Canada submits new 2030 climate target

Canada is now promising the UN that it will cut greenhouse gas emissions to 40–45% below 2005 levels by 2030.

The government says emissions are already set to fall from 729 million tonnes (MT) in 2018 (the last year with final figures) to 468 MT by 2030.

Canada’s choice of a 2005 baseline sets it apart from the global standard of setting targets compared to 1990 emissions as required by the UNFCCC reporting guidelines, effectively forgiving 15 years in which bitumen sands output and Canadian GHG pollution rose substantially. Canada’s emissions rose from 600 MT to 747 MT between 1990 and 2005.

Related:

• Canada’s new 90% target for non-GHG emitting electricity
• 2007 Canadian emissions data
• Counting greenhouse gas emissions
• Soft rules for the oil sands means harder targets for others
• Endless Canadian delay on climate change mitigation
• Can Canada meet the Conservative GHG targets?
• Getting to carbon neutrality
• Monbiot’s open letter to Canada
• How to meet Canada’s climate targets
• Federal responsibility in Canada’s oil sands
• Canada’s climate targets in 2012
• Mark Jaccard on the Harper government’s climate legacy
• Canada not on track to meet its (inadequate) climate targets
• Responses to the Paris Agreement
• Trudeau’s carbon pricing plan
• What Canada and U.S. climate activists need to work on
• Canada is still in denial about climate and the bitumen sands
• The climate case against Trans Mountain
• Canada’s message to the world
• The Paris Agreement, general aspirations versus specific targets
• Canada’s climate inadequacy
• Net zero climate targets
• Trudeau’s climate failure
• Climate advocates should call for fossil fuel abolition, not “net zero”
• Bitumen producers’ distant, unlikely, and disingenuous promises