‘Broken promises’: Is Canada falling short on its climate change goals?

As world leaders look for ways to implement global climate goals at COP27, experts urge better implementation of pledges and financial support for developing countries.

With bold plans being laid out to tackle the ever-growing threat of climate change at COP27, an annual United Nations conference, experts say actions should speak louder than words and richer nations, like Canada, need to step up the fight.

As greenhouse gas emissions continue to go up, extreme weather events, exacerbated by climate change, are becoming more frequent and destructive. 

But as world leaders and climate negotiators look for ways to implement global climate goals, observers are less optimistic about progress, saying countries are already falling short on their previous pledges.

“It’s not realistic to expect that this COP will … fix a lot of things because there are so many structural problems and so many … broken promises,” said Jessica Green, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto.

Green pointed to the 2015 Paris climate agreement that set the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 C (2.7 F) and the 2009 Copenhagen summit when an annual delivery of US$100 billion by 2020 was pledged for developing countries.

While the plans are in place, implementation is lagging behind, said Matthew Hoffman, co-director of the Environmental Governance Lab at the University of Toronto.

“I would like to see ratcheted-up ambitions, but given the current geopolitical environment, that’s been a tough ask,” he told Global News.

Last year, ahead of the COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, Canada pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.