TORONTO – Forget about carbon taxes, electric cars, and “environmental policies” à la Justin Trudeau: Canada remains one of the world’s largest polluters as a fossil fuel producer and, along with other countries, is thwarting the world’s chances of achieving key climate change targets.

That’s what emerges from the annual “Production Gap Report” (downloadable here) produced by three nonprofit climate research organizations. “The continued collective failure of governments to curb fossil fuel production and lower global emissions means that future production will need to decline more steeply to compensate” read the Production Gap Report produced by three climate research non-profits. “These deeper reductions will be harder and more expensive to achieve, as the result of further lock-in of fossil fuel infrastructure added in the 2020s, and the increased pace of reductions required from now on…”.

Of the twenty major fossil fuel-producing countries covered in the report, Canada’s projected increase in oil production by 2030, compared to 2023 levels, is among the largest in the world. Not only that. Canada ranks among the top four oil producers (with approximately 6.5% of the global total), behind only the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Russia and ahead of China; among the top four gas producers (with 4.9% of the global total), behind the United States, Russia, and China; and eleventh in coal production (with 0.6% of the global total). Furthermore, Canada’s contribution to fossil fuel production is likely underestimated in the report, as it is based on energy forecasts starting in 2023, before the government greenlit several new liquefied natural gas projects, as explained by Nichole Dusyk, senior policy advisor at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, who co-authored the report.

Furthermore, the expansion of Canadian oil and gas production comes at a time when Canada is rolling back key climate policies, Dusyk said. Prime Minister Mark Carney has repealed the carbon tax for private citizens and suspended the requirement to sell electric vehicles, a complete departure from the Trudeau-line, which has proven unsuccessful given the slump in electric car sales and the uselessness of the private carbon tax in achieving emissions reduction targets. Carney himself has been evasive about the emissions targets required by law for 2030 and 2035, although the government claims it is still focused on achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. Moreover, Alberta and oil industry groups have harshly criticized the Liberal government’s environmental policies, calling them an obstacle to growth, and have called for their repeal.

Looking at total production (oil, gas, and coal) and their impact on GHG (Greenhouse Gas) emissions that cause the global warming, it emerges that in 2022 Canada was among the top ten countries, accounting for 76% of the global total (the top thirty-five accounted for 95%). Fortunately, the report is focused on industrial emissions and it doesn’t consider the emissions (smoke) caused each summer by the devastating wildfires that ravage the entire country: including it, Canada would likely jump to the top three among China, United States and Russia.

The pic above and the video below are from the report “Production Gap 2025”