Front Burner - COP26: A reality check on Canada’s climate targets

Episode Date: November 8, 2021

As the international climate change conference COP26 continues, we take a look at Canada’s 2030 emissions reduction target, and whether or not we’re actually on track to hit it.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Angela Starrett. At the International Climate Change Conference taking place in Glasgow right now, Canada's been talking a big game. The science is clear. We must do more and faster. So that's the pledge and the call I bring to this historic meeting. But it's no secret that when it comes to climate change goals,

Canada's fallen into a pattern. Set an ambitious target, miss that target, set a new target. Here's the latest one touted by the Trudeau government. A 40- 45 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 2005 levels by 2030. That's less than 10 years from now. It's not going to be easy. But holding true to this goal, it's more urgent than ever in order to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. In the words of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, If there is no meaningful reduction of emissions in the next decade,

we will have lost forever the possibility of reaching 1.5 degrees. So today, a reality check on Canada's current climate target. If we're on the right track to hit it, or if we're at risk of slipping into the same old pattern once again. With me today, all the way from Glasgow, is John Woodside. He's an energy and climate reporter with The National Observer. Hi, John. Hey, thanks for having me. Thanks so much for joining us. And let's start by kind of laying out the goalposts here. I mentioned in the introduction that Canada's current target is to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 to 45 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.

I mean, where does this target come from and what is that supposed to achieve? Right. So the targets come from essentially the Paris Agreement. We call these the Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs. And really what they are are countries' promises to try and hold global warming to no more than two degrees and really as close to 1.5 as possible. The 1.5 is really important, actually, because since the Paris Agreement was signed, we've gotten a better understanding of just how much more damage there is between 1.5 and 2. I mean, every tenth of a degree really matters.

between 1.5 and 2. I mean, every tenth of a degree really matters. 0.5 degrees Celsius of global warming causes clearly discernible increases in the intensity and frequency of hot extremes, of heavy rainfall and drought. Global population exposed to increased water shortages would be 50% less under 1.5 degrees, 10, 2 degrees levels of warming. So really the pressure is on to get as close to 1.5 as possible, which is why countries every five years are expected to submit more ambitious targets.

So that's what this 40 to 45 percent is. It's the more ambitious target from Canada's previous goal, which was 30 percent. So just to be clear, you know, putting aside whether or not we're actually on track to hit it, we'll get to that in just a moment. But is this target considered adequate in terms of doing our part to mitigate the worst effects of climate change? It's on the low end. It could sound like a lot, but Canada's contribution really should probably, it's often calculated sort of around 60%. And that's because Canada is a relatively rich country. It's a country that has also contributed more than its fair share to the problem. So by virtue of having the resources to make a more aggressive transition than some other countries, there's a lot of pressure on a country like Canada to step up and do even more.

I want to talk a little bit about how on track we are on in Canada. So a 40 to 45 percent reduction in emissions, that's a pretty significant cut to do in less than 10 years. What kind of progress are we showing so far? Almost none. Almost none. I mean, we've hit about 1% so far from 2005. But even there, there's a major caveat that since the Paris Agreement was signed, our emissions have actually gone up. That is, I mean, we heard it a lot during the campaign, certainly the most recent federal election campaign that Canada has the worst climate record of the G7. You've got the worst track record in all the G7 after six years. How can people trust you?

Why didn't you? But it's true. It is completely out of step with all of our peer countries who are making actual progress. But the carbon price only came into effect across Canada in 2019. So do we have a sense yet of what effect that has had? No. And the carbon price is, you know, it's a very tangible policy. And it's something that the Trudeau liberals are happy to have passed. A lot of people are happy to have a carbon price and especially a carbon price that gets higher each year.

That's fine. But the problem is because it only came in in 2019 and sort of the lag that there is in between reporting emissions and when it's publicly available, we just don't know yet. We just don't know what kind of impact it's had. The most recent emission data we have is from 2019. So we need to see what happened in 2020. And of course, 2020 being the year that it was, that's always going to have kind of a question mark around it. So we'll need to see what happens in 2021 and 2022. And with a year or two between actually seeing what the emissions are, we're quite a ways out still from seeing what kind of impact the carbon prices had. And one reason why I think, you know, a lot of people are concerned about that,

at least in the conversations I've had, is that with such a short runway left, you know, with only basically eight years to 2030, if we can't get a good handle on how effective this policy is until 2023, 2024. It's really not giving us much time to adjust if we need to start doing more. So I guess any plans to hit our targets will require quite an acceleration or an amping up over the next eight years. So can you tell me a bit more about what those plans are? Like what is Canada saying it's going to do to accomplish this reduction? Yeah, so the carbon price is a big one, but there's a number of other things. I think the cap on emissions that was talked about during the campaign,

like oil and gas sector emissions. We're going to cap emissions from the oil and gas sector and end thermal coal exports for good. That's certainly one that was brought up again this past week at COP26. We'll cap oil and gas sector emissions today and ensure they decrease tomorrow at a pace and scale needed to reach net zero by 2050. Justin Trudeau made that promise on the world stage, but there's a number of policies as well. They're talking about ending some subsidies. They're talking about retrofits.

They're talking about energy efficiency programs. There's quite a number of them, but there isn't enough that's actually in place yet. That's kind of the problem, right? We can have lofty ambitions and we can have ideas for things to do, but they need to be in place and they need to actually start bringing emissions down. And there are several studies that show Canada is missing its new targets. According to the Pembina Institute, the most optimistic projections show that we're on track to reduce emissions by 36% by 2030. And according to a study from the Trottier Energy Institute in Montreal, just last month, were actually only set to reduce emissions by 16% in 2030. This is, you know, because they only

factored in the federal government policies that had enough specifics to actually include in modeling. And I want to note another study here from the Toronto-based think tank Clean Prosperity. It says that Canada does actually have a reasonable chance of hitting about a 40% reduction if the government's plans are fully implemented and if oil and gas prices fall. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, you can have modeling that shows that Canada is going to have a reasonable chance of hitting its target, but a reasonable chance of hitting what could be considered an inadequate target, especially with that big if of whether oil and gas prices fall.

I mean, these are just significant questions that are not really, they're just not concrete enough to really take comfort in. You know, you'd want to see policies that are over achieving the target to start to feel like, okay, well then even if things don't go exactly as planned, at least we're still there. This is like saving it right to the last minute. If everything goes perfect, then there's a decent chance we might be able to do this. Well, fine, but how often in life does everything go perfectly? In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem.

Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner

create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search, Money for Couples. I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I want to talk a little bit more about this disconnect. What is it that you see is putting Canada at risk of falling short of its 2030 target? As long as we allow oil and gas production to grow, we're going to be undermining the other kinds of progress that we make. Ottawa is still interested in trying to find a place for the oil and gas sector in this transition. And, you know, it's important to have policies like a just transition. It is important to recognize that the world is moving off of fossil fuels. And so we need to be a part

of that transition. But that means transitioning, right? I would point to the International Energy Agency. This is like the authoritative body on global energy. They put out energy forecasts that governments and businesses around the world have historically used to do their energy planning. that governments and businesses around the world have historically used to do their energy planning. And they've had two reports this year that are significant. One was a net zero report that basically found that if the world is going to hold on to 1.5 degrees warming, then there is no room at all for any new fossil fuel infrastructure. So Canada is already sort of violating that principle with things like the Trans Mountain Pipeline, for instance. Getting back to the business of twinning 1,150 kilometers of the Trans Mountain Pipeline.

7,300 people will get to work as construction scales up dramatically this year. It's part of the hydrogen strategy. Hydrogen might be a useful fuel at some point, but Ottawa's trying to find a way to make use of Alberta's natural gas fields to produce hydrogen that way. It is going all in on carbon capture. And perhaps the most significant thing with oil and gas, and this actually kind of goes back to Paris Agreement stuff too, is that the oil and gas industry, we divide the emissions up into what we call scope one, scope two, and scope three. Scope one would be things like a gas flaring. Like if you look at a refinery and you see the flame that's burning off the gas, we call that scope one.

Scope two is emissions the company is also responsible for, but is a step removed. So if you are powering your refinery with electricity generated from a coal plant or a natural gas plant, then the emissions associated with that energy, we call that scope two. Scope three is what happens when it's actually burned. So what happens in your car and it comes out of the tailpipe. That is the scope three emission. And scope three, the tailpipe emissions, essentially, this is 70 to 80% of the emissions from the oil and gas sector. But those emissions are not touched at all by any of our plants. The way we talk about net zero in the oil and gas industry is only about those scope one and scope two. So in other words, even if we could extract oil with no emissions and we could refine it with no emissions and we

could transport it with no emissions and we could do all of this, we would still not even be touching the majority of the problem. So that is what's really significant about that and why oil and gas is easily the biggest risk of Canada not meeting its 2030 target. I kind of wanted to go back to something you mentioned earlier at this climate change conference, COP26. Trudeau repeated a pledge he'd made on the campaign trail earlier this year that he'll impose a hard cap on emissions from the oil and gas sector. So is that not a sign that we'll be, you know, getting these emissions down in order to hit our 2030 target? I would say, like, we definitely want to see the legislation, right? I mean, like, the devil's going to be in the details here.

But to make that as a campaign promise and then to come to COP26 and announce it to the world, that does suggest that, you know, this is probably the direction we're heading in. But the problem then is that is only the scope one and scope two. We're still not touching the emissions that come from when it's actually burned, which is still the majority of the problem. So when I hear that there's an emissions cap, you know, it's like, okay, well, someone I spoke to recently, the way they put it was that they've identified the problem, but they've found the wrong solution. And that solution is capping emissions rather than capping production. And part of that might be a jurisdictional thing. You know, provinces have jurisdiction over natural resource development. So maybe it might be a political

choice to say we can't get into that mess. Maybe there's a political calculation that if you start talking about capping production, then you're starting to get into the business of telling companies, you know, what they can produce, what they can't produce. But I mean, this is a crisis, right? I mean, the climate breakdown is, it's the challenge of our lifetimes, right? I mean, we need to actually be treating it like the emergency that it is. The report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns the Earth will hit its tipping point earlier than expected, warming 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels within just 20 years. By 2050, the Arctic could be ice-free during the summer. There will be more heat waves and droughts. Sea levels will continue to rise,

meaning coastal floods seen every hundred years could happen every year. I wanted to talk a little bit more about emissions outside of the oil and gas sector. So I get that the, you know, oil and gas, it makes up the biggest chunk of our emissions, but obviously it's not the only chunk. What about policies Canada's made with regards to transportation, like electric vehicles, for example, things like green retrofits of buildings? Can they get us down 40 to 45 percent by 2030? So basically, the answer is no, not in that timeline. Green retrofits and zero emitting vehicles, those are going to be essential. I mean, those are nothing to sneeze at. Those are going to be major things that we're going to need to do because transportation and buildings are giant sources of emissions.

But the problem is that there are just too many of them to tackle within eight years or even within a decade. It's just too many of them to address. So that means that we need to be looking at what tools do we have available on a relevant timeline to hit our goal. And that means we need to start looking at the big ticket items. And that means oil and gas production, given its outsized role in our emission profile. And so the reason why that's important is because sometimes net zero by 2050 and this Paris Agreement goal of 1.5, sometimes this can get conflated. It's a little confusing, right? But the world right now is at 1.1 degree of 1.5. Sometimes this can get conflated. It's a little confusing, right? But the world right now is at 1.1 degree of warming. We can cross 1.5 before 2050. We can

cross 1.5 within the next decade. The net zero goal is so far out, the 2050 goal is so far out, that we need to be focused on 1.5 because that's the damage. So that's why there's so much effort this decade right now for the 2030 goal is because we need to be hitting that. And so we need to be looking at what tools do we actually have to hit that? What's realistic? And we're certainly not going to replace every building in the next eight years. So we need to be thinking about some other things. And what concrete measures would make you feel confident that Canada was definitely going to hit its target for 2030?

So if we had a production cap on oil and gas, if we said this is the amount we're going to produce and we are going to lower it each year, that would be a very significant step because that is how you reduce emissions from that industry. The second thing, this might be the most significant one though, is what we call carbon budgets. And a carbon budget basically calculates what are the acceptable amount of emissions we could have in a given year and in line with science in line with what our targets are and then anything above that needs to get cut out and a carbon budget is a very effective way of doing this it's something that our peer countries have done the united, when it adopted its net zero legislation that our legislation is based on, they had a carbon budget.

We didn't put a carbon budget in. That's a problem. I mean, that would be very significant if we had one of those because it's the effective tool that all of our peers have used successfully to curb emissions. I want to kind of like ask you something, I guess, more on a personal level. I mean, I live in BC. I know we've had a really tough summer with the fires, with the heat dome that killed many people in this province.

The Vancouver Police Department can't keep up, responding to one death after another. Since Friday, VPD has responded to an average of 14 sudden deaths a day. Quite simply, it's stretching our resource. When I think about my son and climate change, I want to be able to tell him, you know, we're giving this our absolute best shot. You know, we want to be able to limit these, the worst effects of this. And I wonder if you could meditate a bit on this for me, on why you think we continue to struggle with reaching, you know, the very climate change goals that we are setting for ourselves.

climate change goals that we are setting for ourselves? That's the question of our era, isn't it? I mean, we can be moving in the right direction in some ways, but as long as we have one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake, we're not going to be making the progress that we want to see. And this leaves us stuck. I think kind of another thing that can be difficult is that climate change is so all encompassing. It is affecting every corner of our lives. It's clearly affecting economies, which is making people unsure about the future. That leads to, I mean, that leads to like a tense environment. If you're not sure whether you're going to have a job, you're not sure whether that job is going to be well-paying. You don't know what your children might do, especially if it's been something

that your province has relied on. It's affecting the economy, but it's also affecting our health. I mean, it's affecting our food systems. It's affecting everything. And when something is so all-encompassing, I think it can be very difficult to step back and say, okay, well, then how do we actually start?

How do we actually start moving in a direction that helps? Because there's just so much to do. But that's part of it. You know, there is so much to do. And that's why we need to actually be moving quickly. We need to actually just be doing this as fast as we can and not worry about whether we might overdo it and move too fast. There's no such thing as moving too fast on this. So we can bump our target from 30 to 40 to 45 percent. And, you know, maybe in 2025, we'll bump that to 50 or 60 percent. But, you know, what's the good of setting a target unless you're actually going to be putting in place the policies that are going to work to actually bend emissions down on a relevant timeline? And that relevant timeline is quickly whipping by. John, thank you so much. This has been excellent reporting that you've done. And thank you so much

for speaking to us today. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. On Friday, thousands of protesters took to the streets in Glasgow and around the world to demand more action from world leaders on the climate crisis. Activist Greta Thunberg was in attendance and she declared COP26 a flop. It is not a secret that COP26 is a failure. It is not a secret that COP26 is a failure. It should be obvious that we cannot solve a crisis with the same methods that got us into it in the first place. For more coverage of the protest and of COP26, you can go to cbcnews.ca. There, you'll find a number of stories as part of a new CBC News initiative titled Our Changing Planet, which shows and explains the effects of climate change and what's being done about it.

That's it for today. I'm Angela Starrett, in to cbc.ca slash podcasts.