COP27: Canada has made ‘tremendous progress’ on emissions, says Guilbeault

Canada’s carbon dioxide emissions crept back up in 2021 after falling sharply during the first year of COVID-19, and experts believe they will go up even further this year as the return to normal has accelerated.

The European Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research shows Canada’s carbon dioxide emissions grew three per cent in 2021 after falling nearly 10 per cent in 2020.

That is on track with the worldwide trend reported at the United Nations climate talks in Egypt today by the Global Carbon Project. Its annual carbon budget says emissions in 2021 returned to 2019 levels, and they are expected to grow one per cent this year compared to 2019.

It said that by the end of this year, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will be 51 per cent higher than in pre-industrial times, and the budget for climate success is getting ever smaller.

Still, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said he is feeling more optimistic than ever that Canada and the rest of the world may be able to live up to the Paris climate agreement.

That target is to keep global warming to as close to 1.5 C as possible. Above 1.5 C, the effects of climate change grow exponentially, and after 2 C, some of the change could be irreversible.

“We’ve made tremendous progress,” Guilbeault said from Egypt, where he is attending the COP27 climate conference.

“If you would have asked me that question seven or eight years ago, the projections were that we were heading into a world where warming would be anywhere between four to six degrees Celsius. After Paris, the assessment was that we were heading into a world where temperature increases would be in the order of 2.8 degrees Celsius.”

Full details here via globalnews