QUESTION PERIOD — Environment and Climate Change
Canada's Emissions Targets
March 28, 2023
My question is for Senator Gold, a little bit more on evidence and science.
Last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, released a summary for policy-makers from the last eight years of climate science. It shows that although global temperatures have already risen by 1.5 degrees Celsius, with urgent action, it is still possible but increasingly difficult to keep it below the 1.5-degree target.
At the report’s launch, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres presented his “Acceleration Agenda,” a comprehensive plan based on the IPCC report which calls for developed countries to commit to reaching net zero by 2040.
As we know, Canada has committed to reaching net zero by 2050, the previous agreed-upon goal, and has targets and a plan to reach that goal.
My question, Senator Gold, is: Will Canada recalibrate our national emission reduction targets and plans in line with this new scientific evidence and accelerate our ambitions and actions in order to reach net zero by 2040?
Thank you for your question. Since 2015, the government has committed over $120 billion and introduced over a hundred measures to support environmental action and climate mitigation such as banning single-use plastics, putting a price on pollution and making zero-emission vehicles more affordable. Under all of this, it’s just a scientific brute fact that climate action cannot be stalled.
Now, with regard to the report to which you referred, Minister Guilbeault responded quite clearly that he will be taking a hard, long look — I think were his words — as to whether we can hit our long-term greenhouse gas emissions targets 10 years earlier than planned. That’s under review by the minister, and he and his team will be studying the IPCC report very carefully.
