Ottawa's $8B climate fund failing to attract largest emitters, watchdog says

David Thurton · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 30, 2024 10:19 AM EDT | Last Updated: 9 minutes ago

One of the biggest government initiatives meant to encourage manufacturing industries to decarbonize is failing to attract the largest emitters, according to Ottawa's environmental watchdog.

The government's $8-billion program, intended to assist the largest-emitting manufacturing industries in reducing their emissions, has failed to entice them, said a report Tuesday morning from Jerry DeMarco, the federal commissioner of environment and sustainable development.

Of Canada's top 55 emitters, only two have signed contribution agreements so far with the federal government under its Net Zero Accelerator initiative, the report said. About a dozen other large emitters applied for the initiative, but the federal government has not signed agreements with them.

"For the companies applying for funding, the audit found the application process to be very lengthy and complex," a news release from the environment commissioner stated.

"The companies reported spending an average of 407 hours to complete their applications, and the department took an average of 20 months to get a contribution agreement finalized and signed."

The report did not name the companies, but companies in the steel, aluminum and chemical industries have applied for this federal government program. 

The Net Zero Accelerator fund is an Innovation, Science and Economic Development initiative that will work with industry to help Canada achieve its 2030 climate targets. 

Among other shortcomings, the audit found that the multibillion-dollar low-carbon fund "did not track the … overall value for money in reducing greenhouse gas emissions."

The report also found issues with accounting for greenhouse emissions reductions and a lack of adherence to greenhouse gas reporting standards.

The commissioner of environment and sustainable development also released four other reports. They found the federal government was moving too slowly to shifting to low-carbon construction materials and it had not developed a strategy for the agriculture sector to contribute to Canada's 2030 and 2050 climate targets.