Canada’s carbon emissions down 6.4% in 2021 from 2019: report

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Canada is making significant progress in reducing greenhouse gases emissionsbut according to a new estimate, it will need to accelerate its pace to meet its pledge to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

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The country is likely to have produced 691 megatons of emissions in 2021, a small increase from 2020, when authorities curbed economic activity to slow the spread of COVID-19, but down 6.4 percent from 2019. 440 megatonsa research project overseen by the Canadian Climate Institute think tank.

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“It’s promising that Canada will begin to make tangible progress in reducing carbon pollution, especially in the wake of the pandemic,” Rick Smith, president of the institute, said in a news release.

Emissions were 6.7 percent lower than in 2005, which Canada and more than 120 other countries agreed to use as a benchmark for their carbon reduction plans under The Paris Agreement. So the emissions estimate is a start, but there is still a long way to go, considering that the Paris signatories have committed to reducing emissions by at least 40 percent by 2030 from the 2005 benchmark.

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The news comes on the heels of a new poll from market research firm Léger Marketing Inc. and Postmedia Network Canada Corp. — owner of the Financial Post, Ottawa Citizen and dozens of other publications — suggests that half of Canadians think the government is not doing enough to fight climate change.

Smith said in a February 23 press release that the latest estimates of 440 megatons indicated that governments were on the right track, but that “long-term success now depends on how quickly the government’s chosen policies are actually implemented.”

In the short term, progress appears to be stagnating, but it is more promising when one zooms out and considers the longer term, the report said. Canada is making progress in decoupling economic growth from greenhouse gas emissions, a process known as “unbundling,” as emissions per unit of economic output are now 27.5 percent below 2005 levels, authors Seton Stieber and Dave Sawyer wrote.

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While emissions have increased since 2020, they would have increased significantly more if Canada’s various climate change efforts had not begun to take effect in recent years. The true extent of progress is only now becoming apparent. after the implementation of Canada’s carbon pricing plan in 2019, said Tom Green, a climate policy analyst The David Suzuki Foundationnon-profit.

“After a decade or more of climate inaction, the new government has begun to introduce a range of climate policies that have taken time to develop and implement,” Green said. “One would only begin to see emissions decoupling from economic growth, but the decoupling should be more pronounced in the coming years if we maintain the same policies and keep increasing stringency.”

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The 440 megaton analysis is not perfect because it is based on estimates. The official data will be released this spring in Canada’s National Inventory Report, which presents data 16 months after the year in question. The estimates are the think tank’s attempt to address this reporting lag.

Additionally, 2020 data is difficult to analyze because it was an “unusual year,” the report said. There was a sharp drop in economic activity as a result of the blockade. To try to fill in the gaps, the authors used data from 2016 and 2021. To meet Canada’s targets, they estimate that emissions reductions will need to outpace economic growth by five percentage points per year; in other words, if gross domestic product grows by an average of 1.5 percent between 2022 and 2030, then emissions will have to fall by about five percent each year.

“2023 is a particularly critical year as the federal government moves forward with major policies,” the report said.

Green agrees with the authors that the work is far from finished. “We need to redouble our efforts to reduce emissions faster, given the extreme climate and climate damage we are seeing with just a 1°C temperature change,” he said.

• By e-mail: mcoulton@postmedia.com | Twitter: marisacoulton