Canadians are told time and again that climate change is an existential challenge requiring “emergency” action. We are also told humanity is the source of the problem, producing more CO2 than the world’s lands and waters can consume.
Governments around the world, including Canada, are committing to manage atmospheric CO2 while adopting “net-zero” as a plan to achieve a balance between carbon produced and carbon consumed on our planet. To credibly reach net-zero, governments and institutions require a defined starting point and, importantly, a common accounting framework that measures both the carbon produced (the debits) as well as the carbon consumed (the credits) due to human activity and the Earth’s natural cycles. Without these elements, it is difficult, if not impossible to measure progress to net-zero.
So where does Canada fit in? How much of the global problem do we create? To answer these questions, we need a current carbon balance. The Global Carbon Project (GPC) offers a balance for the planet in its annual reports; it shows worldwide CO2 emissions from fossil fuel and human land use change – our debits – are about 41 billion tonnes (Bt) per year. [source 1] On the credits side, about 22 billion tonnes per year are removed by a combination of land (~ 13 Bt/year) and oceans (~ 9 Bt/year), leaving approximately 19 Bt/year to accumulate in the atmosphere and contribute to climate change. The GCP does not estimate carbon consumed on a country-by-country basis.
In Canada, the federal government’s National Inventory Report (NIR) forms the basis upon which Ottawa intends to measure progress toward “net-zero”. The NIR estimates our emissions at 0.58 Bt/year from fossil fuels in conjunction with an approximate zero-balance between emissions and removals on managed lands. There are no estimates for CO2 consumed by our natural lands and waters, so Canadians are deprived of the essential data needed to our understand our actual carbon accounts and, therefore, our net impact on the atmosphere.
There is, however, a comprehensive report for North America – The United States Congress’ Second State of the Carbon Cycle Report (SOCCR2) – that contains an estimate for Canada’s carbon removals including our natural lands and waters. SOCCR2 states that Canada produced a 10-year average of 0.54 Bt of CO2 annually and consumed between 0.16 and 0.87 Bt of CO2. [Source 2] So, if we look on bright side, Canada potentially absorbs 50% more CO2 than we produce.
In short, we have two vastly differing views of Canada’s net carbon balance; from SOCCR2 where both emissions and removals are addressed, versus from the NIR where the carbon that is removed by our natural lands and waters, and thus mitigates climate change, is excluded. The NIR as a proxy for measuring progress to net-zero clearly fails to incorporate the necessary, current scientific knowledge.
Why do so many Canadian leaders, beginning with the Prime Minister and many provincial premiers, choose the darkest, most negative view of Canada as a “bad actor” on climate instead of the positive view of our net CO2 mitigation that science supports? As a matter of transparency and accountability, shouldn’t they do whatever is required to assemble and provide Canadians an official, complete carbon account?
Ottawa’s choice to pursue its “climate leadership” agenda by excluding available science has consequences that appear in many places leading to questionable choices and decisions elsewhere. For example:
In its March 25, 2021 judgement, The Supreme Court of Canada sided with the federal government’s argument that carbon taxes are “good government” [Source 3] but clearly did not receive complete carbon accounts as evidence needed to inform its deliberations. Nowhere in the Justice’s decision is there any indication that they were aware of the state of the science as contained in SOCCR2. The numbers indicate that Canada’s substantial lands and waters may be enough to absorb all the CO2 we produce, rendering the basis for federal carbon taxes, and the logic for the Supreme Court’s decision, invalid.
The Office of the Auditor General of Canada, specifically its Environment Commissioner, is responsible for reporting Canada’s net-zero progress to Parliament. In response to a written inquiry, the AG’s office acknowledged not having baseline carbon accounts. [Source 4] Without this defined starting point, containing all the required elements described above, progress cannot be accurately reported. Only emissions changes as reported in the NIR can be audited, which is clearly insufficient to determine net-zero. Parliamentarians should be worried about this flawed approach, and request an immediate audit into exactly how Canada’s national carbon accounts are being produced and measured.
The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), based on a year-long research project, estimated Canada requires a 75-80 percent reduction in emissions and investments totaling $2 trillion to reach “net-zero” by 2050. The bank states that net-zero is achieved when we “take out” (absorb/remove) from the atmosphere as much as we “put in” (emit/produce) which is logical, but RBC neglected to offer an opening balance sheet to justify its assumptions. If their research took a year to complete, they obviously would have reviewed SOCCR2, so on what basis did RBC decide to reject the state of the science? Being “net-zero” today does not require 30 years plus $2 trillion to achieve, so clearly, the baseline matters. Who better than bankers to recognize the endless problems that flow from having a deficient balance sheet?
Wise and transparent decisions from governments, courts, banks, universities, and other institutions are compromised without the complete accounts that Canada fails to produce today. When climate change policy is based on facts that are selected and rejected without due regard for science, we all suffer. First, the burden is felt by millions of Canadian families who, directly or indirectly, depend on resource activity for their living, not only in oil and gas, but also mining, forestry, agriculture, fishing, manufacturing, transportation, etc. Eventually, every citizen in Canada will be impacted negatively by the current, misguided approach to “net-zero”.
Using the NIR’s incomplete tally of only emissions and managed lands denies Canada’s natural lands and waters their rightful place in our carbon accounts. In the interest of fair climate policy for Canada, we must all demand that our leaders formalize their concern into the action required to prepare accurate, comprehensive carbon accounts. When a CO2 balance sheet is in place that outlines all of our debits (emissions) and credits (removals), only then can we measure progress toward a legitimate target of net-zero that we can all support.
Source 1: Global Carbon Project. (2020). Supplemental data of Global Carbon Budget 2020
Source 2: USGCRP (2018) Second State of the Carbon Cycle Report (SOCCR2): A Sustained Assessment Report U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washington, DC, USA
Source 3: Supreme Court of Canada (Mar 25, 2021) The Supreme Court of Canada rules the federal carbon pricing law is constitutional.
Source 4: Email correspondences (Aug 17 – Nov 5 2021) between Office of the Auditor General and F. Larry Martin
This is an excellent article……Should be required reading for all the teachers in the land who are making our kids guilty about carbon emissions in Canada.i