Thank you.
My name is Simon Donner. I'm a professor at the University of British Columbia and a climate scientist. I'm also co-chair of Canada's Net-Zero Advisory Body. I join you today from Vancouver, which is situated on the unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, the Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations.
The Net-Zero Advisory Body is mandated to provide the Minister of Environment and Climate Change with independent advice on the most likely pathways for Canada to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and also to advise on the setting of interim emissions reduction targets.
I'll say there is some irony to joining you on this day of all days on the calendar to discuss the 2030 emissions reduction plan. Today is Yom Kippur, the day of atonement for the Jewish people. It is a day when we are supposed to fast in order to reflect, to repent for our sins and to take the lessons forward into the new year.
The 2030 emissions reduction plan is the most comprehensive climate policy package in Canada's history. However, the plan is not sufficient to meet the 2030 emissions reduction target, and several of its key components have now been cancelled or are at risk.
In 2021, our body provided sectoral advice for the plan. That advice appears in the appendix of the plan itself. Last year, upon request of the minister, we also provided advice on how to close the gap between the plan and Canada's 2030 target. We also recently conducted follow-up research on ways to work with the provinces to unlock investments and reduce emissions.
In my reading of all of our work, three relevant findings emerged. The first is that the initial emissions reduction plan was insufficient to reach the 2030 target. The government's own modelling indicated that the plan could, at best, achieve a 36% reduction by the year 2030. That analysis presumes every element of the plan is fully implemented and works precisely as intended. That result was only ever best interpreted as a theoretical limit of the possible emissions reductions, not a likely outcome of the plan.
The second main finding is that the implementation of the plan has been insufficient. That's leading Canada even further off the path to the 2030 target. In 2024, we wrote a report called “Closing the Gap”, with advice to the minister, in which we advised taking a series of actions in order to achieve those modelled emissions reductions. These actions included implementing measures that were announced but not finalized. Those are things like the clean electricity regulations and included strengthening the industrial pricing system, which was not performing as intended, and included securing emissions reductions from the oil and gas sector, which is responsible for about 30% of Canada's emissions.
We then recommended a small set of additional actions that could close the gap from the modelled emissions reductions and the actual 2030 target. Those included strengthening the oil and gas methane regulations and promoting low-emission modes of transportation.
The government has not as of yet adopted any of this advice. Instead, some of the measures in the emissions reduction plan, like the consumer carbon price, were cancelled. The status of others, like the electric vehicle availability standard and the oil and gas sector measures are uncertain.
Our third finding from more recent research is it's very clear that good climate policy is also good economic policy. Clean growth investment in Canada is basically being held back because of climate policy uncertainty and regulatory overlap. Removing and weakening climate policies without a plan negotiated with the provinces to strengthen other measures will only further undermine clean growth by raising investor uncertainty.
Our latest research, which was conducted with the Canadian Climate Institute, reiterates immediate steps the government could take to unlock investment and get climate policy back on track. These include strengthening the industrial pricing system and the carbon market system. They include developing more accountable and transparent implementation deals with the provinces and include grabbing the low-hanging fruit, things like the methane regulations and heat pump incentives for low-income households.
Most of all, this latest research is a reminder that climate policy is not a luxury good that you cast aside during times of stress. Climate policy is an investment in our long-term resilience, security and economic strength. The question Canada faces right now is not whether to protect the environment or to protect the economy. It is whether we have the wisdom to make the upfront investments in policy and infrastructure today that will build the low-carbon industries of tomorrow and help deliver long-term prosperity.
Thank you.