Geography has done Canada a favor when it comes to carbon management potential. However, it will take a shift in culture to truly make this geographic advantage pay off. -By Gerald Donald

Canada has very ambitious climate action goals. However, Canada as a country also has an established history of missing its climate goals. For the last three decades, it has aimed high and fallen short. Yet as Jerry DeMarco, Canada’s Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, noted in his remarks to Parliament, “We cannot afford a fourth decade of failure on climate action.” Fortunately, this decade represents a unique opportunity to lean into Canada’s unique geography to make up for lost time on the carbon management front – if the country can shift its business culture to truly make the geographic advantages around, under, and right in front of it pay off.

A land blessed with potential for carbon sequestering

Looking out over the Canadian landscape, the first thing that comes to mind is often the beauty and wonder of the place. It’s usually not carbon sequestering. However, for those truly interested in climate control and climate amelioration, it should be.

Unlike many other countries, Canada’s geological foundations are ideal for carbon sequestering. The same formations that provide gorgeous mountains, rolling plains, deep harbors, and awe-inspiring rocky shores also provide spaces suitable for removing carbon from the atmosphere and locking it away. Underground reservoirs, cap rock formations, and natural distributions of materials suitable for in situ mineralization of carbon mean that Canada can potentially sequester away large enough amounts of carbon to offset historical emissions and current industrial outputs.

In fact, the country is already home to approximately one-seventh of the world’s active large-scale carbon management projects, according to Natural Resources Canada. That breaks down to some 570 carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) projects in development, with some 368 projects are expected to be operational by 2030. Between them, they’ll have an anticipated capacity to capture 743 Mt of CO2 per year, which is equivalent to the emissions of 367,380 litres of gasoline consumption.

Saying one thing, allowing another

The potential for all of this carbon sequestering matches up well with Canada’s public positions on carbon neutrality and its net-zero goals. It also sounds great in speeches and public presentations. However, what the government and business leaders are saying about carbon neutrality and net-zero goals in one space isn’t lining up well with the activities being allowed in other space.

For example, consider the Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion project. It came online in May 2024, and is expected to triple the flow of oil from Alberta’s oil fields to the Pacific coast. The hope is that this increase in oil flow will make it easier for Canada to compete in global markets by getting more oil from the middle of the country to the US border for near-domestic exports and to the West Coast ports for shipment to Asian markets. It’s being heralded as a great advancement for Canadian industry by the government… at the same time as other parts of the government are calling for a complete phase-out of fossil fuel production, export, and reliance.

So which is truly the priority here? Is it the expansion and economic nourishment of the oil and gas industry, where Canada currently stands as the world’s fourth largest producer? Or is the goal to step firmly away from everything related to fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas, to support climate action and take action to reduce emissions?

It definitely seems like Canada is trying to have things both ways, as the Climate Action Tracker organization notes. The group gives the country an overall rating of “Highly Insufficient” for its climate goal progress. Running the numbers, the organization points out that even large carbon sequestration projects can hardly measure up to brand-new oil pipelines in terms of real climate impact.

Bringing words and actions together to meet Net-Zero goals

If the government seems to be working at cross-purposes, is it any wonder than Canadian businesses are similarly confused about the best path forward? The words don’t match up to the actions, which give disappointing results when it comes to climate impact. The solution to this misalignment is to go to work at the core roots of the issue. Canada can’t divest entirely from the fossil fuel industry without creating a clear off-ramp for its existing businesses and workers. To do so would be to create a massive economic disruption – one that has been compared to the devastating impact of the collapse of the northern cod fishery in Atlantic Canada in the 1990s. That’s the challenge in a nutshell – and no small feat!

However, this challenge also presents a massive opportunity for Canada’s innovators to really get to work. Instead of a culture trying to have it all, the business world could determine that reducing greenhouse gas emissions, developing renewable energy sources, and achieving ambitious net-zero targets is the priority. From there, leaning into the potential of the carbon management industry unlocks a path forward everyone can potentially not just like, but find profits in over time.

Many of the same space abundant in fossil fuels are also spaces where carbon sequestering makes geological sense. Celebrating more of those developments – and encouraging corporations to make carbon-sequestering investments an equal priority with other supply chain sustainability investments – could shift how Canadian firms meet their climate goals. It would also have the benefit of creating a robust domestic demand for carbon management services at a level to truly offset the sunset of the traditional fossil fuels industry, a dramatic win-win scenario for everyone involved. Even better? While many of the current metrics are anchored on what’s possible by 2030, shifting investments around carbon management projects has the potential to make a difference well beyond this nearest milestone marker. Plus, with a strong alignment on priorities, Canada’s government and business community alike can finally stop falling short on climate goals and start reaping the full benefits of the country’s natural resources in an entirely new way.