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We all know the refrain — Canadians are bad, wasteful and laggards on climate change.
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Except in the real world, comparing Canada to other nations by selectively using emissions per capita as the metric is highly misleading, because Canada is the second-largest and second-coldest country on earth.
We also have a relatively small population and natural resources such as oil and gas make up a significant portion of our economy.
In that context, comparing our per capita emissions to countries in the European Union, such as Germany, for example, which is one-third the size of Ontario with a population more than twice that of Canada’s, is absurd.
Ditto comparisons to the entire 27-nation European Union, given that its members are minuscule in size compared to Canada and none are as cold.
Our emissions aren’t the highest per capita in the world because everyone has an oil rig in their backyard.
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They’re highest per capita because of Canada’s size and climate, which have a direct impact on our far greater need for fossil fuel energy to transport people, goods and services across the country, to say nothing of the need for fossil fuels to heat Canadian homes in winter.
For example, when emissions are measured by square kilometres instead of per capita, Canada not only falls out of the world’s top 10 emitters, save for Brazil — including the U.S., Russia, Iran, Japan, China, Indonesia, India and every member in the 27 countries of the European Union — it also falls to 140th place among the world’s 215 countries and regions identified by the United Nations, when it reported on the global data in 2007.
When environmental consultants Sustainable Business Consulting looked at the same metric in 2019 using 2017 data, Canada was the 129th largest emitter out of 184 countries countries, again with lower emissions per square kilometre than any of the world’s top 10 emitters, save for Brazil, including the U.S., Russia, Iran, Japan, China, Indonesia, India and every member in the 27 countries of the European Union.
