- In The
$2 Trillion Transition RBC Economics and Thought Leadership lays out the cost and opportunities ofCanada's journey to Net-Zero Canada is the world's 10th largest emitter, with annual emissions up 25% since 1990- With significant investment in current technology,
Canada could get 75% of the way to Net-Zero - To reach 2050 targets, a bolder plan is needed to deploy carbon capture in oil and industrial sectors, change from internal combustion to electric vehicles, retrofit millions of buildings, and generate all of
Canada's electricity from renewable sources
In The
"Global economies in the
But while there has never been more Canadian intellectual, political and corporate capital aimed at climate change,
According to the report,
The report also highlights how there will also be a call on Canadians to take more chances and make more choices to adopt new technologies, help scale new ventures and develop new habits. To do this, the report highlights eight key policy recommendations in the report to drive this transformation forward:
- A national policy on electrification. Federal incentives will be needed to develop better links between provincial grids, harmonized regulations and coherent pricing. The goal: double production over the next 30 years.
- A national strategy for green skills. A federal Green Skills Grant could retrain existing employees, while provincial programs could support career shifts to the fast-growing fields of carbon capture, hydrogen, renewables, EV production and maintenance, and building retrofits. The goal: train up to 200,000 new workers in green skills, and reskill 100,000 existing workers, by 2030.
- Long-term commitment to carbon pricing.
Canada's plan to increase the national carbon price through a measured, decade-long strategy should be reaffirmed by the federal government, provinces and major business groups, to signal it to the world as a shared priority. The federal government should also allocate a significant (and clearly defined) portion of the revenue to technology development and adoption. - Leveraging climate to enhance
U.S. trade.Canada should engage theU.S. in bilateral talks around climate policy, with a focus on strategic supply chains, energy products and emissions-reduction technologies. The two governments should also explore a border carbon adjustment to be applied to heavily traded goods, to ensure North American products aren't put at a disadvantage by explicit or implicit carbon prices. - An industrial strategy for carbon capture, utilization and storage. The federal government and major industrial-emitting provinces should agree to a new framework for CCUS, including research grants, long-term tax credits for carbon stored, regulatory flexibility for rapid construction, and new approaches to public-private-Indigenous investment in infrastructure, with particular and urgent focus on abating oil and gas emissions.
- A national action plan for sustainable agriculture. Small farmers will need access to new technologies to measure carbon in their soils and plants, and credit for carbon stored. Government will need to support investment in ag tech, training for new processes, and monitoring systems across the country.
- Super-charging electric vehicles. With deposits of many critical minerals needed for batteries, a highly skilled auto workforce, and decades of experience building cars, there's a good case for
Canada to be a lynchpin in regional battery manufacturing.Ottawa's proposed EV mandate (all passenger vehicles sold by 2035 must be zero-emission) is a step in the right direction. With the right policy,Ottawa could ensure more of those vehicles contain made-in-Canada batteries. - Rapid retrofitting.
Canada's plan to retrofit more homes must be urgently accelerated. A program designed to help owners manage the disruptive deep retrofit process and bring down costs by bundling similar retrofits across homes would be a good start. So too is a Net-Zero building code that avoids the need to retrofit recent builds. The goal: retrofitting 4.5 million homes by 2030, a third of buildings built before 2010.
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The report will also be accompanied by a special Disruptors mini-series called "The Climate Conversations" where
Mark Carney , theUN 's special envoy on climate and finance;- Professor
Katherine Hayhoe , a world-renowned climate scientist and Chief Scientist fromThe Nature Conservancy ; Mark Little , CEO, Suncor Energy; andMichael McCain , President & CEO, Maple Leaf Foods
To learn more about The
About the report
The
The interactive digital report will aim to:
- Lay the foundation for a multi-year exploration of climate policies and their economic impacts.
- Seed conversations around innovation, business strategies and sectoral outlooks.
- Inform constructive, non-partisan public policy dialogue around a just transition.
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