CANADA CURRENT AFFAIR

 

Canada's new climate plan explains the price we pay for procrastination

Actions taken a decade ago would be bearing fruit now. We're running out of time.

Addressing unnamed politicians who would say that the current moment — with the war in Ukraine stoking inflation and driving up gas prices — is a bad time for fighting climate change, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told his audience in Vancouver on Tuesday that "this is no time for excuses."

"The question is not whether we keep going on climate action," Trudeau argued. "The question is how much more we can do, and how quickly."

The climate plan Trudeau's government released on Tuesday is one proposal for how much and how fast Canada should move. His government will continue to face questions about whether it is moving as quickly as it could.

But the new report also shows exactly how much bolder Canada's governments and industries must be if this country is to do its part to ensure a livable future for the planet — and exactly where the boldest action is necessary.

The new official plan for meeting Canada's greenhouse gas emissions reductions target for 2030 is the first mandatory report to Parliament under new climate accountability legislation. The 271-page document, a detailed account of what has been done and must be done to meet Canada's emissions targets, was quickly hailed as a "watershed moment" for Canadian climate policy.

In time, these regular progress reports may come to rival the annual budget as the most important document released by the federal government.

But the most useful aspect of this first report is how it lays out the possible emissions trajectories for each of Canada's major sources of greenhouse gases. This is the first time the federal government has looked forward to 2030 in such detail. 

In his remarks Tuesday, Trudeau chose to focus on the oil and gas and transportation sectors — for good reasons. 

While overall emissions in Canada have been relatively stable over the last 17 years, the national trend has obscured significant differences between sectors.