Is Canada on track for its climate commitments — and would the record show it?
Climate targets are among the most legislated numeric promises of the era. Whether a country is on pace against them is only half the question -- whether the accounting itself is built to show a reader the answer honestly is the other, under-asked half.
Canada's interim climate objective is the platform's first registered target that resolves inside its own operating life, a genuine two-issuer disagreement over the projected emissions gap is on the record, and a basis-mismatch finding between two accounting methods is a published, named absence rather than a footnote.
The current reading
This is the question's first dated Pulse; there is no prior reading to compare against.
The best current reading: Canada has delivered roughly a quarter to a third of the reduction its 2030 target requires, depending on which official accounting basis is read -- roughly a third on the accounting basis the target is actually measured against, roughly a quarter on the newest reported inventory year, at either published endpoint of the target's own range. Closing the rest would take a sustained pace several times faster than anything the delivered record has shown since the base year, and the government's own most complete current projection for 2030 still lands above the target band.
Basis: An exact accounting bridge over official published series, on the exact basis the target is assessed against, re-checked automatically against archived source bytes; the delivered-share and pace figures are stated at both endpoints of the target's own published range, never a single-number midpoint.
- The 2005 base and the latest target-accounting-basis observed year (2023), and the delivered share and required pace each imply, computed by the Brief's disclosed formula.
- The government's own current With Additional Measures 2030 projection, restated against the target band.
- The newest reported inventory year on the separate gross-inventory basis (2024), shown alongside rather than blended with the target-accounting reading.
Next: The next annual greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions projections report together with the accounting-basis update, expected around December 2026. Trigger: A one-percentage-point or greater move in the delivered share on either basis, a five-megatonne or greater move in the government's 2030 projection, or any change to the target's own published wording.
Limit: Emissions are reported well over a year in arrears on every basis; the LULUCF accounting contribution behind the target-accounting basis is volatile enough on its own (roughly a 48-megatonne swing between 2022 and 2023) to move this reading independent of any change in combustion emissions. Expiry: Expires at the next projections/accounting-basis update or the next National Inventory Report, whichever arrives first; updated or explicitly re-affirmed then.
The Brief behind this reading → · See the Receipt — sources, method and limits →
What the record shows
National GHG emissions, target accounting basis, annual: all-time low (655 in 2023)
The latest value of national ghg emissions, target accounting basis, annual (655, 2023) is the lowest in the series history since 2005 (19 years of data). A record marks where the series sits in its own history; it carries no causal claim.
Technical details
GHG emissions, oil and gas extraction, physical flow account, annual: 10-year low (182 in 2023)
The latest value of ghg emissions, oil and gas extraction, physical flow account, annual (182, 2023) is the lowest in the last 10 year (15 years of data). A record marks where the series sits in its own history; it carries no causal claim.
Technical details
Canada's emissions were 13.7% below 2005 in 2023, short of the 17.1% a straight line to the interim objective would require by then
Environment and Climate Change Canada reports national emissions of 655 Mt CO2e in 2023 against 759 Mt in 2005 — a reduction of 13.7%. The interim objective is 20% below 2005 by 2026. On a linear glidepath from the 2005 base to that endpoint, 2023 would sit 17.1% below 2005; the observed reduction is short of that line. The glidepath is Countability's measurement convention — the Government stated an endpoint, not a path, and its own 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan sets out a non-linear pathway this claim does not restate. Emissions are reported roughly fifteen to eighteen months in arrears, so 2023 is the most recent observed year and nothing later has been measured (a published evidence gap records this reporting lag). Measured on the accounting basis the target itself is stated against; Statistics Canada's physical flow account reports 731.3 Mt for the same year on a different basis, and the two are never blended; a published evidence gap names the two bases.
Technical details
Canada's emissions were 13.7% below 2005 in 2023, short of the 28.8% a straight line to the legislated 2030 target would require by then
Environment and Climate Change Canada reports national emissions of 655 Mt CO2e in 2023 against 759 Mt in 2005 — a reduction of 13.7%. The legislated 2030 target is 40% below 2005 by 2030. On a linear glidepath from the 2005 base to that endpoint, 2023 would sit 28.8% below 2005; the observed reduction is short of that line. The glidepath is Countability's measurement convention — the Government stated an endpoint, not a path, and its own 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan sets out a non-linear pathway this claim does not restate. Emissions are reported roughly fifteen to eighteen months in arrears, so 2023 is the most recent observed year and nothing later has been measured (a published evidence gap records this reporting lag). Measured on the accounting basis the target itself is stated against; Statistics Canada's physical flow account reports 731.3 Mt for the same year on a different basis, and the two are never blended; a published evidence gap names the two bases.
Technical details
Canada's emissions were 13.7% below 2005 in 2023, short of the 27.0% a straight line to the 2035 target would require by then
Environment and Climate Change Canada reports national emissions of 655 Mt CO2e in 2023 against 759 Mt in 2005 — a reduction of 13.7%. The 2035 target is 45% below 2005 by 2035. On a linear glidepath from the 2005 base to that endpoint, 2023 would sit 27.0% below 2005; the observed reduction is short of that line. The glidepath is Countability's measurement convention — the Government stated an endpoint, not a path, and its own 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan sets out a non-linear pathway this claim does not restate. Emissions are reported roughly fifteen to eighteen months in arrears, so 2023 is the most recent observed year and nothing later has been measured (a published evidence gap records this reporting lag). Measured on the accounting basis the target itself is stated against; Statistics Canada's physical flow account reports 731.3 Mt for the same year on a different basis, and the two are never blended; a published evidence gap names the two bases.
Technical details
Registered commitments
Reduce Canada's greenhouse gas emissions to 20% below 2005 levels by 2026
Issuer: Government of Canada (Environment and Climate Change Canada). Stated in Interim greenhouse gas emissions objective, announced March 2022; restated on ECCC's greenhouse gas emissions projections indicator page.
Latest observed: 13.7 (2023) against target 20.
Reduce Canada's greenhouse gas emissions to 40–45% below 2005 levels by 2030
Issuer: Government of Canada (Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act; 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan). Stated in Canada's Nationally Determined Contribution, July 2021; the 2030 target is the first milestone year under the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act (S.C. 2021, c. 22).
Latest observed: 13.7 (2023) against target 40.
Reduce Canada's greenhouse gas emissions to 45–50% below 2005 levels by 2035
Issuer: Government of Canada (Environment and Climate Change Canada). Stated in Canada's 2035 emissions reduction target, presented December 2024; restated on ECCC's greenhouse gas emissions projections indicator page.
Latest observed: 13.7 (2023) against target 45.
Achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050
Issuer: Government of Canada (Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act). Stated in Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, S.C. 2021, c. 22, assented to 2021-06-29.
Latest observed: — against target 0.
Institutional projections on file
Greenhouse gas emissions projections — Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators, 2025 vintage
The preceding annual vintage of the same ECCC projection, sourced to Canada's First Biennial Transparency Report under the Paris Agreement and the National Inventory Report 1990–2022. Retained, unedited, so the issuer's successive statements can be read against each other and against what was subsequently observed..
Greenhouse gas emissions projections — Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators, 2026 vintage
Environment and Climate Change Canada's own annual projection of national greenhouse gas emissions to 2035, on the accounting basis its targets are assessed against. Two scenarios, published side by side and never combined: 'With measures' includes policies funded, legislated and implemented by federal, provincial and territorial governments up to November 2025, plus the LULUCF accounting contribution; 'With additional measures' adds policies under development but not yet fully implemented, plus the projected effect of nature-based climate solutions and agriculture measures..
Estimating Canada's 2030 Emissions Gap (RP-2526-021-S)
The Parliamentary Budget Officer's independent estimate of the gap between Canada's projected 2030 greenhouse gas emissions and the target legislated under the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act. In the PBO's own words: 'we estimate Canada's 2030 emissions gap could range from 49 megatonnes (Mt) to 102 Mt. That is, projected emissions in 2030 could be 49 Mt to 102 Mt above the legislated target of 40-45 per cent below 2005 levels. This would leave Canada's emissions in 2030 at 33.5 per cent and 31.5 per cent, respectively, below 2005 levels.'.
Where institutions disagree
Where will Canada's greenhouse gas emissions land in 2030?
Environment and Climate Change Canada's own 2026-vintage projection. The 'with measures' scenario — policies funded, legislated and implemented up to November 2025, plus the LULUCF accounting contribution — puts 2030 emissions at 600 Mt. Its 'with additional measures' scenario, adding policies under development plus nature-based climate solutions, puts them at 546 Mt. ECCC publishes levels in megatonnes and does not state a percentage reduction from 2005 for these scenarios. → source
The Parliamentary Budget Officer's independent estimate, published 26 November 2025: the 2030 emissions gap 'could range from 49 megatonnes (Mt) to 102 Mt' above the legislated 40–45%-below-2005 target, which 'would leave Canada's emissions in 2030 at 33.5 per cent and 31.5 per cent, respectively, below 2005 levels.' The PBO publishes a gap in megatonnes and a percentage reduction; it does not publish a 2030 emissions level in megatonnes, nor its own 2005 baseline, in the report's highlights. → source
Magnitude: Not reducible to a single spread, and stating that is the finding. The two issuers publish the same quantity in different units: ECCC in megatonnes of projected 2030 emissions, the PBO as a percentage reduction from 2005 and a gap in megatonnes above the target. Converting either into the other's units requires a 2005 baseline that the PBO does not publish in its highlights and that ECCC revises between vintages (759 Mt in the 2026 vintage, 761 Mt in the 2025 one). Countability does not perform that conversion.
Why they differ: Each issuer states its own method. ECCC projects from its own bottom-up model, with scenarios defined by which policies are counted. The PBO describes its projection as built on ECCC's — 'the most recent emissions projection from Environment and Climate Change Canada, updated using current emissions data, along with ECCC-based estimates of the impacts of recent policy developments' — rather than as an independently constructed emissions model, and it incorporates three 2025 federal policy revisions it names: removal of the consumer carbon price, delayed implementation of the Electric Vehicle Availability Standard, and reconsideration of the oil and gas emissions cap. The PBO further states its estimates 'should be seen as approximate', that it does not account for interactions between those revisions, and that it excludes provincial and territorial policy revisions in the same period. The two vintages are close in time — ECCC's projection reflects policies to November 2025; the PBO reported on 26 November 2025 — but they are not the same object, and neither issuer has restated the other's figure.
What cannot yet be known
How many tonnes of greenhouse gas did Canada emit in 2023?
What is missing: Not a missing series — two official series, and no way to reconcile them. Canada publishes national greenhouse-gas emissions on two different accounting bases and they do not agree. Environment and Climate Change Canada reports 655 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent for 2023 on the basis its own targets are assessed against (National Inventory Report emissions excluding net LULUCF flux, plus the LULUCF accounting contribution). Statistics Canada's physical flow account for greenhouse gas emissions (table 38-10-0097-01) reports 731.3 megatonnes for the same year — a difference of 76.3 megatonnes, 11.6% of the ECCC figure. The two are built to answer different questions: the inventory allocates emissions to the territory of Canada under UNFCCC source categories; the physical flow account allocates them to resident Canadian industries and households under the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting, covers only carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, and excludes land use and waste. Neither is wrong. Neither substitutes for the other.
Consequence: Every emissions target Canada has legislated or announced is stated against the inventory basis, so only that basis can settle whether a target is met. The physical flow account is the only official series that breaks emissions out by province and by industry, so only that basis can say where the emissions arise. No published series does both. Countability measures targets against the inventory basis and reports provincial and industry detail on the physical flow basis, names which basis is in use in every claim, and never blends them or differences one against the other.
Are Canada's emissions falling fast enough this year?
What is missing: No official sub-annual greenhouse-gas emissions series exists for Canada, and the annual one arrives late. Emissions are reported once a year in the National Inventory Report, Canada's submission under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, roughly fifteen to eighteen months after the year it describes. As of July 2026 the most recent observed year is 2023.
Consequence: The interim objective falls due at the end of 2026 and the year it names cannot be observed until roughly 2028. Every statement about whether Canada is on track in the current year is therefore a statement about a projection, not an observation. Countability's pace verdicts are computed against the most recent observed year and say so; the gap between that year and today is stated on every claim rather than smoothed over. This is a structural feature of treaty-compliant inventory reporting, not a Canadian failing — the same lag applies to every Annex I party.
What trajectory would take Canada from its 2035 target to net-zero in 2050?
What is missing: No official projection of Canadian emissions extends beyond 2035. Environment and Climate Change Canada's own projections, published annually, reach 2035 in the current (2026) vintage; the preceding vintage reached 2040. Net-zero by 2050 is enshrined in the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, and the fifteen years between the end of the projection and the target year carry no published official path.
Consequence: The net-zero commitment is registered here with no compliance verdict. Any pace convention Countability could state over a twenty-four-year horizon with no official trajectory to compare against would be an invention of Countability's own, which is precisely what this platform does not do. The commitment is real, dated, and legislated; what is absent is anything official to measure it against between now and then.
How much electricity does any of Ontario's flagship new plants actually draw?
What is missing: No located public document states any plant's own operating demand. Ontario's connection record states what a station is assessed to supply -- 150 MW at the Windsor battery-plant station, 331.2 MW at the new St. Thomas station -- and no located document states that a plant is its station's only load, or what share of the station's assessed maximum the plant itself uses. The one public document that does state a St. Thomas plant utility quantity is the city's wastewater master plan, and that figure is the municipal planner's own assumption, not the company's statement.
Consequence: Public discussion routinely reads station connection quantities as plant demand. The two are different quantities, and the gap between them is not publicly measurable for any of the register's flagship projects. Any claim of the form 'plant X uses Y megawatts' sourced to a connection document is overstated by construction.
When two users share one published station capacity in Ontario, who holds how much of it?
What is missing: No located Ontario document publishes a per-user split of a shared station capacity. The clearest instance is on the record: Hydro One's Northwest Ontario Needs Assessment states Port Arthur TS #1's capacity (59 MW after refurbishment) and names the two parties it supplies -- Hydro One Distribution and Synergy North -- but its forecast table carries a single combined row, and neither party's share is published anywhere located.
Consequence: Where a shared capacity is approaching its bound, the public record can show that it binds but not whom it binds first. Allocation questions -- whose growth the constraint stops -- are unanswerable from the public record at station grain.
Why can none of Ontario's largest active connection applications be checked against an engineering document?
What is missing: Of the 67 large load applications in the register's population at the 2026-07-10 vintage, 47 carry no posted assessment report -- including all four active applications above 400 MW (707, 695, 550, and 453 MW as the register states them). Posting is a strong tendency, not a rule: some on-hold and withdrawn applications do carry posted reports, so no status explains the boundary. The issuer states unposted final reports are obtainable by email, by application ID.
Consequence: The register's largest live claims are exactly the ones whose stated sizes cannot be checked against any public engineering document. For the northern interface the record bounds at 700 MW, the assessment that would establish a second large claimant's share would be produced by the very process whose posting practice withholds it — and for a live application it may still be in progress. Either way, the join is not public.
What would Ring of Fire mining loads require of Ontario's northern grid?
What is missing: No public document states how much electricity Ring of Fire mining development would draw. A transmission line toward the area is now a designated provincial priority: on 2026-01-28 Hydro One announced that Ontario had designated it to build the Greenstone Transmission Line, a single-circuit 230 kV line from the existing East-West Tie near Nipigon Bay, through Longlac Transformer Station, to a new switching station at or near Aroland First Nation, expected in service in 2032 — in the announcement the province's energy minister described it as 'delivering the energy backbone and infrastructure to unlock the Ring of Fire's vast mineral potential'. That announcement states no megawatt figure for any Ring of Fire load, and neither does the transmitter's own current regional planning cycle: the Northwest Region Needs Assessment of 2025-09-03 and the Scoping Assessment of September 2025 do not name the Ring of Fire at all, while describing the region's demands — 'such as mining operation, data centers, forestry companies and large industrial manufacturers' — as 'distinctive, urgent and ever evolving'.
Consequence: A line is being built toward the deposit and the load it would serve has never been publicly quantified. Public discussion of Ring of Fire development therefore proceeds with a construction commitment and an in-service year but no published engineering statement of the requirement: no load figure, no delivery point for mine demand, no constraint assessment. Any megawatt figure attached to Ring of Fire mining load in commentary has no public engineering source. The gap is now sharper than an absence of interest — the interest is designated, funded and dated, and the quantity is still missing.
Which oil-sands projects ship on the Trans Mountain expansion -- and how much?
What is missing: The Canada Energy Regulator publishes the pipeline system's monthly available capacity, and producers publish company-level shipping commitments. No public record assigns any named project's incremental barrels to that corridor: the project-to-pipeline allocation is contractual and appears in no located public document. Company disclosures establish access and optionality, not project allocation.
Consequence: The public record can say the corridor's capacity and the companies committed to it, but not which production growth it carries. Claims of the form 'project X's barrels fill pipeline Y' are portfolio inference, not public record. A register of claims on this corridor's capacity cannot be built from public evidence at project grain.
How much load is actually forecast at the Ontario stations whose shared limit now governs a connection?
What is missing: The load forecast that drives a published shared-capacity requirement is not published. In the connection assessment for a Cambridge-area data centre, the system operator states that the applicant's updated forecast for three named stations is projected to exceed a stated 400 MW during the study period, and imposes a real-time switching requirement on that basis — while placing the forecast itself in a confidential appendix ("Table 1 of Appendix A (Confidential) shows the updated load forecast"). The assessments behind the finding are in a second confidential appendix. The threshold and the remedy are public; the quantity that crosses the threshold, and the year it crosses, are not.
Consequence: A reader can see that a shared limit is being reached and what the operator will do about it, but cannot see by how much, how soon, or how much of the growth belongs to which load. The same document shows why the distinction matters: the three-station total is a different quantity from the data centre's own ultimate load, which is stated openly and unchanged. Where the forecast is withheld, no one outside the process can test how much headroom remains, or how quickly a build obligation turned into a switching instruction.
On the record
Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act receives royal assent
S.C. 2021, c. 22 — an Act respecting transparency and accountability in Canada's efforts to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050. The Act enshrines the 2050 net-zero commitment in legislation and establishes 2030 as the first milestone year, with milestone years every five years thereafter.
Federal consumer fuel charge rates set to zero
SOR/2025-107 (P.C. 2025-446), Regulations Amending Schedule 2 to the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act and the Fuel Charge Regulations, registered 15 March 2025, set every fuel charge rate in Schedule 2 of the Act to zero beginning 1 April 2025. Industrial carbon pricing under the Act's output-based pricing system was not amended by these regulations. Countability publishes the instrument and its dates; it does not estimate the emissions effect of this change. The Parliamentary Budget Officer names this revision, together with the delay of the Electric Vehicle Availability Standard and reconsideration of the oil and gas emissions cap, among the changes incorporated into its own 2030 projection (see pbo-emissions-gap-2025-11).
Parliamentary Budget Officer publishes an independent estimate of the 2030 emissions gap
Estimating Canada's 2030 Emissions Gap (RP-2526-021-S), by Nasreddine Ammar. The PBO estimates the gap between Canada's projected 2030 emissions and the legislated target at 49 to 102 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent. The report is the second institutional projection of the same quantity on the Canadian record and is restated as a modelled benchmark (pbo-emissions-gap-2025-11), never adjudicated against the Government's own.
The projection record
A record, not a ranking: this entry states what was published and how it compares to what followed. It never says who was right, which institution performed better, or grades a forecaster's competence. See the full public Resolution record →
The Canada Energy Regulator's Energy Future 2026 electricity projections: what every scenario assumes about generation and capacity to 2035 and 2050, held beside the dataset's own recorded history
Canada's electricity generation (gigawatt hours) and installed generating capacity (megawatts), as the Canada Energy Regulator's 'Canada's Energy Future 2026: Energy Supply and Demand Projections to 2050' dataset states them -- the recorded history the dataset itself carries (2005 through 2023, identical across scenarios at 2023) and the four scenarios' modelled levels at 2035 and 2050. The issuer's own scenario definitions name Canadian GDP growth, LNG exports, data centre load growth, and global oil and natural gas prices as the drivers its Higher and Lower scenarios bracket.
comparable · difference 29943.6 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the Current Measures scenario's modelled 2025 level minus the dataset's own recorded 2023 level, in gigawatt hours -- what the scenario's own near-term path assumes has already happened by 2025. Compu…
comparable · difference 178654.9 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the scenario's 2035 national generation level minus the dataset's own recorded 2023 level, in gigawatt hours. Positive means the scenario's level is higher than recorded 2023. Both figures come from t…
comparable · difference 250130.3 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the scenario's 2035 level minus recorded 2023, in gigawatt hours, same file and summation.
comparable · difference 238842.8 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the scenario's 2035 level minus recorded 2023, in gigawatt hours, same file and summation.
comparable · difference 134606.3 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the scenario's 2035 level minus recorded 2023, in gigawatt hours, same file and summation.
comparable · difference 66447.3 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the scenario's 2035 national installed-capacity level minus the dataset's own recorded 2023 level, in megawatts.
comparable · difference 93070.2 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the scenario's 2035 level minus recorded 2023, in megawatts.
comparable · difference 85391.8 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the scenario's 2035 level minus recorded 2023, in megawatts.
comparable · difference 58058.7 · same issuer. Numeric difference: the scenario's 2035 level minus recorded 2023, in megawatts.
comparable · difference 79991.6 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2022 minus 2010, in gigawatt hours -- the largest change of any twelve-year window inside the dataset's own 2005-2023 recorded history (correction, 2026-07-17). Computed by checking all seven non-over…
comparable · difference 36394.8 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2023 minus 2011, in megawatts -- the largest change of any twelve-year window inside the dataset's own 2005-2023 recorded history (correction, 2026-07-17), by the identical seven-window method as resc…
comparable · difference 2589.2 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2023 minus 2011, in gigawatt hours -- the larger change of the two twelve-year windows the block-invariant provincial generation history (2010-2023) admits for Newfoundland and Labrador; both windows …
comparable · difference 1394.3 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2023 minus 2011, in megawatts -- the largest change of any twelve-year window inside the dataset's own 2005-2023 recorded capacity history for Newfoundland and Labrador (all seven non-overlapping-star…
comparable · difference 72.0 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2022 minus 2010, in gigawatt hours -- the larger change of the two twelve-year windows the block-invariant provincial generation history (2010-2023) admits for Prince Edward Island; both windows are i…
comparable · difference 174.4 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2017 minus 2005, in megawatts -- the largest change of any twelve-year window inside the dataset's own 2005-2023 recorded capacity history for Prince Edward Island (all seven non-overlapping-start win…
comparable · difference -2673.1 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2023 minus 2011, in gigawatt hours -- the larger change of the two twelve-year windows the block-invariant provincial generation history (2010-2023) admits for Nova Scotia; both windows are independen…
comparable · difference 743.5 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2023 minus 2011, in megawatts -- the largest change of any twelve-year window inside the dataset's own 2005-2023 recorded capacity history for Nova Scotia (all seven non-overlapping-start windows chec…
comparable · difference 2091.4 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2023 minus 2011, in gigawatt hours -- the larger change of the two twelve-year windows the block-invariant provincial generation history (2010-2023) admits for New Brunswick; both windows are independ…
comparable · difference 790.0 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2022 minus 2010, in megawatts -- the largest change of any twelve-year window inside the dataset's own 2005-2023 recorded capacity history for New Brunswick (all seven non-overlapping-start windows ch…
comparable · difference 34934.2 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2022 minus 2010, in gigawatt hours -- the larger change of the two twelve-year windows the block-invariant provincial generation history (2010-2023) admits for Quebec; both windows are independently r…
comparable · difference 6110.3 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2017 minus 2005, in megawatts -- the largest change of any twelve-year window inside the dataset's own 2005-2023 recorded capacity history for Quebec (all seven non-overlapping-start windows checked; …
comparable · difference 22540.8 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2022 minus 2010, in gigawatt hours -- the larger change of the two twelve-year windows the block-invariant provincial generation history (2010-2023) admits for Ontario; both windows are independently …
comparable · difference 15708.9 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2022 minus 2010, in megawatts -- the largest change of any twelve-year window inside the dataset's own 2005-2023 recorded capacity history for Ontario (all seven non-overlapping-start windows checked;…
comparable · difference 4140.8 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2022 minus 2010, in gigawatt hours -- the larger change of the two twelve-year windows the block-invariant provincial generation history (2010-2023) admits for Manitoba; both windows are independently…
comparable · difference 1158.0 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2022 minus 2010, in megawatts -- the largest change of any twelve-year window inside the dataset's own 2005-2023 recorded capacity history for Manitoba (all seven non-overlapping-start windows checked…
comparable · difference 4108.6 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2022 minus 2010, in gigawatt hours -- the larger change of the two twelve-year windows the block-invariant provincial generation history (2010-2023) admits for Saskatchewan; both windows are independe…
comparable · difference 1442.5 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2022 minus 2010, in megawatts -- the largest change of any twelve-year window inside the dataset's own 2005-2023 recorded capacity history for Saskatchewan (all seven non-overlapping-start windows che…
comparable · difference 11320.3 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2023 minus 2011, in gigawatt hours -- the larger change of the two twelve-year windows the block-invariant provincial generation history (2010-2023) admits for Alberta; both windows are independently …
comparable · difference 7986.4 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2023 minus 2011, in megawatts -- the largest change of any twelve-year window inside the dataset's own 2005-2023 recorded capacity history for Alberta (all seven non-overlapping-start windows checked;…
comparable · difference 10400.2 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2022 minus 2010, in gigawatt hours -- the larger change of the two twelve-year windows the block-invariant provincial generation history (2010-2023) admits for British Columbia; both windows are indep…
comparable · difference 3862.8 · same issuer. Numeric difference: 2023 minus 2011, in megawatts -- the largest change of any twelve-year window inside the dataset's own 2005-2023 recorded capacity history for British Columbia (all seven non-overlapping-start windows…
- Every scenario value in this entry is the issuer's modelled pathway under its own stated assumptions -- not a plan, not a commitment, not a forecast by Countability, and not a statement that any level will or will not be reached.
- This entry restates one issuer's dataset against itself: the projections and the recorded history come from the same files, the same regional total, and the same summation, so pace comparisons inside this entry involve no cross-issuer or cross-basis arithmetic.
- The dataset's recorded history and Statistics Canada's survey-based electricity tables measure closely related but not identical quantities: at 2023 the two state national generation about one per cent apart (621,540 GWh here; 615,332.8 GWh on Statistics Canada's own measured electricity record). Levels are therefore never compared across the two entries; each entry's changes are computed only within its own basis.
Canada's greenhouse gas emissions on the gross National Inventory Report basis: the national total and seven-sector breakdown, 1990 to 2024, excluding LULUCF
National greenhouse gas emissions as reported in the National Inventory Report, 2026 edition (1990-2024, submitted to the UNFCCC as a joint submission with Canada's second Biennial Transparency Report) -- the economic-sector table's National Inventory Total row and its seven constituent sectors (Oil and Gas, Electricity, Transportation, Heavy Industry, Buildings, Agriculture, Waste and others -- the last combining the file's Waste, Coal Production, and Light Manufacturing/Construction/Forest Resources rows to match the government's own projections-report sector grouping). Excludes Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry sector emissions and removals (the NIR's own footnote on its national totals); 100-year Global Warming Potential values are the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) convention. This is the newest publicly reported inventory year (2024) on any Canadian GHG accounting basis, and the vintage against which the target-accounting entry's NIR2025-based figures can be seen to move.
- Excludes Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry sector emissions and removals; this is the gross basis, not the basis Canada's targets are assessed against (see the target-accounting entry for that basis, which adds the LULUCF accounting contribution to a differently-vintaged four-sector total).
- Every historical year in this Resolution is subject to revision at the next National Inventory Report vintage; the 2024 value is this vintage's newest and least-revised year, the most likely to move at the next edition.
- The seven-sector grouping used here (Oil and Gas, Electricity, Transportation, Heavy Industry, Buildings, Agriculture, Waste and others) is Countability's own restatement of the inventory's economic-sector categories, chosen to match the government's own projections-report grouping for comparability; it is not itself an official category name in the underlying file.
Canada's greenhouse gas emissions on the target-accounting basis: the 2005 base, the latest observed year, the government's own With Measures and With Additional Measures 2030/2035 projections, and the LULUCF accounting contribution that bridges the two
National greenhouse gas emissions on the accounting basis Canada's 2030/2035 targets and 2026 interim objective are assessed against -- the National Inventory Report's four-sector total (Energy, Industrial Processes and Product Use, Agriculture, Waste), excluding net LULUCF flux, plus the separately calculated LULUCF accounting contribution (net-net accounting for most land categories; a reference-level approach for forest land remaining forest land and harvested wood products; natural disturbances excluded). Published as the Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators 'Greenhouse gas emissions projections' series, 2026 vintage (historical years sourced from the National Inventory Report 1990-2023, i.e. the NIR2025 edition). Also carries the LULUCF accounting-contribution series by year (the component that moves this basis away from the gross inventory total) and the government's own successive With Measures (WM) and With Additional Measures (WAM) 2030 scenario totals, including the itemized sector-level revision between the 2023 and 2025 progress-report vintages of the same WAM scenario.
comparable · difference 79.0 · same issuer. Same scenario (With Additional Measures), same target year (2030), two successive progress-report vintages of the issuer's own projection -- the government's own record of how its projection changed, restated verbatim fr…
- The LULUCF accounting contribution is volatile year to year (+8.8 Mt in 2022, -39.0 Mt in 2023 -- a roughly 48 Mt swing) in a way the combustion-based gross inventory is not; a single year's movement on this basis can be driven more by the accounting layer than by any change in fuel use, industrial output, or land management.
- The 2005 base value on this basis (759 Mt) differs from the same base year's value on the gross-inventory basis (763.02 Mt, see the gross-inventory entry) because the two Resolutions carry different National Inventory Report vintages (NIR2025 versus NIR2026) as well as different LULUCF treatment -- the two bases are never combined in one calculation.
- With Measures and With Additional Measures figures are the issuer's own modelled scenario pathways under its stated assumptions; they are not commitments, plans, or Countability forecasts, and are never rendered as observed outcomes.
What would change the record
- A provincial and industry breakdown of national inventory emissions, published as a machine-readable series on the same basis as the targets; or an official concordance reconciling the physical flow account to the inventory.
- An official quarterly or monthly emissions estimate, or a nowcast published by Environment and Climate Change Canada with a stated methodology and revision policy.
- A published official emissions trajectory to 2050, or the interim milestone targets for 2040 and 2045 that the Act contemplates, with numeric values.
- A proponent stating its own demand in a public filing; an issuer publishing station load attributable to a single customer; or a regulatory instrument compelling plant-grain disclosure. None is currently on the record for these projects.
- A transmitter or distributor publishing per-user apportionments of shared station capacities, in a planning document or a rate filing. The next Needs Assessment cycle for any region with a shared constrained station is the natural place to watch.
- The issuer posting assessments for active large applications as a matter of course, or posting the specific assessments for the register's four largest active applications. Each such posting immediately converts a register row into a checkable engineering quantity.
- The current planning cycle naming and quantifying the need: the Northwest Region's Integrated Regional Resource Plan, which the 2025 Needs Assessment commits the working group to develop after the Scoping Assessment, is the natural place. A connection application from a named mine appearing in the connection register, a Hydro One leave-to-construct filing for the Greenstone line stating the load it is sized to serve, or an IESO study naming Ring of Fire load would each close it.
- A producer stating a project-level shipping commitment in a public filing, a regulator publishing shipper-level allocations, or a proceeding placing contract volumes on the public record.
- The operator or the applicant publishing the station-group load forecast — in an assessment appendix released publicly, a distributor's rate or expansion filing, or a regional planning report that states the same forecast at the same grain. A subsequent addendum in this lineage that quantifies the exceedance would also close it.
- Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act receives royal assent — 2021-06-29.
- Federal consumer fuel charge rates set to zero — 2025-04-01.
- Parliamentary Budget Officer publishes an independent estimate of the 2030 emissions gap — 2025-11-26.
- ECCC's 2025 position has already been superseded by its 2026 vintage.
This Big Question organizes the evidence: the commitments, the disagreements, the projections, and the gaps — and it states plainly where the evidence cannot yet reach. When Countability has a current answer, it appears separately on this page with its date, basis, limits, Brief and Receipt. The question stays open; the evidence keeps moving.
This page holds the current public record for this question. For a more specific question, see Work with Countability.
Work with Countability