Climate Action Tracker Downgrades Canada's Climate Policy

The Climate Action Tracker just handed Canada a rough report card, and it is the kind of grade nobody wants to post. The independent research group downgraded Canada's rating for climate policies and action to "Critically Insufficient," the lowest tier it has, according to The Energy Mix. It is the one category where Canada now scores worse than the United States.

What the Climate Action Tracker Actually Said

The Climate Action Tracker is run by research partners including NewClimate Institute and Climate Analytics. It grades countries against the Paris Agreement goal of holding warming to one and a half degrees. According to the tracker's own press release, published on October thirteenth, Canada keeps an overall rating of "Highly Insufficient," but its sub-rating for policies and action slid down a full notch.

The same assessment put the United States at "Critically Insufficient" overall, calling the Trump administration's rollbacks the most aggressive and consequential it has ever studied. The twist is that Canada, which has spent the year trying to look different from its southern neighbour, is now being compared to it. As The Energy Mix reports, Bill Hare of Climate Analytics said he was shocked by how far Prime Minister Mark Carney has gone in favour of the fossil fuel industry.

The Numbers Behind the Downgrade

Here is where it gets striking. Two years ago, the tracker projected that Canada's policies, both in place and planned, would cut emissions by thirty per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. Its latest estimate is fourteen per cent, which is less than half. Under policies already on the books, the figure drops to roughly thirteen per cent, far from the forty to forty-five per cent cut Canada has pledged.

The tracker also warns about what happens if every country copied Canada's current approach. Warming could pass four degrees Celsius, according to its analysis as summarized by The Energy Mix. That is a world with far more frequent extreme heat and higher seas, and Canada is already warming about twice as fast as the global average.

Which Rollbacks Count

The tracker lists a string of decisions that pulled the rating down. Ottawa removed the consumer carbon price, cancelled the planned cap on oil and gas emissions, and repealed the Electric Vehicle Availability Standard. It also weakened the industrial carbon pricing path and ended the Two Billion Trees program early.

There are also carve-outs in the Canada-Alberta agreement that affect methane and clean electricity rules. Meanwhile, the federal government is backing the Bay du Nord offshore oil project, the Trans Mountain pipeline, and carbon capture for oil and gas. The tracker notes that Canadian oil production hit record levels in twenty twenty-five.

Credit Where It Is Due

The report is not all doom. It credits Ottawa for finalizing new methane regulations and for bringing back some rebates for electric vehicles and home retrofits. The Prime Minister recently promised a heat pump rebate program by early next year. Still, the tracker concludes those wins are "far outweighed" by the weakening elsewhere.

Carney has acknowledged that Canada will miss its twenty thirty and twenty thirty-five targets under his plan. The tracker points out that formally dropping them would make Canada the first country after the United States to do so. That is not a club most Canadians would choose to join.

What Happens Next

The tracker's advice is blunt. It wants the government to at least confirm its twenty thirty and twenty thirty-five targets, apply existing climate rules without exemptions, and stop approving new oil and gas projects. Hare also warned that the European Union should be careful that closer collaboration with Canada does not undermine its own climate policies.

For young Canadians, this is the policy backdrop for the next decade of wildfire seasons, insurance bills and job markets. You can follow more on this beat in our climate coverage. The full assessment is available from the Climate Action Tracker press release, and the original reporting comes from The Energy Mix.

Whether Ottawa answers the downgrade with new policy or simply shrugs it off will say a lot about how seriously it treats its own targets. For now, the scorecard stands, and the gap between Canada and the United States is shrinking in the worst possible way.