The target reduction of 42% seems unlikely. Of the solutions researched only the forecast use of alternative refrigerant seems on course to contribute a significant emissions reduction (aiming for a 15 Mt annual reduction by 2036). There is also decent legislation and market incentives driving the adoption of LED lights, but I roughly estimate that their complete adoption would only reduce emissions by 5 Mt or less. 85% of all energy consumption for buildings in Canada relates to heating and cooling, and subsidy of effective heating systems such as heat pumps, more insulation, more stringent refrigerant management and district heating systems is extremely small (in the government's own report it cites the Pembina study, which estimates that Canada needs to spend $21 billion per year from now until 2040 to make the building sector net-zero). The Canadian government is spending $2.6 billion spread over the next seven years, and is clearly hoping that the private sector will make up the difference. This seems highly unlikely to me as many of the projects have major upfront costs and modern investors are often unwilling to make major CAPEX outlays with slower payback periods. Although it seems that some solutions will provide emissions reductions, Canada continues to expand its population rapidly with aggressive immigration targets. There are also cultural and legislation changes making things such as air conditioning mandatory in certain cities for new high rises, so there are currently unmeasured aspects which will increase emissions. Smart Thermostats stand out as an area where significant and quick gains could be made. They are cheap, have a very low adoption rate and are already subsidised. It seems that consumers are not aware or are too time poor to change their thermostat, so legislation making them mandatory could be highly effective.

They are mentioned in the ERR only as a solution which can be funded by the 'Canada Greener Homes Grant', which has $2.6 Billion to spend over 7 years. The maximum an applicant can receive is $5,000, meaning even if this entire fund for greener homes were spent on heat pumps, just 520,000 homes would receive a subsidy. (GR14) "The Pembina Institute projects that reaching net-zero in 2050 will require carrying out retrofits at an annual pace of nearly 600,000 homes (11.4 million in total) and the equivalent of 32 million m 2 of commercial property until 2040, at a cost of roughly $21 billion per year." - clearly the scale of funding available for housing retrofits is woefully inadequate. (GR70) Building emissions account for 91Mt per year (12% of Canada's total), of which 85% relates to heating and cooling the building. Provinces also offer grants for installing a heat pump but these seem to range from $1k - $2k, and primarily aim to 'top up' the federal grant of $5,000.

Smart thermostats are not mentioned in a meaningful way in the ERR. The federal government is offering a $50 grant for smart Thermostat installation under the 'Canada Greener Homes Initiative', however to qualify the homeowner must be undertaking another far more expensive energy saving retrofit. Given the quick wins possible from smart Thermostats, tying grants for them to larger projects seems counter productive. (GR169) In 2019 only 10% of Canadians had a smart thermostat in their house. (GR70) Building emissions accounted for 91Mt (12%) of Canada's total, with 85% of this amount relating to space heating/cooling and water heating. Some of the provinces seem to offer grants for smart thermostats (GR170), but uptake per (GR169) seems slow to date. Given the small cost and obvious benefits, some form of mandatory legislation would be hugely beneficial in speeding up smart thermostat adoption. There is currently no legislation.

Insulation mentioned as a key area of building retrofit in the ERR. 'Canada Greener Homes Grant' of $2.6 Billion over 7 years offers support for a variety of home retrofits, including insulation. (GR14) "The Pembina Institute projects that reaching net-zero in 2050 will require carrying out retrofits at an annual pace of nearly 600,000 homes (11.4 million in total) and the equivalent of 32 million m 2 of commercial property until 2040, at a cost of roughly $21 billion per year.". Clearly the investment in home retrofits is nowhere near the scale required to meet Canada's 2050 net zero targets. (GR112) estimates an emissions reduction of 4.26 Mt Co2e if all 'under insulated' homes in Canada were upgraded. Building codes are set at the provincial level in Canada, the federal government (GR113) introduced National Model codes, which provinces have agreed to adopt. However the model codes have a tiered approach and the lower tiers are extremely weak requirements (these have been adopted by certain provinces). In addition (GR114) the actual measurement for building energy efficiency does not use best practice, and may be flawed enough to mean that in reality very little energy performance is occuring. In summary Canada's funding support and building regulations are woefully inadequate to meet its own net zero targets for the buildings sector (down to 53 Mt in 2030 compared to 91 Mt in 2019).

There is no meaningful mention of refrigerant management in the ERR. (NRR38) HFC's accounted for 13 Mt of Co2e emissions in 2020, 1.9% of all of Canada's emissions. (GR159) There appears to already be Federal regulation in force requiring leaks to be dealt with by a certified professional and for refrigerant systems to be professionally decommissioned at the end of their life. I couldn't find any figures for the number of refrigerant systems which were correctly decommissioned in Canada, though I also couldn't find any articles voicing concerns that this was an issue. Therefore it seems most likely that the 13 Mt of Co2e emissions relates primarily to leaks. This is still a very large number and I would have expected a clear policy for how this is to be improved in the ERR given its importance.

No mention of water distribution in the ERR. (GR184) A report written in 2010 estimated that Canada lost about 20% of its water to leaks. Water is a municipal issue in Canada, (GR185) Highlights how Ontario loses between 10% - 40% of it's mains water to leaks. The main issues highlighted are the lack of funding for pipe maintenance and replacement, meaning that the water management policy is effectively reactionary, entirely dedicated to fixing leaks once they occur rather than preventing them. It seems therefore that there is likely substantial improvement that can be made to Canadian water management, but that as it sits at the municipal level there is no funding available so improvement is unlikely.

(GRR 69) "In 2019, there were 217 operating DE (district energy) systems across the country, supplying 2.2% of Canada’s heating. A recent database from the Canadian Energy and Emissions Data Centre is reporting 4,604 MWth of heating and 1,144 MWth of cooling capacity. This has reduced Canada’s GHG emissions for heating by about 5.5%." - the majority of these DE systems are not even renewable energy sources. (GRR 70) of the 91Mt of building emissions 85% related to heating and cooling. This is clearly a huge source of emissions for Canada and if a 2% adoption rate from building can reduce heating/cooling emissions substantially then I would suggest that this solution is much more relevant to Canada than it is to the global average. The planning complexity of DE is likely a major inhibitor so it would potentially need strong government legislation and funding to become more widely adopted. Neither of these is in place.

Solar hot water is not mentioned at all in the ERR. (GR172) The Canadian government recommend that solar hot water systems should be installed alongside conventional heating systems, as solar heating cannot produce enough hot water in winter. (GR171) Solar hot water systems installations have steadily declined since government subsidies for the technology were slashed in 2010. The article effectively describes current demand for residential units to be so low that the market is considered to have collapsed. SHW systems have the clear problem of being expensive to instal, so without government subsidies this solution is unlikely to gain traction in Canada. (GR173) SHW systems still seem a good investment as they can pay for themselves in energy savings in about five years. Given the large amount of energy spent heating water in Canada, subsidising technologies that significantly reduce energy consumption would appear to be a win for both the Canadian government and homeowners. SHW systems don't seem to be eligible for the 'Canada Greener Homes Initiative'.

No concrete references to this in Emissions reduction report - though energy efficiencies are mentioned as something the government wants to encourage. Per DD adoption is over 75% in OECD countries. Given the high adoption rates and strong commercial incentives for large buildings to adopt regardless of government support, I will assume that achieving 100% adoption is very plausible. However as there is already likely a high base rate of adoption, I would expect this to be a much more minor reduction in Co2e for Canada than compared to China or Latin America.

DD do not model electricity savings of using alternative refrigerant (could be very large). (GR56) it seems probable that canada should achieve a reduction in line with DD estimate as it has already introduced legislation to phase out HFCs (Canada aiming for 85% reduction by 2036, DD 66% - 79% depending on scenario). (GR57) this would be 15Mt annual reduction for Canada once achieved.

No significant mentions in the ERR about LED's. The ERR does not specify what proportion of emissions come specifically from lighting, but it does state that 15% of it's 91 Mt Co2e emitted in 2019 from buildings came from "electricity used to power appliances, lighting, and auxiliary equipment." - meaning that lighting counts for at most 13.5 Mt, but it is much more likely only a small fraction of this total amount (appliances being likely to account for far more electricity consumption than lighting). (GR119) Provinces such as Quebec and BC have already banned the sale of most incandescent and halogen bulbs. (GR118) Shows the % of Canadian household reporting owning at least one halogen light bulb falling from 36% in 2013 to 20% in 2019. LED's have risen from 14% to 53% in the same time period. In summary it seems that Canada is likely to quickly transition to being mostly LED lighting due to the cost benefits of LED lighting and adequate regulation.

Currently Canada has one of the greenest energy grids in the world, with 82% of its energy coming from renewable (mostly hydro) and nuclear. Forecast emissions reductions are based on phasing out the remaining coal plants (13 Mt reduction forecast) and reducing emissions from oil and gas plants via the 'Output Based Pricing System' which is carbon tax. However I have strong reservations over the OBPS as in the context of oil production it is extremely weak. Even if the OBPS is successful it is unclear how Canada will decarbonise so much of it's grid emissions by 2030. Canada will need to double or triple it's generating capacity by 2050 if it's it to meet the power demand caused by electrification of current fossil fuel dependent activities (e.g. cars and heating). It's own energy regulator estimates that Canada is on course for just a 25% increase in generating capacity by 2050. Much of Canada's power grid is old infrastructure so new projects are often just replacing decommissioned plants. Canada is systemically underinvesting in all types of renewable energy. Wind energy is forecast to be the main driver for increased power generation, but surprisingly Canada has no major offshore wind sites, despite this being a major area of focus for Europe and the US. Power generation highlights the huge problems associated with climate change, as under currently prevailing economic wisdom, the Federal government does not consider itself able to commit to large infrastructure projects on a scale which matches the forecast dramatic acceleration in electricity demand. Grid infrastructure projects are complex and usually take decades from inception to completion. Canada's inability to plan ahead means that any solutions which depend on electrification are certain to either fail or have their adoption delayed by decades. In summary Canada has a very green energy grid, but it has no plans to scale this in line with the needs of the rest of its climate change strategy.

Grid flexibility is something that can be funded by the 'Smarter Renewables and Electrification Pathways Program' which has a budget of $600 million over the next seven years. Upgrading the grid is a huge project and is an essential building block of many other core solutions. (GR100) Estimates the cost of upgrading Canada's grid to be into the hundreds of billions of dollars, with major projects of this scale having a decade timeframe from inception at the minimum. (NRR29) There are only three power plants with a capacity of 250 MW or greater currently under construction in Canada. Electricity is a provincial issue in Canada, and Hydro Quebec have plans to add 5000 Mw of capacity over the next four years. For context Canada current has 149,000 MW of generating capacity, and it will likely need to double or triple this by 2050. Outside of Quebec I failed to find clearly stated energy expansion strategies for BC or Ontario (though due to limited time I can't say for certain they aren't making investments similar to Quebec, but given the lack of easily available information it seems unlikely). (NRR35) Forecasts for Canada's electrical energy generation capacity by its own regulator, 25% growth in capacity forecast from 2019 to 2050 under current policies. In summary there is no where near the increase in electricity production required to meet the ERR targets.

(NR35) shows that wind made up about 9% of Canada's electricity generation capacity in 2019, though according to the ERR, wind, solar and tidal generated less than 7.4% of total energy in 2019 (wind being the vast majority of this). (NR35) Also highlights that wind is forecast to rise to 19% of total electricity produced by 2050. (GR141) Canada has no operational offshore wind farms, meaning that all current wind power comes from onshore farms. (GR143) Some provinces have subsidised wind farms to encourage private investment in them, in Ontario the government appears to have been locked into a higher energy rate causing consumer dissatisfaction, whereas in Alberta a better rate was agreed and wind produced in Alberta seems to be cost competitive without subsidies. (NR35) Despite onshore wind power being forecast to dramatically increase (from 9% of the total produced in 2019 to 19% in 2050), it's important to remember that overall the Canadian Energy Regulator is predicting a 25% increase in energy capacity generation by 2050, which is nowhere near the required doubling or tripling needed for increased electrification of human activities currently dependent on fossil fuels.

(NR35) shows that wind made up about 9% of Canada's electricity generation capacity in 2019, though according to the ERR, wind, solar and tidal generated less than 7.4% of total energy in 2019 (wind being the vast majority of this). (NR35) Also highlights that wind is forecast to rise to 19% of total electricity produced by 2050. (GR141) Canada has no operational offshore windfarms and none even at the planning stage as of 2021. The only mention of offshore wind in the ERR is in relation to the 'Emerging Renewable Power Program', which does not appear to have invested in an offshore wind project and is now closed to new applicants. (GR142) Shows that offshore wind is a proven technology in europe, with both the EU and the UK having ambitious targets to scale it - "Europe has a target of 60 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030 (currently has 25 GW installed). The UK has a target of 40 GW capacity by 2030. ". Canada has the longest coastline in the world but seems to have made no effort to encourage or adopt offshore wind farms.

The only meaningful mention of utility scale solar in the ERR is in relation to the 'Smart Renewables and Electrification Pathway' fund, which a solar farm would qualify for. The fund has $600 million to spend over the next seven years, and solar is just one of a number of project types that it supports. (NRR35) In 2019 0.35% of Canada's electricity generation came from solar power. (NRR24) The split between distributed systems and utility scale systems in 2016 was about 40% distributed, 60% from utility scale. (NRR25) Highlights that not all of Canada is suitable for solar panels, with the coastal areas having higher cloud cover, meaning they would have lower electrical generating potential. (NRR35). The Canadian Energy regulator is forecasting that under current policies solar will rise from 2.2 TWH 's of generation in 2019, to 16.7 in 2050 (2% of 2050 electricity generated). DD has ambitious solar targets of 21%-25% of electricity generated. It is likely that solar is less effective in much of Canada compared to other more southerly countries, but it still has plenty of potential in non coastal provinces. Canada is failing to scale any energy source to meet its future electrical demands, and solar is just another example of a vastly underfunded energy source in Canada.

Geothermal is only mentioned as an exploratory technology in ERR (despite being proven abroad). (GR96) There are no operational geothermal plants in Canada yet, though there are 7 very small scale projects underway, mostly in more remote regions. (GR95) argues that geothermal works out as extremely cost competitive (i.e. significantly cheaper than fossil fuels and nuclear) over the lifecycle of a power plant, even if it costs more to build up front than a gas/oil power plant. It is also a renewable source of baseload electricity which is extremely important. The Smart Renewables and Electrification Pathways Program has $600 million over the next seven years to deploy, and geothermal is one type of project it would be able to support. Given the need to potentially double or triple Canada's electricity production by 2050, and the fact that geothermal is abundant and provides baseload, this seems like it should be a priority area. Given the cost of one medium sized power plant is minimum $250 million (potentially much more), the current funding seems quite inadequate.

Nuclear power currently accounts for 14% of Canada's electricity generation.(GR135) Ontario and New Brunswick use nuclear energy to provide large proportions of their non-emitting power, but both provinces still rely on fossil fuels for some of their electricity generation. Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario have all expressed interest in SMR nuclear facilities. (NRR29) Of the three power plants currently under construction across Canada with >250 MW of capacity, none are nuclear. (NR35) The Canadian Energy Regulator forecasts national nuclear capacity to decrease from 13.3 GW to 11.5 GW between 2019 and 2050. Nuclear power capacity reflects the same severe under-investment problems seen for all power types.

Small hydropower is only mentioned in the ERR as a project type eligible for funding under the 'Smart Renewable Energy Program', which has a total budget of $600 million to spend over the next seven years on a variety of project types (small hydro being just one allowable project type). Canada has huge large scale hydroelectric dams, so I found it hard to find out what proportion of their hydro capacity was classified as small. (GR168) claims that Quebec classifies 13GW of it's hydro capacity as small, while Manitoba has a single site generating 1.3 GW. As Canada's total hydro capacity is 81GW, it seems plausible that roughly a fifth or quarter of this might be classified as small hydro. (GR168) Also highlights that over 550 small hydro sites have been identified across Canada, so there is clear potential to grow. Small hydro's main role in the Canadian grid seems likely to be power generation for remote communities. Although Quebec has a large amount of small hydro power, it is likely that these plants are much larger than what is now considered best practice for small hydro (larger sites can still have significant environmental impacts, despite not actually damming the river). Small hydro is unlikely to add significantly to the Canadian grid, but there does seem to be support for moving first nations people in remote areas away from diesel generators, with small hydro being a leading replacement option.

The only meaningful mention of energy storage in the ERR is in relation to the 'Smart Renewables and Electrification Pathway' fund, which an energy storage system would qualify for. The fund has $600 million to spend over the next seven years, and energy storage is just one of a number of project types that it supports. (GR180) I found estimates for the energy storage requirements of the US if it were to transition it's grid over to 80% wind and solar energy. As I could not find any Canadian specific estimates I repeated their calculation for Canada on the assumption that the country would need 12 hours of total energy usage stored. In 2019 this would have been 870,000 MW of storage capacity for Canada, a number which would theoretically need to double or triple with future electricity demand forecasts. (NRR39) Canada currently has 475 MW of capacity. It's important to note that Canada's generation mix is currently very different to the US, as Canada is predominantly hydro, which provides a high level of base load renewable energy. This means that Canada's storage requirements are currently very small, and it will likely need to hold less that the 12 hours which the US needs. However Canada's main focus on increasing energy capacity is via wind and solar, so it seems likely that Canada will begin to require substantial amounts of energy storage, something it has not yet made any meaningful progress toward.

(NRR24) about 0.5% of Canada's total renewable energy was generated by solar power in 2016. About 40% of this seems to have come from distributed systems. (NRR25) states that northern and coastal territories are weaker candidates for solar due to getting less sun, however the southern prairies and associated cities are reasonable locations. It states "about half of Canada’s residential electricity requirements could be met by installing solar panels on the roofs of residential buildings.", (NRR26) Residential consumption only counts for 27% of total use, with industry the largest consumer and forecast to be the main growth area in demand as it continues to electrify. DD forecast DSP to provide 14% of total global electricity demand. (NRR25) achieving half of Canada's residential power from solar would be similar to this, however as energy requirements are forecast to double or triple, it seems DSP would produce half or a third of DD's project total energy generation, largely due to a less sunny climate. Smart Renewables and electrification fund commits $0.6 Billion over 7 years, a small portion of which would go to solar. This level of funding is unlikely to cause any noteworthy growth in solar, with any DSP growth coming from isolated communities installing solar.

Biomass mentioned in Emissions Reduction Report as possibly useable with harvest residue from forestry. (NRR18) current Biomass power plants generate .33% of Canada's electricity and likely emit substantially less that 1 Mt of Co2e per year. (GR60) Harvest residue left to rot or burned could be 27 - 49 Mt Co2e emissions per year alone. (NRR17) there appears to be approx 20 Mt of Co2e emissions relating to animal waste per year also. I have reservations about this as a solution as making a waste product of a highly land intensive active (animal farming) into a profitable energy source effectively subsidises meat and encourages more inefficient land use.

Concentrated solar power is not mentioned in Emissions Reduction Report and solar in general does not appear to be an area of focus. However Canada already has a very high percentage of its electricity being renewable (82%). (GR67) highlights that solar energy usually competes with agricultural land and could be quite space intensive compared to other energy sources. (GR17) Canada estimate it will require two or three times its current electricity demand by 2050, there seems to be very little serious effort at increasing grid capacity to meet this.

The 'Smart Renewables and Electrification Pathways Program' has $600m of funding over the next 7 years, and it lists micro grids and virtual power plants as one of the three main areas it aims to support. There are private companies looking to utilise AI for micro-grid management, so perhaps sensible to not significantly fund this area with government spending.

Canada is the second largest country in the world and is therefore responsible for some of the world's largest natural resources - which act as both major carbon sinks and essential areas of biodiversity. Canada contains roughly a quarter of the world's wetlands, a fifth of the world's temperate rainforest and the longest coastline in the world. Unfortunately Canada does not track the environmental health of lands which are not directly managed for industry, meaning that emissions from degrading wetland/peatland, seafloors damaged by bottom trawling and non-managed forests are not measured. Even small amounts of damage to these environments can cause huge emissions, and what evidence I could find indicates that substantial damage is likely occurring. For instance I estimate that Canada's wetlands could contain 550 GT of Co2e, which is roughly 11 years worth of current global emissions. Human activities such as logging can cause drainage of wetlands, resulting in the drying and release of this carbon. It is impossible to quantify the current rate of damage, but for such critical natural assets to be unmeasured shows just how shallow and weak the current climate change plan is. Arguably biodiversity loss and possible ecosystem collapse are an equally important unknown danger in Canada. Despite having a huge and extensive wilderness, key metrics are alarming. (GR186) Highlights a study finding 80% insect loss between 1989 and 2013 in a region of Germany. Insect numbers are broadly unmonitored globally, but in his book 'Silent Earth', Dave Goulson discusses how any studies carried out across the world show similar levels of insect decline as the original German Study. (GR187) shows that the best proxy for insect health in Canada (as there is no hard data for insects), are insectivores such as birds with "nose-diving populations of 22 of 26 aerial insectivores that breed in Canada — including swifts, flycatchers, nightjars, swallows and whip-poor-wills.". It's a similar story for fish stocks, (GR189) fish catches halved in Canada between the late 1980's and 2009. (GR188) Oceana Canada found that the number of Canadian fisheries rated as healthy fell from 34.5% to 26.5% between 2017 and 2020. It's is not clear what effect some form of ecosystem collapse in Canada would have on humanity and food supply chains, but losing pollinators, food sources (fish) and key water filtration and storage areas (wetlands) could have enormous ramifications. We have very limited data on all of these critical environments, but what we do have clearly indicates that ecosystem collapse is not a low probability event, but something that should potentially be considered likely given our current trajectory.

(NRR4) Canada has 484,000 Ha of managed wetland/peatland (it does not differentiate between the two in it's reporting). (NRR20) when non managed wetlands are included the figures is 129 million Ha (excluding coastal Wetlands), which is a quarter of the world's wetlands. (NRR21) Managed Wetlands are classed as wetland which is either directly drained for peat extraction, or created by intentional flooding when creating hydroelectric dams. It is currently estimated that managed wetlands emit 2.6 Mt per year, however there seems to be no major data on unmanaged wetlands. (NRR22) States that Canada has no inventory of its wetlands (unlike forestry), so we have no idea how much they are degrading. However 70% of wetlands have been lost in southern areas on Canada, so there are clear signs that this could be a huge issue. (NRR23) rising temperatures puts peatlands in danger of drying out, as do human activities such as the creation of forestry roads and seismic lines for logging and resource extraction. Given the huge carbon reserves stored in Canada's Peatlands and wetlands (600/4 Gt carbon by 44/12(molecular weight ratio of carbon to Co2) = 550 GT co2e), any mismanagement of this could result in huge emissions. Fundamentally we have no idea what these emissions are currently, but it seems plausible there could be substantial degradation currently occurring, at least some of which (forestry and resource extraction) could be mitigated. Natural Climate Solutions Fund has a budget of $1.4 Billion over the next 10 years, with a primary focus appearing to be on Wetlands/Peatlands.

Canada has a target of making 30% of it's waters be classified as some form of protected area by 2030. (GR163) 14.66% of Canada's waters have some form of protection, however the majority of protections on the west and east coasts appear to be marine refuges, which do not ban trawling. Only the arctic area is predominantly a marine protected area (MPA), it seems that in Canada's main fishing areas bottom trawling is effectively legal for the vast majority of the seafloor. (GR161 & GR162) About 5% of Canada's catch seems to come from bottom trawling, which is ten times higher than DD's global average estimate. This implies that bottom trawling is far more prevalent in Canada and therefore the associated carbon emissions may be far higher. This Co2e source is not measured by Canada and so could represent a substantial amount of emissions currently not reported. Excluding the climate argument, there seems no justifiable reason to allow such a destructive and low yield fishing practice to continue, as it is detrimental to the ocean ecosystem and to long term fish stocks. Canada has no effective policies to deal with this currently.

(NRR 28) There is an estimated 11.5 million hectares of prairie land remaining (20% of the original amount). DD estimates 64 metric tonnes of Co2e per hectare would be released if converted to farmland. This represents a carbon store of 736 Mt (one year of Canada's full emissions) that is under extreme threat of being wiped out in the near future. Canada does not keep an inventory of prairie land, and so the estimate of 11.5 million hectares is old and some believe the current figure is actually far less. The only mention of grasslands in the ERR is in relation to the 'Nature Smart Climate Solutions Fund', which has $630 million over 10 years to spend on protecting wetland, peatland and grassland. (GR98) it is unclear how this money can be effectively deployed as only 1% of remaining prairie land may fall under any form of legal protection. Even if all of the Nature Smart Climate Solution Fund was spent solely on land incentives to keep farmers from converting prairies, their budget still only amounts to $5.48 per hectare per year. In reality peat bog protection is a much larger problem so only a small fraction of funding is likely to go toward prairie protection. This seems to be an example of an issue which requires very strong regulation alongside funding for any progress to be made. Another core issue is that there is no prairie inventory, making policy decisions and understanding of the seriousness of the issue very difficult.

No meaningful mention on fisheries or quotas in ERR. (NRR38) Fisheries accounted for 0.23 Mt of Co2e emissions in 2020. It's extremely hard to find a convenient information source of Canadian Fishery quotas. It seems that overall authorities are unwilling to reduce the number of fishing licences offered, and generally seem to do so only once a fish stock has reached a critical level (or often collapsed). (NRR32) highlights how fisheries seem to replace overfished species like cod with their smaller prey fish - (GR108 highlights an example of this issue). Canada also heavily subsidises fisheries, (GR109) "In 2018, Canada provided support totalling CAD 339.3 million (USD 261.8 million) through policies directly benefiting individuals and companies in the fisheries sector, up by a total of 38% since 2008. This amounted to 9.2% of the value of production.". In summary Canada seems to have very weak quotas that are likely poorly deployed, fishing is heavily subsidised and removing subsidies or increasing quotas seems to be politically extremely difficult. The tractability of this solution is low in the current political environment.

Forest restoration is not mentioned in the ERR, outside of the government's 2 billion tree planting program, much of which seems to be aimed at cities and urban areas. (GR177) "B.C. has an estimated one-fifth of the world’s remaining coastal temperate rainforests. These forests stretch the length of B.C.’s coast, covering an area of about 7.6 million hectares ". BC contains a huge amount of temperate rainforest, (GR178) "Forests cover two-thirds of the province, or roughly 60 million hectares. An estimated 43% of B.C.’s forests are considered old growth.". Despite having a huge amount of older temperate rainforest, BC still has substantial issues with logging, (GR176) highlights how the province is in danger of logging it's remaining old growth inland temperate rainforest (which is globally extremely rare). (GR179) Is a source which argues that despite BC's huge forest cover, this belays the facts that there are substantial deforestation and degradation issues in every area of the province. It seems to me that even a small improvement to BC's land management techniques for it's 7.6 million ha of temperate rainforest could lead to significant forest growth and carbon sequestrations.

The ERR mentions 'blue carbon' which includes kelp forests (macroalgae), but it is only a passing comment and there are no firm policies on protecting these areas. There is no inventory report for the quantity of Canada's kelp forests, but given the large Canadian coastline it is likely that the country controls a significant amount of the world's kelp forests when compared to it's relatively small population. (GR121) has a reference to a map from the world atlas showing kelp forest locations, (GR122) references a research article arguing that arctic Kelp forests in Canada may be highly underestimated. (GR123) is a research article listing all the small scale protection and restoration projects undertaken in Canada to date. These are extremely small and limited. In summary Kelp forests may be a major carbon sink and reserve, as well as being ecologically critical. However Canada has no inventory of kelp forests, no policy on the issue and seemingly no plan to form a cohesive policy for kelp forests.

ERR makes repeated mention of engaging and working with First Nation groups on conservation and protection projects. (GR111) Article which highlight the very small size of first nation reserves in Canada, the fact they are often in more remote regions, and that they correlate strongly with intact ecosystems that need to be protected. Although the reserves only account for 0.36% of Canada's total landmass, their locations mean that First Nations people are in a unique position to act, organise and enforce conservation areas. In the 2022 federal budget $29.6 million was proposed to form an Indigenous Climate Leadership Fund. In summary engagement with First Nations on climate and environmental issues makes a huge amount of sense as it can benefit all parties and Canada is making some efforts to do this, though fundamentally there are many unresolved land and rights issues relating to First Nations people that should be addressed on the simple ground of equality.

Direct Co2e emissions from farming are a much smaller issue than the side effects caused by modern farming techniques. The key issues facing Canada are soil fertility collapse, increased droughts in the prairies (80% of Canada's farmland), the large scale monoculture nature of crop farming (causing biodiversity dead zones) and the inefficient use of land, which is heavily subsidised to support animal agriculture. The rates of arable land collapse in wealthy Western countries is incredibly high, with global estimates showing that up to a third of global cropland collapsed and became unusable in the last 40 years. Although this is another critical resource that the Canadian Government has no inventory for, it's seems very likely that Canada has experienced similar collapses as the United States. This issue ties in strongly with the loss of the remaining natural grassland in the prairies, which is likely converted to cropland to replace abandoned farmland. Canada's prairies are an arid area that receive little rain traditionally. Under climate change models they are forecast to experience increasing droughts, which seems to have been one factor causing a dramatic increase in irrigation requirements of 74% between 2012 and 2018. A partial collapse of certain areas of the prairies seems plausible given the more marginal quality of the land and the possibility of more severe localised areas of climate change, so the current intensive farming techniques which damage soil quality, intensively use water and kill biodiversity with pesticides are creating a very fragile ecosystem, unlikely to be able to deal with climatic shocks. (GR193) Wheat production is Canada's largest farming land use, followed closely by Canola. The goal for Canadian agriculture should be to rapidly change focus from high yield intensive crop farming which may irreversibly damage soil health, to attempting to find more diverse farming practices that meet the criteria of 1) improving soil fertility, 2) maintaining maximum yields possible and 3) maximising biodiversity so as to build a resilient farmland area more able to deal with climate change. Unfortunately the economic incentives and risks are currently far too great to make this a viable option for farmers. For instance highly damaging and land intensive livestock products receive huge farming subsidies compared to fruit and vegetables and there seems to be no talk of changing this. The risks of a failed harvest due to changing farming techniques would likely need to be insured by the government (no policies like this exist) and strong legislation would be needed to force transition to occur within a timeframe needed to prevent the worst effects of soil fertility collapse and biodiversity loss. There is no political will for such actions and so it appears that the robustness of fragile Canadian farmland is receiving no meaningful attention, despite there being strong evidence that certain areas may fail completely in the coming d

There is no mention of abandoned farmland the in ERR. No estimate exists per the Canada National Inventory report. (GR192) article estimates 1.67 billion hectares of cropland Globally, Drawdown estimates abandoned land at 371 million hectares, which equates to 22% of all agricultural land. (GR190) estimates globally abandoned farmland to date at 26%-31% of total cropland, while highlighting that the highest rates of abandoned farmland have occured in the US and Europe. It seems reasonable to assume that similar proportions of Canada's farmland are abandoned, and (GR191) provides a rough sense of the global rate of abandoned farmland with it's claim that a third of the world's arable land has been lost in 40 years. I would place a rough estimate of annual arable land loss using the above figures at somewhere between 0.6% - 0.8% per year. The continuous loss of arable land at a high rate should be a high priority issue, but dealing with this would mean creating legislation for certain required land and soil health practices and outcomes, which goes strongly against the freeholder property rights that people in Canada believe essential.

Likely that the DD solution vastly under estimates potential Co2e emissions due to the increased risk of soil/ecosystem collapse causing agricultural land loss under current intensive farming techniques. Canada has committed $0.62 Billion over the next six years between the "Agricultural Climate Solutions – On-Farm Climate Action Fund" and "Resilient agricultural landscape program". Canada is focusing it's agricultural climate spend on nitrogen management, cover cropping and rotational grazing practices. This is a sensible focus for the money they've deployed, though rotational grazing maintains the implicit assumption that we should support meat production. As there are c.47 million ha of croplands, this funding translates to $13 per ha spread over six years. It seems unlikely that this funding will be anywhere sufficient to cause a major transition to regenerative annual cropping - especially given the lack of policy legislation to force any change. Farmers face major risk and uncertainty in changing their farming method, and as the financial risk of a poor harvest are so severe it seems far more support would be needed to cause change. (GR68) claims that the historic average of farmers subsidies is $8-$10 Billion, most of which goes to dairy, poultry and egg. This equates to $170-$212 dollars per ha per year in subsidies for potentially damaging aspects of farming - or taking the lower estimate 78 times more money is spent subsidizing meat and dairy than is on Regenerative annual cropping.

Producing protein directly from bacteria (i.e. growing them to create a complete protein cooking ingredient or using them to create specific proteins and substances like whey powder) has the potential to become a major food source with an extremely low carbon emission rate and drastically reduced land use requirements. For this solution to be effective it is essential that efficiently produced food go hand in hand with a reduction in total farmland area. The ability to rewild surplus farmland offers the opportunity of reversing a substantial amount of emissions and strengthening fragile ecosystems (GR208) I estimate that if 1% of Canadian farmland were rewilded then it would equate to 1 Mt per year of carbon sequestration. (GR204) In 2020 global investment in fermentation protein took off dramatically, with 3.5% of total climate change investment going toward this industry. However as agriculture represents up to a fifth of direct emissions this is still a small proportional amount of funding. (GR203) Highlights that there is a huge global shortage of appropriate manufacturing facilities suitable for protein production. Many startups have viable technology but require larger intermediate facilities to prove their processes at scale. These facilities are extremely expensive and private sector investment has been focused on small scale R&D, and seems unable to commit the resources needed for larger scale facilities needed to grow the industry. There is a clear need for government support to allow this industry to take off. (GR203) There are two Fermentation startups in Canada, and there is no government support or long term planning for this industry at present. (GR206) Canadian Farmers make on average 11% net profit - which seems to convert to approximately $150 per hectare per year. (GR207) Total subsidies provided to farmers seems to be slightly more than their net profit, historically being around 14% of gross income. (GR68) Currently most of Canada's subsidies support dairy, egg and poultry farmers. Canadian Farmers effectively depend on subsidies to earn a living, so redirecting these subsidies toward more sustainable food production methods such as fermentation produced protein would be extremely controversial. However as on average farmers profits appear to equal subsidies, it seems that farmers could be incentivised to leave land alone to rewild without the Canadian government needing to increase spending. Such policies could be voluntary initially, with the economic incentive to rewild becoming stronger as Industries like fermentation protein prove more cost effective when scaled than traditional agriculture.

Perennial crops are not mentioned in the ERR (excluding as a farming best management practice which Prince Edward Island are looking to encourage), there is no federal policy to aid crop breeding. (NRR37) There has been some increase in perennial crops relative to annual crops which has resulted in some emissions reduction, though the precise amount relating to perennial crops is not specified. (GR144) Is an article highlighting that perennial wheat could be commercially viable for the prairies in 10 - 15 years. I believe perennial crops could be one of the most important solutions to climate change, as they offer the possibility of efficient agriculture without damaging the soil by frequent ploughing and therefore also necessitating the need for intensive fertilizer use and all of its environmental pollution. Currently perennial crop breeding and research is carried out by a handful of academic institutes around the world and does not seem to have received the major funding that it should. This area is extremely important and highly neglected by Canada.

(GR156) About half of all food produced in Canada is lost or wasted. (GR158) In the US (figures seemed similar between Canada and the US from my research, but this US source provided much more detail) consumers are the largest wasters of food, followed by supermarkets and restaurants. (GR157) Highlights some of the actions governments can take, with France banning supermarkets from wasting food and forcing them to sign agreements with food banks and charities. There are no serious policies on food waste in the ERR. Canada has launched a 'food waste reduction' challenge, offering $20 million over five years to help support companies with innovative food waste reduction ideas. Food waste is endemic at all levels of the supply chain and is deeply embedded in cultural behaviour of people. Serious action on this would involve tough regulation on supermarkets and restaurants, along with a long term government advertising campaign educating people about the seriousness of food waste (similar in scale to anti-smoking campaigns). Canada has taken no serious steps to addressing food waste.

The small holder intensification described by DD seems to be a holistic agroecology farming approach, or what might also be described as a mixed farming practice. There is no mention of support (either policy or financial) for such a system in the ERR. Because agroecology encompases so many different aspects of farming it seems nearly impossible to estimate its current adoption. Organic farming is a first step toward an agroecology system, but would not qualify in it's own right. (GR174) 1.9% of farms in Canada were certified organic in 2016, though it is estimated that three time this number are using organic practices. Given the extreme complexity of agroecology compared to modern farming techniques, I would guess adoption is well below 1% of Canadian farming. In many ways agroecology is a vital test pilot for a variety of more complex mixed farming approaches for which the knowledge has potentially been lost by modern farmers. There should be support for this solely on the ground of sustainable farming research.

Efficient irrigation only mentioned in ERR as something the Canadian government will continue to encourage. (GR88) 90% of irrigated land in Canada already uses efficient irrigation techniques. (GR89) groundwater tables in Canada seem stable. (GR90) Agriculture increased it's water usage by 74% between 2012 and 2018, coinciding with increased use of efficient irrigation. It is unclear why this occurred though much appears to be due to more frequent droughts. There are also known examples of more efficient irrigation increasing water consumption as farmers crops become more cost competitive and so farming intensity is increased. (GR91) while agriculture only accounts for 9% of total water use it is mostly 'lost', i.e. not returned to the river as in geothermal energy production. This means it is a major source of lost water - (GR92 & GR93) highlight the issues with growing forage crops for livestock (which are more water intensive than vegetables). British Columbia and Alberta account for 90% of water used for irrigation in Canada, and as (GR92) shows most of this was for forage crops.

No meaningful mention of manure management policy or funding in ERR. The 'Agricultural Clean Technology Program' will 50% fund projects such as improved manure management - it has a budget of $329 million over the next six years. (NRR33) Manure management accounted for 7.8 Mt of Co2e emissions in 2020. (NRR34) 14% of Canadian livestock farms used a liquid manure management system (as opposed to dry) in 2001. DD's own analysis of this shows that there is no real economic incentive for farmers to adopt improved manure management practices, so it seems unlikely that they will see significant uptake in use in Canada even with some grant support available. It is arguable that rather than grant support (which can effectively act as a subsidy for livestock farming) there should be legislation to enforce better manure practices so that livestock farming factors in the costs of the externalities of environmental damage caused by keeping livestock. It seems such a measure would be unlikely to happen currently given the huge amount of subsidies provided to livestock farmers.

Agroforestry is only mentioned in the ERR as a possible agricultural best practice management technique which can be adopted. There does not seem to be any funding specifically supporting multi-strata or similar agroforestry projects in Canada. (GR132) highlights that agroforestry techniques have low adoption in Canada (I couldn't find any hard numbers), and that certain crops like Maple syrup production would be well suited to multistrata-agroforestry. However most of Canada's crops are grown in the prairies, an area of land which is traditionally too dry to naturally support trees. It seems that agroforestry is greatly limited in the Canadian context as a result of the arid environment of the prairies. However agroforestry could be highly effective in the coastal regions of BC and Quebec. (GR133) Quebec offers very limited support, (GR134) BC has an agroforestry specialist, unclear what funding support it offers.

(GR136) Canada has set a target of a 30% reduction in fertilizer use by 2030. 'Agricultural Climate Solutions – On-Farm Climate Action Fund' has a $470 million budget over the next six years, and nitrogen management appears to be a top priority. (NR36) Organic and inorganic fertilizers accounted for 12.5 Mt of Co2e emissions in 2020.(GR137) The 2014 charts show that Canada produces excess nitrogen to the scale of 25.61 kg per ha. In 2014 it accounted for 1.2% of the world's excess nitrogen application. Canada seems to be better than average when compared to other wealthier nations when it comes to over using fertilizer. As DD point out this a management practice that requires education and ideally legislation. (GR138) Highlights the strong cultural backlash from farming against reducing fertilizer use. Although Canada has set a reasonable target and provided funding for education, the lack of enforceable legislation to go with it makes it very uncertain whether any improvement will occur.

There is no mention of plant rich diets as a solution to climate change in the ERR. (GR145) The average amount of meat eaten per person has fallen by 8% from 1998 to 2020 in Canada (from 159.99 pounds to 147.25). Hitting project draw downs definition of plant rich diet will require 50%(Scenario 1) or 75% (Scenario 2) of Canadians to eat 46 pounds or less of meat per year. This would be an enormous cultural change, (GR146) 8.5% of Canadians were vegan or vegetarian in 2018. It's important to remember that Canada heavily subsidises meat and animal based products, (GR68) claims that the majority of the annual average of $8 - $10 billion spent supporting farming goes to livestock farmers. Effectively the Canadian government continues to actively support meat heavy diets and has no proposed plans to change this.

As per multisrata agroforestry above, silvopasture is not suitable for the Canadian prairies which make up the majority of Canada's agricultural land. (GR166) The prairies make up more than 80% of Canada's farmland. (GR167) Silvopasture may be applicable in other provinces like BC, Ontario and Quebec, but currently adoption is extremely limited to a handful of trials and there do not appear to be enough operating farms in Canada to build up a broad understanding of how best to adopt silvopasture in the Canadian context. There is no government funding or significant organised government support to develop silvopasture.

Canada has many heavy industries such as mining, logging, chemical production, cement production and steel/iron manufacture. Many of these are some of the most difficult areas to decarbonise. The federal government's largest funding commitment by far is the 'Net Zero Accelerator' fund, which has $8 billion to deploy over seven years. Two major electrification projects in steel production are likely to eliminate 6 Mt of emissions, while there are some promising developments that aluminium production could be made net zero due to technological breakthrough (however the speed of change for large manufacturing plants can be extremely slow, so this may take decades to become prevalent). However despite the large funding on offer, it is unclear how other major emissions sources will decarbonise. (GR196) Chemical manufacture releases greenhouse gases as a result of chemical reactions, so they cannot be decarbonised by further electrification. 'Green' cement has seen low adoption in Canada and still has significant emissions, and the government has no clear policies on how mining will reduce it emissions or environmental impacts. There is strong evidence that emissions from logging are systematically underestimated by 80 Mt Co2e per year due to deliberately misleading carbon accounting choices. In summary overall emissions are hugely underestimated at present. There appear to be some likely emissions reductions, such as from steel production, though this would be capped at current steel emissions of 16 Mt Co2e (GR194). Other forms of heavy industry are either still searching for a scalable way to decarbonise, or continuing as normal.

(GR215) Canada's boreal forest stores on average twice as much carbon as tropical forest. (GR216) Estimates that Canada has 413 million hectares of relatively untouched boreal forest.(NRR27) Natural Resources Canada claims to have one of the lowest rates of deforestation in the world at 0.02%, with carbon offsets sinks (tree growth) close to offsetting carbon emissions from logging. (GR213) A detailed report from the organisation Environment Defence highlights that Canada is using very misleading accounting policies when estimating it's net emissions from logging, and that the actual amount of emissions is likely at least 80 MT Co2e greater than currently reported. This is because Canada is excluding emissions from wildfires and insect attacks on old growth primary forests, while including the parts of these forests which are acting as carbon sinks. There are other major issues with how carbon emissions are counted, all with a bias toward under reporting emissions. It seems that old growth boreal is in severe danger of being logged and that new growth forests will take centuries to recover and offset the emissions caused by logging old growth.

The Canadian Government's largest investment in climate change by far, the 'Net Zero Accelerator' fund commits $8 billion over seven years to major infrastructure projects which will decarbonize heavy industry. (GR195) To date investments of $820 million by the federal government are converting two major steel plants to electric arc furnaces, likely to reduce annual emissions from steel production by 6 Mt.

Emissions Reduction report P220, cement is estimated to reduce emissions from 14 (2019) to 8 MT (2030). (NRR13) 90% of cement is Portland, implies very low uptake of 'green cement' so far. (GR54) Almost no electrification of cement assumed in model, so reduction must be entirely based on demand for green cement. (GR55) DD estimate that 31% of cement made in 2018 globally was alternative (i.e. had a lower clinker ratio due to using fly ash, slag and calcined clays.

Biochar basically not mentioned in Emissions Reduction 2030 Report, despite Canada having a huge logging industry and this being potentially relevant. (NRR4) wood residues primarily from sawmills and paper mills accounted for 3Mt of emissions in 2019. (NRR16) Harvest residue currently left to rot or is burned. Mt of Co2e from intentional logging is 170 Mt per year. (GR60) 16%-29% of all of that 170Mt emissions could be residual left to rot or burn. Report does mention Biomass in relation to Harvest Residue and is open to 'proposal for biomass supply chain projects' through the clean fuels fund.

Canada has a 'Zero Plastic Waste' program that offers small grants (up to $250k) to charities and local governments looking to implement innovative plastic reduction ideas.Canada has now introduced a single use plastics ban for specific items, but the list of banned items is woefully short and can hardly be considered a serious attempt at reducing plastic consumption. The federal government is committed to introducing laws requiring 'certain' plastic products to be 50% recycled material by 2030. The effectiveness of this plastic reduction approach entirely depends on which plastic products end up covered by the legislation. Overall Canada's policies on plastics remain high level statements for the future, with no strong legislation in place. In summary rhetoric is strong but serious action has not yet been seen,

There are no hard financial or policy commitments in the ERR in relation to recycling. Waste management is a provincial or municipal responsibility. In 2019 emissions from landfills accounted for 23 Mt of Co2e. (GR150) Currently Canada only manages to recycle 9% of it's plastic. (GR154) Canada has been extremely dependent on exporting it's plastics overseas, it exported 41% of its total recyclable material in 2016, of which low value plastics was a major component. The Asian countries which have traditionally taken Canada's excess waste have introduced laws to limit what they will accept, meaning that in the last few years Canada has been forced to try and process far more recycling on it's own soil. (GR154) Highlights how this influx of raw material has created an oversupply of recycled plastics, causing the price to collapse. Recycling facilities normally run at a loss but are now heavily loss making for the provinces and municipalities that have to deal with revenue shortfall. With no federal level policies or funding support it seems unlikely that Canada will be able to improve significantly on the amount of plastic that it recycles. DD's solutions would require plastic recycling to reach 25% to 57%, which would presumably require a major infrastructure investment as well as long term operating cost commitments paid for by the Federal government.

There are no hard financial or policy commitments in the ERR in relation to recycling. Waste management is a provincial or municipal responsibility. In 2019 emissions from landfills accounted for 23 Mt of Co2e. However as metals do not break down they are not directly responsible for any emissions, rather it is the damage caused by mining for new metals that causes emissions and environmental damage. (GR151) The total amount of metal recycled has only increased 2.5% between 2002 and 2018. (GR153) It is legal in Canada to send metals overseas for recycling, a policy which is considered controversial. (GR154) Highlights how traditionally Canada has sent nearly half of it's recycled materials abroad. Recycling in Canada appears to be in a crisis since foreign nations tightened their own regulations with regards to accepting waste from overseas. There are not enough recycling facilities in Canada, market prices for recycled materials make it an extremely heavy loss making industry for municipalities to bear and there is no meaningful federal policy or funding support to change this situation.

There are no hard financial or policy commitments in the ERR in relation to recycling. Waste management is a provincial or municipal responsibility. In 2019 emissions from landfills accounted for 23 Mt of Co2e. (GR155) Canada currently recycles about 70% of it's paper and cardboard. This is very near to DD's modeled upper limit of 75% adoption rate. (GR154) However Canada traditionally relies on exporting a large amount (41% in 2016) of it's recycled materials to poorer countries for processing. Paper had been a major export historically and now that Canada has to process more paper on it's own soil (as poorer nations refuse to take Canada's excess waste), there appear to be problems when dealing with lower grade qualities of paper and cardboard boxes (i.e. pizza boxes), meaning that the recycled rate may well go down rather than up. As for metal recycling, there is no federal plan or financial support for recycling, and as it has become heavily loss making to do, municipalities and provinces are struggling to deal with the escalating costs.

Canada is one of the world's largest oil and gas producers. Methane leaks which occur during extraction and transport account for 54 Mt of the total 191 Mt of emissions. The Canadian governments main policies for reducing emissions seem extremely weak. Their methane emissions legislation (aimed at reducing leaks) has no mandatory penalties, and the carbon tax,'Output Based Production System' (aimed at reducing emissions from refining and production processes) sets a low emissions reduction target and then returns 80%-90% of the tax back to the oil and gas industry to protect its competitiveness. In addition Canada is forecasting significant rises in oil exports, meaning that this areas overall emissions are likely to rise. The Canadian government also openly admits that current estimates of emissions from leaks are likely too low, and the best estimates I could find estimated that actual leaks could be 50%-100% greater. In summary this is a huge area of emissions, likely underestimated and forecast to increase its production volume - and there are no serious policies to change the status quo.

Canada's emissions from transport are currently significantly underestimated as it does not include emissions from international air travel and international shipping. Even so the majority of Canada's emissions come from passenger vehicles (87.5 Mt) and heavy goods vehicles (65 Mt). (GR199) Interestingly Canadian's have the highest emitting vehicles per km driven in the world, emitting twice as much as most european countries. This appears to be driven by the trend of truck ownership and implies huge reductions could be made by more stringent emissions taxation. Supporting sales of electric passenger vehicles is Canada's core policy for dealing with transport emissions. This is one of the few climate change areas receiving adequate funding, however the Canadian government's failure to expand its electrical generating capacity could quickly cause issues and prevent the uptake of EV vehicles at scale. Support for alternative fuels for heavy goods vehicles is poor, with no large electric or hydrogen trucks operating in Canada - mainly because no fuel stations exists. There does not appear to be a plan to build fueling and charging stations nationwide for trucks, so there seems no prospect of these technologies gaining mainstream traction. Public transport is woefully underfunded and municipalities struggle to deal with the operating losses that it generates. Ambitious projects such as high speed rail links between cities do not seem to justify the cost of building, especially if people do not consider the intra-city public transport adequate. Areas such as air travel and shipping remain extremely difficult to make even small emissions reductions. In summary Canada will likely continue to see growth in electric passenger vehicles, but uptake will surely be much slower than forecast due to supply issues and later on a lack of electrical grid capacity.

Passenger vehicles currently represent 87.5 Mt of Co2e in Canada, which is 12% of total emissions. In the Emissions Reduction Report Canada has stated its intention to issue a mandate to make all new light- duty vehicle sales be zero-emission by 2035. It is unclear if this is even possible due to supply side issues, (GR84) highlights the short term issues, while (GR83) gives evidence to support the claim that we've demonstrated that most of the resource constraints on EV batteries can be solved. Canada has a purchase incentive scheme of $1.7B over the next 3 years to encourage electric vehicle purchase with a $5,000 grant. This seems appropriate to subsidise EV sales at 2021 rates for the next three years plus growth. Canada also have a zero emissions vehicle infrastructure fund of $0.4B over the next 5 years aiming to build 50,000 charging point in non-urban and remote areas. There are c.12k gas stations in canada (GR81) with multiple pumps, so this seems like a major infrastructure investment given the current amount of EV's on the road. In summary, Canada is in no way assured of hitting it's EV sales targets due to supply issues, however it has taken strong steps in terms of legislation and funding to make this happen. (GR51) also highlights that Canada's combustion engine vehicles are highly fuel inefficient compared to other countries, largely due to aligning fuel efficiency standards with the US and due to a major cultural shift to owning small trucks rather than cars (which are extremely heavy and therefore less fuel efficient).

Only mention of trucking improvement in ERR is that (GR76) Canada aims to electrify 35% of its medium and heavy duty trucking by 2035. (GR77) Heavy duty trucks emitted 65 Mt Co2e in 2019. (GR80) there are 1.1 million heavy duty trucks in Canada. (GR78 and GR80) almost none of them are electric yet.(GR79) Heavy duty electric trucks likely cost two or three times more than their gas counterpart. BC and Quebec offer grants that potentially cover this price differential. The Canadian Government has introduced the 'Purchase incentive program for medium- and heavy-duty ZEVs' with funding of $548 million. However this likely only covers the additional EV price for 3,300 trucks. Canada is also investing $400 million in suburban and remote EV charging infrastructure, but this includes passenger vehicle charging stations and heavy duty infrastructure. Passenger vehicle infrastructure has traditionally received the lion's share of infrastructure investment, and (GR82) indicates just one heavy duty vehicle charger could cost $100k to install. (GR81) there are 12,000 gas stations in Canada (all with multiple pumps), so the proposed funding could build at most 4,000 single charging points, but assuming that only 10% of this goes to fast chargers, the number would be more like 400 charging stations across all of Canada. It is also logical that the number of heavy duty stations built will be even lower than this seeing as there is effectively no demand at the moment. Hydrogen trucking has received just $34m of development funding, though it to would suffer from the same lack of fuel stations. In summary it seems extremely unlikely that Canadian heavy-duty trucking will move away from gas despite this being their stated plan (though this might be achievable for medium duty trucks based more within cities).

Public transport is not mentioned in ERR in a meaningful way. Emissions from private vehicles were 87.5 Mt of Co2e in 2019. (GR147) According to the 2016 census, in metropolitan areas of Canada, 16.3% of people used public transport as their main method of getting to work. Public transport is a provincial issue, however provinces usually require federal support for large infrastructure projects. (GR148) Highlights the issues experienced in Canadian cities, particularly because revenues from fares only reach one or two thirds of expenditure on public transit systems as a rule of thumb. Canada has an extremely strong car culture, with car ownership rates the fifth highest in the world (GR61). For public transport to succeed in Canada it would need both major infrastructure projects costing into the tens of billions (GR102) and far greater funding for covering yearly operating shortfalls. (GR149) In the 2022 budget the federal government committed $750 million to operating costs of public transport for the first time. However this only covers two months worth of operating costs shortfall for provinces and municipalities across Canada. Canada seems unlikely to make significant increases to it's public transport adoption rate without long-term and committed federal investment toward infrastructure and operating costs. There seems very little prospect of this occurring in the current car centric culture combined with a belief in the essential need for balanced budgets.

(GR86) Canada has an incredibly efficient rail freight systems which moved 70% of it's surface freight while accounting for just 7 Mt of Co2e emissions, despite most of their locomotives not being electrified. Rail received no meaningful mention in Canada's Emission Reduction Report, but this perhaps misses the huge opportunity to expand the rail network so that it could take more freight away from heavy duty trucks which are high emitting, (GR85) article argues for this. Heavy duty trucks account for 65 Mt of Co2e emissions per year.

Canada does not mention shipping except to say that it is working with the International Maritime Association (IMO) to implement the latest short term mandatory GHG reduction measures. (GR74) Highlights that these are extremely weak, basically just an energy efficient grading system for ships. (GR75) IMO is considering a $100 per tonne carbon tax as a midterm solution. Shipping industry seems unanimously opposed to mandatory slow steaming and is lobbying heavily for a carbon tax instead (due to the lack of flexibility offered by slow steaming and the fact they will need to own more ships). A carbon tax encourages a more rapid move away from heavy fuel (highly polluting) and encourages efficiency gains through technology, though these will likely be tough to make given that shipping is likely already very optimised. Shipping is a very difficult area to decarbonise - Canada could possibly become a leading lobbying voice for slow steaming at the IMO as it would be a significant carbon saving.

No mention of car pooling in Emissions Reduction Report. (GR63) 15% of Canadians carpool to work. (GR64) CAA report implies that very little headway has been made in increasing this number despite significant efforts. With no clear government policy to incentivise Car Pooling it seems unlikely to me to create further emissions reductions in Canada.

No mention of high speed rail in ERR. (GR102) There are currently no high speed rail systems in Canada. Projects vary in cost depending on their length, but most seem to be in the $10's of billion. Cost seems to be extremely prohibitive. It is most likely to replace some domestic air travel which accounts for 8.3 Mt of Co2e per year. (GR103) Transport is a state issue if it is intra-provincial, or federal if inter-provincial. In practice it seems that very close collaboration between all levels of government is required. The issue seems to be that only the federal government can realistically fund such large infrastructure projects, which as DD note in their own analysis do not result in a positive financial saving. Additionally the strong 'car culture' in Canada makes this a hard sell to the public. In summary high speed rail could be an important solution for Canada, but it seems highly intractable due to its cost, issues with public transport within cities, and a general car focused culture making this a hard political sell.

DD assume that bike infrastructure will reduce road building for cars and so save money, I'm not convinced this is sound logic. Canada has the Active Transport fund of $400M over 5 years. (GR 59) Canada's cycle to work rate looks to be similar to the global average in DD's estimates. Seems plausible but uncertain that it could achieve a 5-6% rate of all kilometres travelled being cycled. No specific mention of cycling in Emissions Reduction Report so unclear how many Mt the Canadian Government hopes would be reduced by increased cycling.

See comments under Bicycle Infrastructure - seems plausible that Canada could achieve the global average reduction estimated by DD.

No mention of increased video-calls in the ERR. This DD solution is very difficult to quantify post Covid-19 (writing in August 2022). (GR175) Globally business flights booked with Amex Business cards seem to be about 50 - 60 % of their pre pandemic level. Although DD only models emissions from aviation, there has also been a clear shift toward more regular home working post pandemic. Although Canada has no policies in place to encourage home working and telepresence, it seems that the current cultural trend caused by covid makes DD's target of a 21 - 29% reduction in business flights seem plausible.

Waste management in Canada appears to be in a state of disarray currently. Actual recycling rates of materials such as plastic are just 9%, and the lack of demand for low grade recycled material has made recycling much of Canada's waste cost prohibitive for underfunded municipalities. A quarter of landfill material is organic which leads to unnecessarily high methane levels at landfills, and landfill methane capture legislation is too weak, as it fails to capture emissions from large open dumps which are no longer active. The core underlying issue seems to be that waste management is a provincial or municipal issue, and these governments do not have the budget to adequately fund the running costs of a loss making activity provided for the public good. In summary the largest single action that could be taken is the introduction of much stronger methane capture laws at landfills, including landfill sites which are now closed. Outwith of this legislation, other improvements to waste management practices seem unlikely given the lack of funding at provincial and municipal governments.

Solid waste landfills accounted for 23 Mt of Co2e emissions in 2019, mostly in the form of methane. (GR115) Waste management is a provincial issue. Of Canada's 3,000 landfills 270 of the largest account for 85% of emissions. If the landfill is open and large in scale then it seems they generally capture methane. (GR116) There were 112 gas recovery systems operating across landfills, meaning that over half of the 270 larger landfills had no recovery. (GR117) the main issues seems to be that methane recovery legislation does not apply to closed landfills. (GR116) Canada captures about a third of the methane that it's landfills currently generate. Between the 1990's and 2011 Canada improved at capturing landfill emissions but has since stagnated, which ties in with the fact that there is no legislation for closed landfills, and that methane capture becomes less economical for small landfills. At an estimated $50 per tonne to capture Co2e from landfills it is cost effective, but it seems unlikely to make further improvements without stronger legislations (nothing has yet been announced). Landfill methane capture is being added as a valid carbon offset program which may make it a viable investment, but there have been strong criticisms of the actual effectiveness of most carbon offsets (from organisations like Giving Green), which make me believe that stronger legislation is essential in this circumstance.

(GR66) Composting and biological treatment of solid waste currently account for 1.5% of waste related emissions (0.4 Mt). However landfill accounts for 83% of waste emissions and a quarter of this is organic material. Rough estimate that (23 Mt x 0.25) 5.75 Mt of landfill emissions could be composted (which would roughly half the Co2e emissions according to DD - so a 2.75 Mt Co2e saving). No clear actions described in Emissions reduction report for composting. However Landfill waste flaring is an area where legislation may be strengthened, so if this were to happen (uncertain) then this might mitigate the need for composting from a Co2e emissions perspective.

Not mentioned in a meaningful way in the ERR. (GR126) "Canada now has 279 biogas projects from coast to coast that are capturing methane from agricultural and community waste and turning it into 196 MW of clean electricity and 6 million GJ of Renewable Natural Gas (RNG)." - the vast majority of this appears to be at landfill sites, the benefits of which are covered under the landfill methane capture solution. Outside of landfills there does not appear to be any legislation to require methane digesters at wastewater treatment facilities as this is an advanced level of treatment. (NR35) highlights the fact that electricity generating capacity in Canada is only forecast to increase fractionally, and so viable energy generating projects should be considered seriously, including biogas. Per DD's own numbers it doesn't present an attractive economic case compared to other energy sources, so in the absence of legislation requiring it (such as for landfills), it seems unlikely to grow as an energy source in Canada.