Open this photo in gallery: The Net Zero Advisory Body is suggesting ways that Canada can get on track to meet its existing target of a 40-per-cent emissions reduction by 2030, such as strengthening the country’s industrial carbon-pricing system and methane regulations.JEFF MCINTOSH/THE CANADIAN PRESS
A federal panel is calling for Ottawa to commit to cutting Canada’s greenhouse-gas emissions between 50 and 55 per cent from 2005 levels by 2035, as the government prepares to announce new national climate targets for that time frame by the end of this year.
The recommendation, made by the government-appointed Net Zero Advisory Body in a report being released Thursday morning, is accompanied by a proposal that the country begin adopting carbon budgets. That approach would set limits for cumulative emissions, rather than focusing only on benchmark years, and could steer decisions around purchases of carbon credits or other ways of offsetting excess emissions.
And the NZAB is also suggesting ways that Canada can get on track to meet its existing target of a 40-per-cent emissions reduction by 2030, in a separate report also being released Thursday – such as strengthening the country’s industrial carbon-pricing system and methane regulations.
But it’s the 2035 guidance that particularly adds to the pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, as it attempts to balance its ambitions to meet international climate responsibilities with domestic realities – including economic and affordability concerns, skepticism about the ability to achieve current emissions targets let alone loftier ones, and polls showing a big lead for an opposition Conservative Party promising to scrap climate measures currently in place.
The government is required under the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act to set emissions-reduction commitments for five-year intervals, on the path to net-zero emissions by 2050; the next of those, for 2035, is due by the end of 2024. A similar demand is set by the international Paris Agreement, under which Canada needs to announce a strengthened target by 2025.
Ottawa is not required to follow the recommendations of the NZAB, which was established in 2021 through the same accountability legislation, and which has since struggled to build a profile amid heavy turnover of its members.
However, the government officially sought the body’s input on a 2035 target, through a request submitted by Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault last year.
In a statement, Mr. Guilbeault thanked the NZAB for its work, but was non-committal about its recommendations, saying he wants to ensure the 2035 goal is achievable.
Speaking to reporters in advance of the recommendations’ release, NZAB co-chair Simon Donner – a prominent climate scientist at the University of British Columbia – said the advisory group tried to balance “being ambitious and being technically feasible” in proposing the target. He pointed out that it would still be more modest, on a percentage basis, than emissions-reduction commitments already made by the European Union, Britain and the United States.
Prof. Donner said the NZAB opted against going higher than 50 to 55 per cent, which some members wanted, because it would place too much strain on some regions of the country.
A similar calculus was provided by the Canadian Climate Institute, a government-funded think tank with greater independent research capacity, which provided the NZAB with analysis to inform its recommendations.
Anna Kanduth, who heads the Climate Institute’s emissions-tracking process, said in an interview that her organization’s modelling showed that emissions reductions beyond 52 per cent, by 2035, would be too difficult in terms of both policy implementation and costs. However, she said that if Canada is able to reach its 40-per-cent target for 2030, at least 49 per cent by 2035 should be doable.
As of 2023, according to the Climate Institute’s most recent estimates, the country had achieved an 8-per-cent reduction from 2005 levels, largely through decarbonization measures for electricity generation, and to a lesser extent, heavy industry and waste management. Meanwhile, emissions from the oil-and-gas and agricultural sectors have significantly risen.
Ms. Kanduth nevertheless expressed optimism about a 40-per-cent reduction by decade’s end still being in reach, noting that drops have accelerated in recent years and that policies – which at the federal level range from carbon pricing to new environmental regulations to tax credits and subsidies – take a while to bite.
To get the rest of the way there, both the NZAB (in the second report released Thursday) and the Climate Institute are calling for Ottawa to finalize promised policies such as an oil-and-gas emissions cap, clean electricity regulations and regulations for commercial vehicles; to strengthen existing measures such as industrial carbon pricing and methane caps; and to explore a small number of new measures such as heating and cooling regulations for commercial buildings.
Prof. Donner noted that even if Canada sets and achieves the NZAB’s 2035 recommendation – which, he stressed, would require greater ambition from the provinces and the private sector in addition to Ottawa – the country would still be responsible for more than its fair share of global emissions if planetary warming is to be contained to 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius, which are international targets to minimize climate-related disaster.
That’s part of the rationale for the NZAB’s additional recommendation of adopting carbon budgets, to account for cumulative emissions. In addition to other benefits such as avoiding over-focusing on milestone years in which there could be statistical noise, the panel contends that the approach could help determine the extent to which Canada is exceeding the emissions needed to achieve global goals, and inform compensatory measures such as investments in carbon removal and internationally traded carbon credits.
At the same time, the NZAB acknowledges that those sorts of offsets might also be needed just to achieve the 2035 target it is suggesting – which, Prof. Donner allowed, is something of a stretch goal based on the trajectory to date.