions.

These facts have bolstered calls from environmentalists and climate campaigners for the government to address rising emissions from fossil fuels — something the Liberal government acknowledges with promises to cap emissions from Canada’s oil and gas sector and create regulations to ensure 100 per cent of new passenger vehicle sales are for zero-emitting cars and trucks by 2035.

At the same time, the government says it will eliminate “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies by 2023, and scrap public financing through Crown corporations to fossil fuel companies in Canada at some as-yet unspecified time.