Canada is suffering billions in climate damages annually, with the 2024 Jasper wildfire and a 2021 heat dome claiming over 600 lives, according to a report by University of Victoria climate advisor Julia K. Baum. Prime Minister Mark Carney,who in 2015 warned of the 'tragedy of the horizon,' has now cancelled the consumer carbon tax, repealed EV mandates, and stripped environmental assessments from pipeline approvals. The report says Canada will miss both its 2030 and 2035 emission targets under these policies.

The $25 billion annual economic drag from climate inaction

The Canadian Climate Institute estimates that climate-induced damages are already slowing Canada's economic growth by $25 billion annually, equivalent to half of projected GDP growth, according to the report. This figure includes $2.4 billlion in insured catastrophic losses last year alone, plus another billion in uninsured damages. Baum notes that these are not future predictions but present-day realities, with heatwaves causing mass coral mortality and kelp forest loss.

Why 509,000 clean energy jobs could grow to 2.7 million — but not under Carney

Canada's clean energy sector already employs 509,000 workers at wages roughly a third above the national average,according to Clean Energy Canada and Navius Research projections cited by the report. Under a net-zero scenario, that number would grow by 7 percent annually to 2.7 million jobs by 2050, more than offsetting fossil fuel losses. yet Carney's government is simultaneously approving new fossil fuel projects that risk becoming stranded assets, as the report notes.

The 2024 Jasper wildfire and the billions in insured losses

The devastating wildfires that swept through Jasper, Alberta in 2024 are one example of the mounting costs, the report says. Last year's insured catastrophic losses from climate-related events totaled $2.4 billion, with uninsured damages adding another billion. these crises are unfolding every season across Canada, from the 2021 heat dome that killed over 600 in British Columbia to the 2023 Upper Tantallon fire in Nova Scotia.

What happened to the 2030 and 2035 targets Carney now says are missed?

Carney has acknowledged that Canada will miss both its 2030 and 2035 climate targets, according to the report. Under current policies, emissions reductioons will fall short even of what Stephen Harper's Conservatives once promised. The report questions the economic rationale: Carney argues Canada cannot afford environmental ambition when jobs and growth are at stake, but the clean energy sector's rapid growth contradicts that. The report highlights that wind has become the cheapest source of new electricity generation in much of Canada, displacing natural gas.

Who benefits from the pipeline deal and the decade-long carbon pricing pass?

An agreeement with Alberta clears the way for a new pipeline while giving the oil sands a decade-long pass on meaningful carbon pricing, the report states. This marks a stark departure from Carney's 2015 warning that short-term political thinking would lead to catastrophic consequences. The report asks whether new fossil fuel projects are being proposed as economic equivalents to clean energy when they are not, given that solar and battery storage costs have plummeted. The unanswered question is whether Canada's economic diversification goals can survive this double-down on oil and gas.