OTAWA –
Most federal programs aimed at reducing plastic waste are working, but the government is not measuring its progress toward its overall goal of zero plastic waste by 2030, according to a new audit by Canada’s environment commissioner.
The government launched an initiative in 2019 to create a circular economy for plastics by 2030, meaning nothing goes to waste.
In its audit published on TuesdayEnvironment Commissioner Jerry V. DeMarco concluded that waste reduction efforts in key federal departments were working well overall.
That included efforts by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which is meeting its goals of removing lost or discarded fishing gear, also known as ghost gear, from the water. Environmental groups estimate that up to three-quarters of the plastic in the world’s oceans comes from abandoned or lost fishing nets and related gear.
However, DeMarco said the government has no clear goals or tracking systems to know if it is on track to meet the goal of zero plastic waste overall.
“Until this is done, they will not know if they are on track to meet the goal,” the report says.
DeMarco said tracking is especially important because reaching the goal will require coordination across provinces and territories, municipalities and the private sector.
Statistics Canada’s most recent report on where plastic ends up was released in March and contains data from 2020. “If the time frame is not shortened, information on 2030 plastic waste will not be available until 2034,” the report says. .
The audit noted that the federal public registry of plastics will help fill the data gap. That program, announced last week by Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault on the sidelines of U.N. negotiations toward an international plastics treaty, will require plastic producers to report what they are making and where it ends up.
Environment and Climate Change Canada has agreed to a number of recommendations, including creating a data framework by March 2025 to measure progress toward the zero waste goal.
The audit analyzed efforts underway in 16 programs across the Department of Environment, Statistics Canada, Fisheries and Oceans, and Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada.
In a separate report released Tuesday, DeMarco found that the Department of Agriculture does not have a strategy to meet Canada’s climate goals for 2030 or 2050, four years after it was first ordered to create one.
The federal government called for such a strategy in the fall 2020 economic statement and again in 2021, the audit noted.
With no strategy in place, the department has been conducting “extensive science-based work” that helped identify “promising greenhouse gas mitigation practices that would help the sector.”
The agricultural sector accounted for about 10 percent of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions in 2021.
The federal plan to meet 2030 emissions reduction goals lays out a sector-by-sector path forward.
The audit noted that through its various programs, the Department of Agriculture estimated that by 2030 the sector will reduce its emissions by 11.21 million tons, less than the 13 million tons it estimated in 2022.
One reason for that change is that the department initially included estimates of emissions reductions from planting trees on agricultural land, but later removed them.
The audit examined three programs aimed at reducing methane emissions and found that they “had not yet quantified any expected reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from their projects” to help meet Canada’s goal of reducing such emissions by 30 percent below 2022 levels by 2030.
DeMarco is calling on the department to establish a sustainable agriculture strategy that includes measurable outcomes and reporting on the cost of mitigation programs.
The department has accepted the recommendations.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 30, 2024.