Five reports filed in one salvo is several potential slaps on the cheek for a single government. Although he has noted progress, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development has multiplied the criticisms and reprimands to the point of concluding that Canada is indeed on the path to climate failure, whatever the Trudeau government, whose refusal to see what is emerging before its eyes betrays a worrying capitulation.
Even with a remarkably improved plan, the Trudeau government has fallen too far behind, believes Commissioner Jerry DeMarco. It will not achieve the objective of reducing our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 40% below the 2005 level by 2030. The most it can hope to do is reduce them by 34%. . And again, he will have to hold his line without flinching, which is far from won.
The pitfalls are major: incomplete or dated data, missing or poorly channeled targets; the federal government is navigating in a mess with instruments unworthy of the Herculean task to be accomplished. The Trudeau government’s casualness and wait-and-see attitude are coupled with excessive optimism in measures that have not proven themselves, such as carbon capture and storage.
An air of deja vu? This announced failure was written in full in Canada’s fourth biennial report submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change… in January 2020. In the dock of the main accused, then as today? The fossil fuel sector, which the government, then as today, intends to tackle more head-on.
This stuttering is not trivial. This is even what worries the most in the good-natured reaction of the ministers questioned. In unison, they thanked Commissioner DeMarco for his insightful remarks that will make their future actions better. A little more and the ministers turned the other cheek. If we cannot blame them for not embracing their mission, we can certainly condemn their slowness in doing so.
The Trudeau government likes to drape itself in fine principles. He has an eye for softening a crease here, flattening a seam there. When things turn up, he excels in contrition. And when he feels that it is no longer enough, he shakes off the conservative scarecrow. The conservatives’ environmental ambition may well be less than theirs, but between the one who promises big, but achieves little and the one who promises little, but potentially achieves big, the dilemma could end up playing out to their disadvantage. The Trudeau government must demonstrate greater transparency and consistency: its agility and effectiveness depend on it. Otherwise, he will fail us all.
And it’s not just the commissioner who predicts it. In a report published the same week, the United Nations concluded much the same. The result of the examination of more than 80 researchers, the document places Canada in the basket of — many — virtuous countries which will not achieve the climate commitments made under the Paris Agreement in 2015. And why, mainly ? Because of their oil and gas appetites, but also their slowness in adopting a whole bouquet of green measures and technologies.
This report, said UN Secretary-General António Guterres, is a “surprising indictment of rampant climate carelessness”. By their added slackness, governments plan to produce in 2030 more than twice the quantity necessary to limit the increase in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius. This means “twice as many problems” for the planet and the people who make it up, he denounced.
Time is against everyone, not just liberals, in this era of global “climate boiling”. The European Copernicus Observatory reinforced the point last week by noting that the race to the top of the thermometer refuses to slow down: the month of October was the hottest ever recorded in the world, continuing a succession of monthly records that began in June.
The desire to preserve and bequeath a livable planet does not motivate everyone, either. But for proponents of “after me the flood”, it is relevant to remember that climate damage could slow down our economic growth by 25 billion dollars per year, the Climate Institute of Canada recently calculated. We are talking here about halving forecast GDP growth. And not in the distant future, from 2025.
If the Trudeau government means what it says — and there is no reason to think otherwise, even if it is doing a poor job of keeping its mouth shut — it has a duty to pull itself together. We know he can be a great talker; let him put his voice at the service of change, now. With just over two weeks until the opening of the 2023 Dubai Conference on Climate Change (COP28), he is expected to act as an enlightened and enlightened leader.