May 8, 2026
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*Please note: This article is published by The Hill Times and is available to read on their website.
Canada is missing its climate targets. All of them.
This isn’t an opinion. It’s what independent assessments from the Canadian Climate Institute, the Net-Zero Advisory Body, and Environment and Climate Change Canada’s own projections all show.
In an op-ed published this week in The Hill Times our Interim Director, Damon Matthews, delivers a blunt assessment: the 2026 target has already been missed. The 2030 target appears out of reach. And carbon neutrality by 2050? It remains a vague prospect as long as climate policies fail to live up to the commitments made.
What makes the situation particularly concerning is the cumulative effect of delays. Every year of inaction results in more emissions being released into the atmosphere and more severe climate change, even if long-term targets are eventually met.
Yet the tools to address this exist: industrial carbon pricing, cutting emissions from the oil and gas sector, adopting a national carbon budget, accelerating the clean electricity transition. What’s missing is coherence between announcements and concrete action.
Author Damon Matthews is a professor in the department of geography, planning, and environment at Concordia University; fellow of the Academy of Sciences of the Royal Society of Canada; and interim director of Sustainability in the Digital Age and the Future Earth Canada Hub.