Canada: Environmental Challenges

Canada's environmental challenges are shaped heavily by its northern latitude and resource-based economy. The country's average land temperature rose by about 1.7 degrees Celsius between 1948 and 2016, with the fastest warming recorded in the Arctic, the Prairies, and northern British Columbia. Arctic sea ice has continued to shrink during summer months, and projections suggest Atlantic Canada could see relative sea levels rise by 75 to 100 centimeters by 2100. Wildfires have become more frequent and severe, averaging more than 7,000 fires a year and burning roughly 2.5 million hectares annually since 1990; the 2023 fire season forced about 35,000 residents of British Columbia under evacuation orders.

Resource extraction remains a major source of emissions. Oil and gas production, dominated by Alberta's oil sands, accounts for roughly a quarter of national greenhouse gas output, and oil sands production expanded several-fold between 1990 and the late 2010s. The logging sector has also drawn scrutiny, with harvesting affecting roughly half a million hectares of forest annually and associated emissions figuring prominently in debates over how Canada accounts for its carbon footprint. Transportation contributes more than a quarter of the country's greenhouse gases and conventional air pollutants, and aging infrastructure such as Alberta's roughly 170,000 abandoned oil and gas wells has raised long-term cleanup costs estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Biodiversity has also come under pressure: a Living Planet Report assessment found that species at risk in Canada declined by an average of 59 percent since 1970, and more than 600 species are listed under the federal Species at Risk Act. In response to these pressures, the federal government has set targets to cut emissions 40 to 45 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 and to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, pursuing measures that include industrial carbon pricing, a methane-reduction program, and a proposed cap on oil and gas sector emissions.