In fact, the warming statistics cited in the first paragraph came from a government report that was released in conjunction with carbon taxes to be imposed on four of the nation’s 10 provinces for failing to take action into their own hands and make a plan to curb emissions and combat global warming.
A big part of Canada’s division over the topic of climate change comes from the fact that a large portion of the country’s economy remains reliant on Alberta’s oil sands, which are not only contributing to the worldwide fossil fuels market, which must be curbed in order to meet with the Paris climate agreement but which further comprise one of the dirtiest oil-producing regions in the world.
While the Canadian oil sands are rather extreme in their exceptionally high emissions and exceptionally climate-threatened locality, they are indicative of a much larger problem — we know we need to kick our dependence on oil, but we’re just not there yet.
It’s hard to see how Canada will achieve this turnaround by 2030, however, when only one of the nation’s five biggest oil companies has charted a plan for cutting their emissions to meet these newest climate goals.
Cenovus is part of a Canadian oil company alliance that has agreed to get themselves on track to meet Canada’s concurrent climate commitment of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, but which will fall short of meeting the new threshold Trudeau has set for 2030.
Indeed, while Trudeau continues to set rhetorically lofty goals, garnering international headlines that place Canada at the forefront of the climate movement, his own government calculates that the oil sands are only going to get dirtier.
That being said, the oil sands have managed to significantly bring down their emissions per barrel, shaving off 21% between 2009 and 2019, but as the amount of oil output increases, so too does the region’s overall carbon footprint.