(Ottawa) Canada’s environment commissioner concludes that most federal programs to reduce plastic waste are working, but the government is not measuring its progress toward its overall goal of “zero plastic waste” by 2030 .
The Liberal government launched an initiative in 2019 to create a circular economy for plastics by 2030, meaning nothing ends up in landfills.
In an audit released Tuesday, Environmental Commissioner Jerry V. DeMarco found that waste reduction efforts in key federal departments were generally working well.
The commissioner cites in particular the efforts of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which is achieving its objectives of removing lost or abandoned fishing gear – “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 equipment.
Mr. DeMarco points out, however, that the government does not have clear targets or monitoring systems to know whether it is on track to achieve the overall goal of “zero plastic waste” by 2030.
“Until this work is completed, the Ministry (of the Environment) will not know whether it is on track to achieve the target,” the report reads.
Mr. DeMarco maintains that this follow-up is particularly important because achieving the objective will require coordination on the part of provinces and territories, municipalities and the private sector.
Statistics Canada’s most recent report on where plastic ends up was released last March, but with data from 2020. “If this time frame is not shortened, information on plastic waste in 2030 will only be available in 2034,” underlines the commissioner.
Mr. DeMarco believes that a future federal public registry of plastics would help fill the data gap. This program, announced last week by the Minister of the Environment, Steven Guilbeault, on the sidelines of the United Nations negotiations for an international treaty on plastics, would force plastic producers to account for what they manufacture and the destination of their products.
Environment and Climate Change Canada accepted a series of recommendations from the commissioner, including developing a data framework by March 2025 to measure progress toward the 2030 goal of zero plastic waste.
Still no strategy for Agriculture
The audit focused on ongoing efforts in 16 programs from the Department of the Environment, Statistics Canada, Fisheries and Oceans, Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs.
In a separate report, also released Tuesday, Commissioner DeMarco found that the Department of Agriculture had no strategy to contribute as it had planned to reducing greenhouse gases in order to meet the goals Canada’s climate plans for 2030 or 2050, four years after he was asked to develop one.
The federal government called for such a strategy in the 2020 fall economic statement, and again in 2021, according to Commissioner DeMarco’s audit. Without a strategy in place, the ministry undertook “extensive scientific work,” which “helped identify promising greenhouse gas mitigation practices that would help the sector.”
The agricultural sector accounted for approximately 10% of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions in 2021.
The federal plan to meet emissions reduction targets by 2030 sets out a path forward sector by sector. The commissioner’s audit noted that through its various programs, the Ministry of Agriculture estimates that by 2030, the sector will reduce its emissions by 11.21 million tonnes, less than the target of 13 million tonnes. tonnes that he had estimated in 2022.
One reason for this change is that the ministry initially included emissions reduction estimates from planting trees on agricultural land, but later removed them.
The audit covered three programs aimed at reducing methane emissions. “We found that for the three programs examined, the greenhouse gas emissions reductions expected from projects that would contribute to Canada’s methane emissions reduction target had not yet been quantified,” says the commissioner. Canada’s goal is to reduce these emissions by 30% below 2022 levels by 2030.
Mr. DeMarco calls on the department to establish a sustainable agricultural strategy that includes measurable results and reporting on the cost of mitigation programs.
The Ministry of Agriculture accepted the recommendations.
reference: www.lapresse.ca