Ottawa's $8B climate fund failing to attract largest emitters, watchdog says
One of the biggest govern‐ ment 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-bil‐ lion program, intended to as‐ sist the largest-emitting man‐ ufacturing industries in re‐ ducing their emissions, has failed to entice them, said a report Tuesday morning from Jerry DeMarco, the federal commissioner of environ‐ ment and sustainable devel‐ opment.
Of Canada's top 55 emit‐ ters, only two have signed contribution agreements so far with the federal govern‐ ment under its Net Zero Ac‐ celerator initiative, the report said. About a dozen other large emitters applied for the initiative, but the federal gov‐ ernment has not signed agreements with them.
"For the companies apply‐ ing for funding, the audit found the application pro‐ cess to be very lengthy and complex," a news release from the environment com‐ missioner stated.
"The companies reported spending an average of 407 hours to complete their ap‐ plications, and the depart‐ ment took an average of 20 months to get a contribution agreement finalized and signed."
The report did not name the companies, but com‐ panies in the steel, aluminum and chemical industries have applied for this federal gov‐ ernment program.
The Net Zero Accelerator fund is an Innovation, Sci‐ ence and Economic Develop‐ ment initiative that will work with industry to help Canada achieve its 2030 climate tar‐ gets.
Among other shortcom‐ ings, the audit found that the multibillion-dollar low-carbon fund "did not track the … overall value for money in re‐ ducing greenhouse gas emis‐ sions."
The report also found is‐ sues with accounting for greenhouse emissions reduc‐ tions and a lack of adherence to greenhouse gas reporting standards.
The commissioner of envi‐ ronment and sustainable de‐ velopment 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 de‐ veloped a strategy for the agriculture sector to con‐ tribute to Canada's 2030 and 2050 climate targets.