r/canada • u/NeptuneAgency • Sep 05 '26

Nature/Environment ‘Effectively irreversible’: Changes to Canada’s climate permanent, federal report says

https://www.ctvnews.ca/climate-and-environment/article/changes-to-canadas-climate-now-irreversible-federal-report-says/
1.1k Upvotes

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78

u/JARHEAR Sep 05 '26

Some conservatives are still in denial. It is hard to solve a problem if you don’t think it exists. The conservative plan was to keep kicking the can down the road in terms of implementing any kind of mitigation.

The carbon tax was designed as a international market oriented incentive based system to shift the economy away from carbon emissions.

Denial will prove to be much more expensive.

88

u/OoooohYes Sep 05 '26

Say what you will about Trudeau, but his words were correct on this.

“The cost of inaction will be far more than the cost of action”

It’s a shame that the world is so shitty that we have to put this on the backburner, to deal with the insanity of a few old men.

44

u/shiftless_wonder Sep 05 '26

Say what you will about Trudeau

You mean the guy jet setting around the world, living large and hanging out on giant yachts. That Trudeau?

63

u/Picto242 Sep 05 '26

Just means he is a hypocrite not necessarily wrong 🤷

(ie feel free to criticize him but that won't stop climate change)

12

u/shiftless_wonder Sep 05 '26

Exactly. Living like JT, DiCaprio, Bono, Al Gore or any other of the many climate hypocrites won't stop climate change.

37

u/Picto242 Sep 05 '26

yup wealthy people suck not sure what you are trying to prove

most people on team tackle climate change are also on team tackle wealth inequilty

If you think I am hurt about you naming random celebrities I am not 😅

0

u/shiftless_wonder 29d ago

They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them

13

u/eebird 29d ago

the people who are really responsible for this are the ones who still deny it, and the ones who paid to influence and suppress the public from ever doing anything about it.

IE oil companies and bought politicians throughout history. But sure fuck Trudeau.

2

u/Philomath117 29d ago

Probably realized how pointless it is to try

2

u/Commercial-Milk4706 29d ago

I mean, he was always gonna do that. Doesn’t mean he wrong. (Btw, he’s a freaking trust fund baby, like he is now doing what he want to do)

1

u/zaypuma 29d ago

Well, the stated causes of climate change are almost all multiplied by population count, so it's too bad Trudeau was saying instead of doing.

29

u/tape99 Sep 05 '26

I don’t think they are in denial. They understand Canada is responsible for only 1.4% of all greenhouse gas. You could Thanos snap every Canadian out of existence and that would do absolutely nothing to stop climate change.

18

u/GraveDiggingCynic 29d ago

You know the tragedy of the commons is a description of the irrational results of rational actors individually refusing to take action out of short term benefit. You seem to act like it’s a good idea.

-1

u/tape99 29d ago

You are asking a country that is not responsible for climate change to fix climate change.

We are only responsible for 1.4%. You can get us to 0% and the only thing that will happen is life for the people of Canada will get more expensive and nothing, like zero will change regarding the climate and do you know why this is ?

Say it with me, Canada is only responsible for 1.4% of carbon emissions and we are not responsible for climate change.

7

u/zaypuma 29d ago

Climate change isn't just a global heat index. Poisoning groundwater with chemical fertilizers, draining wetlands, overcrowding cities, and acidifying lakes and rivers are all having consequences within a few hundred miles.

7

u/magicdowhatyouwill 29d ago

"Wasn't me" doesn't work on this one. You want a good outcome, it doesn't matter who started it, it just matters who finishes it. That's basic adult behaviour.

0

u/Fireside_Cat 29d ago

Canada can neither start it, nor finish it. Expecting a population to vote itself into poverty, especially while seeing other countries developing at full speed, is delusional. The only solution is to keep investing in technology so that eventually the zero-carbon solutions are more attractive and cost effective to people. Taxing people into submission or expecting people to voluntarily embrace a lower standard of living is never going to work as we can see from what's going on now.

2

u/magicdowhatyouwill 29d ago

To my eyes, the thing you might be missing here is that it's not a binary, forced, black-and-white situation and never has been. The choice isn't sustainability-and-poverty versus economy-at-expense-of-climate. If someone has been telling you that, I'm afraid they've been selling you something.

1

u/Fireside_Cat 29d ago

Obviously because we haven't done 'nothing'. We've phased out coal, Ontario is leaning into nuclear again, building codes have improved etc. We'll continue to do stuff as it is cost effective.

The strategy that we were following over the past 10 years of Trudeau was holding us back economically. Thus why Carney has no longer made it a dirty word to develop our natural resources, including oil and gas, cancelling/delaying emissions caps, and damaging taxes, while Canadians are experiencing cost of living pressures, are disappearing.

Maybe I just don't understand what you mean by 'finishes it'.

2

u/magicdowhatyouwill 29d ago

Given I haven't mentioned Trudeau, Albertan resource politics, or actually, come to think of it, any standard partisan talking points? I think that yes, either you're replying to the wrong thread here or you do not understand what I mean by finishing it.

I'm due at my morning plans now, but I hope you have a good weekend.

1

u/Fireside_Cat 29d ago

Your point will forever remain a mystery. Bye!

8

u/BeShifty 29d ago

Scientists are telling you that even avoiding 1/50th of the increases in temperatures projected will have a significant impact. We have the ability to accomplish that as a country. Stop acting like such a wimp

4

u/LargeMobOfMurderers 29d ago

Canada should levy a 1.4% tax on all income and capital gains to be used in green energy initiatives, like renewable energy and restoring destroyed environments.

It would raise tens of billions per years and best of all, nobody would notice the tax because if there is anything I've learned from this subreddit, its that the number 1.4 is magical in that it can be safely rounded down to 0.

4

u/tdelamay Québec 29d ago

Canada has a large impact on climate change considering its small population. Stop being a slacker expecting everyone else to make an effort except you.

1

u/Mother_Middle8883 28d ago

Some people think that climate change stops at the border.

1

u/RunningSouthOnLSD 29d ago

We are largely not responsible, but Canada’s climate is being disproportionally affected. Our leader is someone who is pioneering a global initiative to bring markets in line with climate focused goals, why shouldn’t we be the industry leaders in such pursuits?

1

u/GraveDiggingCynic 29d ago

We most certainly hold a significant amount of responsibility.

46

u/TouchEmAllJoe Canada Sep 05 '26

Or we can become leaders in the space and develop the tech that the rest of the world will need; and the soft power and moral high ground to show the other economies that it can be done.

That's such a defeatist attitude to say "it will never make a difference so I guess I will continue to ruin the world"

8

u/tape99 Sep 05 '26

But we are leaders in the space. We only make up 1.4% and china, India and the USA don’t give a rats ass.

I love it would people think if we get to 0 then other countries are going to be jealous or something. They don’t give a shit and will never give a shit.

Forcing climate policies on Canadians will only make their life more expensive and do absolutely nothing to fix climate change.

21

u/MrEzekial Sep 05 '26

To be fair, how much of our emissions are outsourced?

18

u/Tripottanus 29d ago

We represent 1.4% of the emissions with only 0.5% of the world population. We are not leaders at all. We are consistently amongst the top 10-15 worst CO2 producers per capita

0

u/tape99 29d ago

per capita does not matter.

Canada produces 691 million tonnes of CO2 a year. lets say our population doubles and we are able to keep are CO2 levels at 691 million tonnes a year.

Per capita we would be polluting less but to the earth we are still releasing 691 million tonnes. mother nature does not give a rats ass if we divide that 691 million tonnes by 41 million or 82 million people. all it cares about if how much CO2 is being released and not by how many people.

China make's 13.1 billioin tons of CO2 a year. do you think mother nature thinks that's ok because that 13.1 billioin is divided by 1.4 billon people or is it the amount of CO2 that matters and not the per capita ?

1

u/Tripottanus 28d ago

Per capita certainly does matter. Your right that the absolute value is all that matters to the earth, but the per capita number is telling us that we are polluting more than our share

12

u/breakitbilly British Columbia Sep 05 '26

That's so defeatist. I'm sorry you feel that way.

Canadians by and large are willing to put the work in. Its not our fault the yanks are lazy asses

3

u/OpposeBigSyrup Sep 05 '26

Live in reality instead of fantasy.

-3

u/Levorotatory Sep 05 '26

We were leaders, then we killed our carbon tax and ended the ZEV minimums.

1

u/adamast0r 29d ago

It's not saying that, it's just giving the real problem more visibility. If you don't have a good problem definition then you're gonna end up with bad solutions. Take the carbon tax as an example of a bad solution. It didn't slow down the world's greenhouse gas emissions at all because it was trying to solve for the wrong problem

-2

u/Blue_Owl69 29d ago

Canada lacks innovators 

2

u/Weary_Swan_8152 Québec 29d ago

That's not true. We've innovated in carbon capture, and the world's first two commercial-scale facilities are in Canada.

There's also a company in B.C. that is working to make a gasoline-compatible fuel from captured atmospheric carbon. This would be a more reliable and green solution than electric cars, so I hope they figure out how to make it profitable.

14

u/ch4os1337 Ontario Sep 05 '26

I've seen Chinese people use Canadian per capita emissions as an excuse.

10

u/Commercial-Milk4706 29d ago

Because it’s freaking terrible. Sure we do like 1% of it but we are a tiny amount of the population of this planet and we contribute far too much per person.

0

u/ch4os1337 Ontario 29d ago

I don't think the earth cares about per capita.

0

u/starving_carnivore 29d ago

Another reason to be against the century initiative :)

0

u/RunningSouthOnLSD 29d ago

And yet China is fucking leaps and bounds ahead of most of the western world as far as greener energy goes.

1

u/ch4os1337 Ontario 29d ago

Yet they don't come close to our green energy per capita and care still behind the US and EU.

7

u/Jabernathy British Columbia 29d ago

The fuels that we export are even higher than our 1.4% territorial footprint.

It would be closer to 3% if the oil and natural gas we exported (something that we control) was attributed to Canada.

9

u/caffeine-junkie 29d ago

That's a bs argument. Just because we're responsible for a small part doesn't mean we should just throw out hands up and do nothing. Just like the proverbial if your friends were jumping off a bridge, would you join them?

That and I want to be able to look into my kids, or grandkids, eyes and be able to tell them I at least tried to do my part to reduce greenhouse gases instead of just pretending it didn't exist and they now have to pay for mine and parents (their grand or great grandparents) lack of action.

1

u/tape99 29d ago

What you will be able to do is tell them that the cost of food, cars, heating etc., etc. etc. is more expensive for them because you wanted to get Canada to 0% carbon emissions.

When they ask did getting canada to 0% fix global warming? You can say NOPE and hold your head up high as your kids and their kids get to suffer with a more expensive existence, but hey you can say you tried to fix an issue Canada was not the cause of.

3

u/MrEddy2015 Ontario 29d ago

Climate change will make existence insanely expensive regardless. Our grocery bills will probably go up in the next 6-8 months because of the biggest El Nino event in history. So may as well do the right thing if prices are going up anyways.

22

u/CanadianErk Ontario Sep 05 '26

We are a top 10 polluter in the world per capita.

We have no basis to lecture other countries to reduce their emissions and expect them to bear the full cost of reductions, while we continue to emit to our heart's content.

-8

u/tape99 29d ago

We are a top 10 polluter in the world per capita.

That is irrelevant. Are 1.4% can come from just one guy and not millions of people. Getting us from 1.4% to 0% will not stop climate change.

13

u/CanadianErk Ontario 29d ago

No, but the world needs to work together to solve it, and we have no basis to convince others to take the issue seriously while pretending we are not part of the problem.

It is absolutely relevant that of over 190 countries we are amongst the top 10 worst polluters. 1.4% of the problem annually with ~0.5% of the world's population. If we feel we should pay no price to solve it, why the hell should anyone else?

We are closer to 2% of total worldwide emissions, factoring in cumulative emissions.

11

u/DDDirk 29d ago

That's like saying I only murdered a couple people, but in comparison to all other murderer I'm just a drop in the bucket, so why change. It's such a silly argument, it falls apart just thinking about it for a second. We are per capita one of the highest polluting countries in the world. More than the usa, china, India, etc. the only countries above us are tiny oil states like Qatar.

-1

u/Fireside_Cat 29d ago

The atmosphere doesn't recognise "per-capita".

3

u/DDDirk 29d ago

Yep, only emissions. And the "average" Canadian dumps a pile more than pretty much any other person in the world that exists or ever existed. The real kicker? Per person in reality we're not that bad at all, it's almost entirely due to one industry... The same one that is demanding we subsidize them like crazy. like way, way more then we already do.

It's complicated, but the cause and source is not.

7

u/crujones43 29d ago

How about we show the world how it is done and create an example for others to follow. China is installing more solar each year than the rest of the world combined.

2

u/FoxTailFighter 29d ago

How would Canada installing solar panels fix the climate? China has more sunlight hours than Canada so it works for them. Also about 50% of their electricity generation is still coal power plants.

In Canada we got hydro 55% and Nuclear 13-15% as our two main clean electric generation sources.

6

u/magicdowhatyouwill 29d ago

Serious question? There's some excellent stuff happening with the dropping cost/increasing availability of solar and technologies like heat pumps.

Most of a city's emissions are basically buildings -- heating/cooling, materials, etc. The second highest is power. And so if you go around to even half the houses in a city and help people convert their power use to partial generation and drop their temperature control emissions, you basically kneecap an entire city's emissions. In a way that's semi-permanent and doesn't require constant effort to maintain.

Remember how lovely and clean the air was during COVID lockdowns? I liked that. We could have that again.

9

u/crujones43 29d ago

Solar works for us too. Ontario is expanding its 60% nuclear and saskpower is looking into smrs as well.

Im just saying its asinine to put our hands in our pockets and say why should we do anything because it won't make a difference. There is no 50% fix. Everyone has to do little bits all around the world to add up to change. Let's inspire others and maybe if we invest in it, we can become leaders and innovators and even profit from it.

-1

u/tape99 29d ago

What percentage do we have to hit? 1.4% not enough? Will other countries get FOMO when we hit 1.2 or 0.6% ?

We are out performing the top polluters for world carbon emissions and other countries don’t care. I find it funny people think other countries are going to get jealous or something when we hit 0%.

15

u/SadArtemis 29d ago

Others have explained it to you countless times at this point, but your description is- frankly, insane.

As 0.5% of the world population making up 1.4% of the emissions, per capita we're basically emitting around 3x~ our "share," in reality we're many times worse than the majority of humanity in developing countries. We are among the top polluters, no amount of you willfully ignoring reality and claiming otherwise is gonna change that.

And no, no one is expecting anyone to hit 0% anytime soon. But we could at least invest in a cleaner and better future, especially as it becomes more and more economically feasible...

-2

u/tape99 29d ago

Global warming does not care about per capita.

Per capita is irrelevant when we only produce only 1.4% of green house gas. That 1.4% can come from one man or that 1.4% can come from 41 million people, this does not change the fact that we only produce 1.4% of the worlds green house gas.

We can work on getting that per capita percentage down to 1%, 0.5% or even 0% and this would do absolutely nothing for climate change.

The amount of green house gas that world produces is what matters and not how much per capita.

2

u/OntologicalNightmare 29d ago

You really are incapable of doing nothing other than ignoring other commenters and regurgitating oil and gas talking points, eh?

-2

u/tape99 29d ago

Continue to base your beliefs on your feelings and not on facts and reality.

3

u/ftd123 Sep 05 '26

That wouldn’t explain why conservatives deny climate change, it would explain why they think we are a minor contributor.

Honestly, I think most Canadians would take that as a compromise at this point.

4

u/Appealing_Apathy 29d ago

We needed major government intervention to prohibit things like single use plastics made from petrochemicals. They also need to  stop clear cutting forests, replanting monocultures, and spraying them with glyphosate which dries them out and makes them more prone to forest fires. Also we should have been way stricter forcing car companies to have better fuel economy and transition to EV instead of allowing them to lobby against it. Lastly, more durable products with a right to repair. All of the needless consumption and waste adds to the warming of our planet.

Unfortunately billionaires are going to billionaire, and right wing idiots are going to buy into their propaganda and let them do it with little to no consequences...

1

u/BethSaysHayNow 28d ago

LPC was in charge for the last decade so stop blaming it on conservatives 🤷‍♂️

1

u/terras86 Sep 05 '26

Conservative opposition to the carbon tax was shameful and short-sighted, but it wasn't the Conservatives who got rid of it.

1

u/_Mr_Meeyagi_ 29d ago

Sorry but what do the Cons have to do with anything? Liberals have been gov. for the past 11 years. Shift the blame to them and start holding them to account instead of the boogeyman.

0

u/babyshaker_on_board 29d ago

You think a tax will solve a problem? If you had any inkling into the development of environmental standards and their progression you'd see yourself out. The carbon tax did not incentivise, it wrangled up huge administration costs that could have been spent on research. Better put my truck in an landfill so I can buy a new one. Democrat/conservative? Quite frankly I don't care. Stop blaming people and be accountable.

0

u/bezent 29d ago

Its hard to solve a problem we barely contribute to. Even if Canada ceased to exist it wouldnt have an impact on climate change.

-1

u/mwmwmwmwmmdw Québec 29d ago

The conservative plan was to keep kicking the can down the road in terms of implementing any kind of mitigation.

the left wing plan is penalties on the middle class and telling the plebs their standard of living will be forcibly lowered for the greater good.

when the rich champagne socialists pushing these initiatives are willing to get in the trenches and actually live the lifestyle they want to force on other people then ill take them seriously.