Category: Canada News Brief and Action Alert

Canada—No 100% 2050 Commitment Benchmark: Electricity system to run 90% on non-emitting resources by 2030 Canada has not yet made a commitment to reach 100% renewable energy by 2050. Renewables represents 66% of Canada’s electricity generation: 59.3% is hydroelectricity, wind power is 4.4%, biomass power is 1.9 % and solar power is 0.5%. Nuclear power...

Canada—The Carbon Impact Initiative The United Nations Environmental has reported that buildings account for 40% of emissions as a result of the construction, operations and maintenance over the life of a building. The Carbon Impact Initiative (CII) is an industry-wide effort by the EllisDon Corporation (a world leading construction/building firm) to contribute to a low-carbon...

Canada—Moving Forward The 2016 Government Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change (PCFCGCC) is intended to help achieve Canada’s Paris Agreement commitments.  It calls for investments in green infrastructure, public transport, clean technology, and increased carbon sequestration. Carbon pricing is the core of the PCFCGCC. Provinces are required to institute a minimum carbon price...

Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change In March 2016, our provincial Ministers (premiers) and the Prime Minister issued the Vancouver Declaration on clean growth and climate change. They also agreed to develop a pan-Canadian Framework to achieve our commitment to the Paris Agreement (a 30% reduction below 2005 levels of emissions). Four working...

Wildfires in British Columbia and Alberta Between 1995 and 2005, 250 communities and 700,000 Canadians were evacuated due to wildfires. Increasingly catastrophic events include Kelowna, BC (2003), Slave Lake, Alberta (2011), and now Fort McMurray, Alberta (2016). Canada’s Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR) says three trends contribute to the likelihood of more fire disasters...

Broadcast Media CBC News is a national public broadcaster, a leader in producing and distributing Canadian content, meeting regulatory obligation reports to Parliament and CRTC. CBC wrote about the Paris Agreement and key deliverables such as a carbon-neutral target after 2050 but before 2100 (Dec. 12, 2015) and how satellite data from NASA illustrates increasing carbon...

Regions/Provinces/States The Province of British Columbia (BC)—BC has long been a leader on climate change. In 2007, a Climate Action Charter with the province and the Union of BC Municipalities, committed to carbon neutrality by 2012 including municipal GGE reporting. As of 2013, 182 of 190 municipalities (96%) had signed on. In 2008, a Climate...

The Hon. Catherine McKenna, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change for Canada, recently endorsed Climate Scorecard and our work: “I am encouraged by the Climate Scorecard project and its goal to track progress and strengthen pledges to the Paris Agreement.” Letter from Canada’s Minister of Environment

Government Official The Hon. Catherine McKenna The Minister of Environment and Climate Change, House of Commons, Ottawa, ON McKenna’s environment portfolio is responsible to lead federal Government efforts in combating climate change and protecting the environment.  She oversaw the Canadian delegation at the COP21 Paris Agreement and supported a 2C threshold as a minimum for...

Research Study: “Canada’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Developments, Prospects, and Reductions,” Government of Canada, Parliamentary Budget Officer, April, 2016 A recent April 2016 report on emissions, prepared by the Government of Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) entitled Canada’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions:  Developments, Prospects and Reductions, is an important climate change research study with implications for Canada’s...