New report finds some light-duty ZEV successes, but several challenges. Says, to meet targets, “the government must pick up the pace”

The Canadian government’s report card for its suite of greenhouse gas reducing measures is out and, when it comes to transportation decarbonization initiatives, the results are mixed.

The Auditor General of Canada gives a passing grade to the federal programs for zero-emission sales targets and incentive programs for light-duty passenger EVs, saying they are “on track” to meet the 2030 targets.

However, there remain significant challenges with programs for the Rural Transit Solutions Fund, Zero Emission Transit Fund and Active Transportation Fund. As well, many of the government’s green energy incentives are facing barriers that may hinder progress to meeting targets.

In all, the Auditor reviewed 20 policies and programs. These include emission reductions programs for oil and gas, electricity, housing and waste.

All categories reviewed are facing challenges.

Overall, the report finds, “Climate change is a defining issue of our time” and urges that, “The federal government must pick up the pace in implementing effective measures…to meet the 2030 target, the greatest share of emissions reductions will need to occur in the next [six] years.”

Reducing light-duty vehicle emissions

The Auditor General assessed five programs making up part of the government’s emission reduction strategy for transportation.

Two of the programs pertain exclusively to adoption of light-duty zero-emission vehicles. They are also the only two government transportation initiatives to be considered “on track.”

However, the Auditor General finds there could still be some improvements.

The Auditor cautions that the zero-emission sales target monitoring system lacks “targets for the [three] indicators related to emissions,” which could hinder expected emissions reductions by 2030. Those three indicators are greenhouse gas emissions, air pollutant emissions and climate change.

Meanwhile the expected emissions avoided by the incentive for zero-emission vehicles (iZEV) rebate vary significantly due to a lack of transparency.

Overall, the Auditor calls for more clarity on the reporting and tracking mechanisms of each program, but confirms that, in principle both are likely to achieve their target emission reduction goals.

Auditor General identifies “challenges”

The federal government continues to experience difficulties with policies and programs that intersect with local infrastructure and systems.

The Rural Transit Solutions Fund, Zero Emission Transit Fund and Active Transportation Fund are, collectively, some of the most expensive programs the government has put in place to decarbonize transportation in Canada.

However, all are “facing challenges” in meeting their 2030 targets, according to the audit.

The types of challenges facing all three programs include:

• Multi-jurisdictional challenges — Barriers to delivery persist due to the various levels of governments and municipalities with various levels of capacity.
• Expected emissions avoided — the department has not assessed this metric for these programs.
• Value for money— Has not been assessed
• GBA Plus and Indigenous peoples — The pace of resource disbursement for Indigenous peoples has been slow. The department has only partially tracked access to the measure and failed to collect detailed disaggregated statistical data.

The audit does not provide specific remedies to each of the challenges, stating instead, “The results of the assessment are aimed at determining whether federal organizations have effectively implemented their mitigation measures to achieve emissions reductions that would contribute to meeting Canada’s 2030 emissions reduction target of 40% to 45% below 2005 levels.”

The full report many be accessed here.