Canada is not on track to meet its climate goals. On the current trajectory, national greenhouse-gas emissions will fall roughly 20 per cent below 2005 levels by 2035, which is less than half the government’s official target. Even under ‘enhanced measures’, discussed by Environment and Climate Change Canada, the best-case scenario is about a 35-per-cent reduction from 2005 levels.
This shortfall is not the result of weak ambition, but of a deeper structural disconnect between our energy systems, our economy, and the policy tools meant to transform them. The 2030 target was a political choice rather than derived from a serious bottom-up analysis of what real system change can deliver. The federal Emissions Reduction Plan is more about aspiration than implementation. Too much political capital has gone into grand gestures and incremental initiatives that are easy to communicate, but difficult to scale. The result is policy fragmentation, weakening investor confidence, and growing skepticism that decarbonization can also advance affordability and competitiveness.
Acknowledging this gap is not pessimism; it is realism. The shortfall shows us exactly where we need to focus: clean electricity, transport electrification, building efficiency, and industrial innovation. These are the systems that must physically change if Canada is to achieve its mid-century targets. The Trottier Energy Institute’s new report, Changing Course, released this week, sets out a practical framework for doing so.
Progress must be measured through structural transformation, not annual emissions tallies. Success should be judged by how many megawatts of clean power are added, how many homes are electrified, and how many vehicles run on zero-emission technology. Climate and industrial policy must also be linked. Net-zero is not a compliance burden; it is an industrial strategy for long-term competitiveness.
As the world decarbonizes through electrification, Canada can no longer afford to stand still. This country must master, build, and innovate in the electro-technologies that underpin modern economies—from energy production, storage, and distribution to heating, transportation, and automation. These technologies form the foundation for information technology, control systems, and artificial intelligence across the entire energy value chain.
Canada must also embrace asymmetrical decarbonization. Regions and sectors will move at different speeds, and policy design should enable that flexibility while maintaining national consistency. Planning backward from 2050, starting with what a net-zero economy actually looks like, will make it possible to identify the infrastructure, technologies, and regulations required along the way.
The focus should be on scaling what works, not punishing what came before.
Clean technologies that are cheaper and more convenient will displace fossil alternatives faster than punitive regulation alone. Carbon pricing remains a useful tool, but it cannot be the fulcrum of transition. Public investment, procurement, workforce training and policy design must focus on making clean choices affordable and politically resilient.
Sector by sector, the direction of change is clear. Electricity must expand non-emitting generation and modernize transmission to support large-scale electrification. Transport policy should provide certainty around zero-emission vehicle standards and infrastructure. Building codes and financing tools can accelerate retrofits and phase out new gas-heated construction. Industry needs to electrify heat and integrate net-zero fuels and carbon capture where feasible. Oil and gas producers must achieve net-zero production emissions by 2050 through technological and energy-system innovation—not rhetoric.
Delivering this transformation requires deliberate coordination. Fragmented provincial programs and shifting federal priorities have left the system incoherent.
In the current conflicted trade environment and fluid international context, a federal–provincial–territorial policy reset in 2025 is essential to rebuild alignment on industrial competitiveness and clean-infrastructure investment.
The electricity sector offers proof that change is possible. Actions by different provinces and the federal government, combined with practical planning and implementation by regulators and utilities, have reduced emissions in this sector by nearly 60 per cent below 2005 levels over time. Today, attention is turning to system expansion to meet increasing electricity demand.
If cutting Canada’s emissions by 2035 in half is largely out of reach, reaching net-zero by 2050 remains within grasp, but not through an obsession with short-term targets and lowest-cost baby steps. Canada must move beyond announcing ambition and start managing transformation. The challenge is not technological capacity but institutional inertia.
If 2025 becomes the year governments reconnect climate, energy, and economic policy, Canada can still meet its 2050 goal—and emerge more prosperous and competitive in the process.
The Hill Times
Dr. Simon Langlois Bertrand is a research associate at Institut de l’énergie Trottier, Polytechnique Montréal. Dr. Normand Mousseau is the scientific director at Institut de l’énergie Trottier, Polytechnique Montréal and a physics professor at Université de Montréal. Dr. James Meadowcroft is a professor in the School of Public Policy at Carleton University, and pathway principal at the Transition Accelerator.