Methodology
Climate Action Barometer
How we calculated the Climate Action Barometer
The Climate Action Barometer is our diagnostic tool designed to track economy-wide climate action across six key drivers of change. These drivers, or themes are Policy, Capital, Consumer Action and Sentiment, Industry Action and Sentiment, Emissions and Technology. Each theme consists of progress indicators that measure key decarbonization policies and activities. Our choice of progress indicators was dictated by the availability of good quality time series proprietary or third-party data.
The Barometer measures annual changes in climate action, starting from 2019. That year was chosen as the baseline as it marked the start of federal climate policies—aligned to the Paris Agreement of limiting global temperature increases to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels—and data collection efforts by governments and third-party data providers to track climate action. We also chose 2019 as the baseline year to limit skewing of results from pandemic-induced historic lows in emissions.
The progress indicators, as described further, for each of the six themes track a combination of annual changes. Stock is a snapshot of quantity at a specific point in time, while flow shows the rate of change in a stock. We measure annual flows for the Consumer Action and Sentiment, Industry Action and Sentiment, Emissions and Capital themes. The Policy and Technology themes are measured using a stock approach.
As we continue to advance our measurements and data used in constructing the Climate Action Barometer, we apply changes retrospectively across all years where applicable and comparative figures have been restated where applicable. The more significant changes made this year are described in each section below. While the restatement of prior periods have impacted the thematic and overall values, they have not changed the directional trending.
Sectoral Climate Action Indices
The Sectoral Climate Indices is our diagnostic tool designed to track sector specific climate action across four key drivers (themes) of change—Policy, Action, Capital and Emissions—across six sectors: agriculture, buildings, electricity, heavy industry (comprising mining, smelting and refining (non-ferrous metals), pulp and paper, iron and steel, cement, and chemicals and fertilizers), oil and gas, and transportation.
Each theme’s contribution to each sector’s index score is equally weighted at 25%. Similar to the Climate Action Barometer, each theme consists of progress indicators that measure key decarbonization policies and activities for that theme. The choice of progress indicators was dictated by the availability of good quality time series proprietary or third-party data.
The measurement timeframe is from 2019 to 2025. Progress indicators track annual changes in stock or flow. Data values for 2025, and in some cases 2024, are estimates, based on projections or annualized year-to-date data, if applicable. Where data for a given year is unavailable, estimates are derived based on projections or annualized year-to-date data.
The index values are calculated and derived using the same approach as for the Climate Action Barometer. Each theme’s index weight, a description of its progress indicators, and additional thematic specific calculations are outlined below.
Government Survey Methodology
The Climate Action Institute’s team used federal budget documents between 2013 to 2025 to measure Canadian government climate sentiment. First, we extracted sections from the table of contents from PDFs and matched respective texts from the documents.
Then we applied ClimateBERT—a large language model trained on climate-related research paper abstracts, corporate and general news and reports from companies—as a first-layer filter to classify and screen large volumes of text before applying more computationally intensive models.
Once filtered, we used OpenAI’s GPT-5 reasoning model with high ‘effort’ specification to further evaluate filtered outputs. We fed detailed prompts with examples to identify whether a section is climate- or environment-related or not. In cases where it is, we further attempted to evaluate if the section outlines new climate- or environment-related funding, mentions new climate- or environment-related regulations and policies, commitments or plans, or refers to past actions and/or sets climate or environment as a contextual narrative. Additionally, based on the context of a section, we asked the reasoning model to classify it into one of six categories: Growth and Competitiveness; Mitigation, Net-Zero and Decarbonization; Energy Systems and Infrastructure; Adaptation and Resilience; Nature and Biodiversity; People, Jobs and Just Transition.
The count of the climate- or environment-related sections and breakdown by category or thematic focus was used to compile the sentiment value for the budget in a given year.
Contributors
- John Stackhouse, Senior Vice President, Office of the CEO
- Sarah Pendrith, Vice President, Strategy & Operations
- Jordan Brennan, Managing Director
- Yadullah Hussain, Managing Editor
- Lisa Ashton, Director, Agriculture Policy
- Shaz Merwat, Director, Energy Policy
- Farhad Panahov, Economist
- Stephanie Shewchuk, Housing Policy Lead
- Vivan Sorab, Senior Manager, Clean Technology
- John Intini, Senior Director, Editorial
- Lavanya Kaleeswaran, Director, Digital & Production
- Caprice Biasoni, Design Lead
- Sarah Kennedy, Senior Director Communications
- Jen Gorman, Senior Manager, Communications, Media Relations
- Joelle Schonberg, Program Manager
- Alanna Whitten, Manager, Content Delivery
Climate Action Barometer
How the Barometer was constructed
The Barometer is constructed using a two-step approach. For each theme, we sum up the values of all progress indicators, on an annual basis. We then index the aggregate values to the baseline year and apply each theme’s weight to the indexed value to derive an annual thematic score. All the thematic scores, for each year, are then added together to derive a single annual score. Each theme’s weight in the Barometer, a description of its progress indicators, and additional thematic specific calculations are outlined below.
A. Policy Ambition (15% weight)
Policy scores are based on projected emission declines resulting from the implementation of government policies, as projected by the Environment and Climate Change Canada’s annual emissions projections. These projections include two scenarios: Reference Case and Additional Measures scenarios. For each year of the Barometer, we calculate the difference between reported emissions for 2005 and projected emissions into 2035 for both scenarios. Resulting projected absolute emissions reductions for each scenario are first indexed and then aggregated with equal weights.
Emissions projections have been informed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) standards and external expert views, use recent data, and apply internationally recognized energy and macroeconomic modelling framework (that incorporates ENERGY 2020 model, and Oxford Eco-nomics’ North America Economic Model, as described in Canada’s First Biennial Transparency Report under the Paris Agreement submission to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC).
We use projections that do not include contribution from Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry, agriculture measures or carbon credits from the Western Climate Initiative. For 2019, 2020 and 2021 emissions projections are available only until 2030, which required us to make assumptions about subsequent years. For these years, we have applied the average annual change between 2026-2030 to extend the series into 2035.
What is different this year: In the absence of updated scenario projections for 2025, we had to make certain assumptions. For 2025, we adjusted the latest pathways by an estimated impact on emissions reduction published by the Canadian Climate Institute’s study 2024 Independent Assessment of Carbon Pricing Systems. This approach is borrowed from Climate Action Tracker’s latest country evaluation for Canada—an independent scientific project that tracks government climate action and measures it against the globally agreed Paris Agreement goals, and is a collaboration of two organizations, Climate Analytics and New Climate Institute.
B. Investment and Spending (Capital) (15% weight)
Investment and Spending includes both public and private capital directed toward low-carbon technologies, measured in dollars.
Private capital, which is sourced from BloombergNEF’s Energy Transition Investment Trends, tracks investments in the low-carbon energy transition, covering a wide scope of sectors central to the transition, from renewables and energy storage to hydrogen, CCUS and electrified transport. Data is updated annually, typically in January of each year, with mid-year updates avail-able for renewable energy investments. For 2025, we applied the average of the period between 2022-2024 where data has not yet been released and included estimates from the mid-year update for renewable energy.
For public spending, we track climate-related funding and expenditures announced in the bud-gets of the federal government and the four largest provinces—British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. These include announced plans to-wards climate- and environment-related initiatives focused on decarbonization, innovation, energy efficiency, fuel switching, clean and low-carbon technology manufacturing and deployment, skills, research and planning. These include transfer payments, program spending, tax expenditures, and selected public financing. Total expenditure amounts are equally spread over the timeframe announced in the budgets. For select items, expenditure amounts are distributed over the years prescribed in the budgets.
What is different this year: Previously, Clean Economy Investment Tax Credits were included in public spending. In 2025, we have updated our methodology to exclude Clean Economy Investment Tax Credits from public spending as these are captured in private capital. This change in methodology was applied retrospectively.
C. Action and Sentiment (Industry: 20% weight; Consumer: 20% weight)
Action and Sentiment tracks industry and consumer adoption of clean and low-carbon technologies and climate sentiment measures. Industry action and sentiment contributes to 20% of the index’s weight, and another 20% is derived from consumer action and sentiment. Within industry and consumer segments, action and sentiment are weighted 75% and 25%, respectively.
Business technology adoption consists of renew-able deployment (wind and solar), carbon capture and sequestration volumes, and adoption of low-carbon commercial vehicles. Consumer technology adoption tracks the purchase of personal electric vehicles and residential heat pumps. Each progress indicator is converted to a common unit of measurement—tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) abated.
Industry sentiment tracks (i) the percentage of companies that make up the S&P/TSX Composite with stated emissions reduction targets, and (ii) the challenges organizations face around capital, technology and regulations. For (i) and (ii), the share of companies that make up the S&P/TSX Composite that have disclosed emissions targets to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) or claim a net-zero target based on data from the Bloomberg terminal is indexed to base year. For (ii), we obtain from our business surveys the share of respondents that cite access to capital, technology or regulatory uncertainties among the top three challenges to implementing an emissions reduction strategy–which are indexed and inversed such that fewer mentions positively contribute to the score. We take the average of the two indicators.
Consumer technology adoption tracks the purchase of personal electric vehicles and residential heat pumps. Each progress indicator is converted to a common unit of measurement—tonnes of car-bon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) abated. Consumer sentiment tracks the importance of climate relative to other issues such as housing affordability, healthcare and macroeconomic conditions from our consumer surveys. The relative rank of climate is scored between 0 and 1, which is indexed to the base year.
What is different this year: we have substituted our initial heat pump adoption estimates with statistics from The Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Institute of Canada on central heat pump and ductless split system shipments and used various proxies to estimate total value for heat pump adoption, which impact the consumer action score. The change has been made retrospectively, and prior years figured have been restated.
D. Emissions (20% weight)
The Emissions score tracks changes in both absolute emissions and emissions intensity, which are weighted equally when calculating the theme score.
Canada’s total national absolute emissions are sourced from the Canadian federal government’s National Inventory Reports (NIR) that are prepared and submitted annually to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in accordance with the UNFCCC Reporting Guide-lines up to the 2023 edition, and using the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories since 2024. The 2025 NIR, which tracks greenhouse gas emissions data between 1990–2023, was published by the federal government in March 2025.
Emissions intensity is calculated on a real GDP basis using total Canadian GDP value. Real GDP for 2025 is projected to grow by 1.2% according to RBC Economics.
As they are not included in the latest NIR, we estimate national emissions for 2024 and 2025 as described below. The NIR provides a breakdown of national emissions by economic sector—oil and gas, electricity, transport, heavy industry, buildings, agriculture, waste, and others sectors. We therefore estimate the emissions for each economic sector and sum these to arrive at the estimated national emissions.
Sectoral emissions for oil and gas, electricity, and transportation are based on estimates as described in the methodology section for the relevant Sectoral Climate Action Index. Emissions for 2024 for heavy industry, buildings, agriculture, waste and other sectors are taken from the latest independent Early Estimate of National Emissions, which is published by the Canadian Climate Institute in collaboration with Stiebert Consulting. For 2025, we calculate the year-over-year percentage change for each sector between 2024 and the most up-to-date 2025 data from the greenhouse gas emissions projections published by Environment and Climate Change Canada on February 26, 2025, and apply the percentage change to the 2024 values.
Both absolute and intensity-based emissions are indexed and then aggregated using equal weights. Final scores are inverted, such that decreasing emissions contribute positively to the emissions score.
E. Technology (10% weight)
The Technology score tracks the adoption readiness of major anticipated technologies: CCUS, hydrogen, small modular nuclear reactors, utility scale batteries and anerobic digestors.
In evaluating the adoption readiness of various technologies, we used a similar approach to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Adoption Readiness Assessment. Our research team selected 8 criteria: (1) price, (2) development stage, (3) infrastructure, (4) technological maturity, (5) supply chains, (6) regulatory environment, (7) market opportunity, and (8) market competitiveness – that are aimed at illustrating the viable ecosystem for the commercial deployment of the technology through market forces. Our research team attempts to evaluate each technology across the above criteria on a 1 to 4 scoring scale, where the lowest score is meant to illustrate the following:
- no pricing signal;
- R&D development stage;
- no available infrastructure for deployment;
- Global Technology Readiness Level from Energy Technology Perspectives published by the International Energy Agency;
- no upstream or downstream value chains;
- no regulations or environment;
- lack of target market;
- limited viability and only via government support.
Below is an example of what scoring is attempted to illustrate for pricing criteria:
- Score of 1: Price level continues to fluctuate with no benchmark level
- Score of 2: Technology reached a benchmark cost level which is substantially higher than alternatives
- Score of 3: Technology cost exhibits a declining trajectory
- Score of 4: Technology is cost competitive with alternatives
To gauge development stages, we also utilized data sets from Emissions Reduction Alberta, CleanBC, and Quebec’s Technoclimat, as well as publicly available information that informed us about the number and progress status of related low-carbon projects.
Each technology score is weighted by its emissions reduction potential, which is determined by our estimate of total emissions from sources where these technologies could be applied.
Sectoral Climate Action Indices
A. Policy (25% weight)
Policy is scored both qualitatively and quantitatively across three policy mechanisms:
Carbon pricing references changes in the federal benchmark carbon price. Scoring is a function of both the nominal price of the carbon tax and the scope of GHG emissions coverage subject to the carbon tax.
Fiscal spending is qualitatively scored and takes into account direct and indirect spending by the federal and provincial governments.
Non-fiscal support (regulations, targets, etc.) encompasses policy measures impacting climate action. A maximum of three measures are selected and scored on policy progress (e.g., issuance of consultation paper, draft legislation and/or regulations, enacted legislation/regulations). Scoring is done both at the federal and provincial levels.
B. Action (25% weight)
The Action theme tracks each sector’s key climate mitigation practices as aligned with GHG emission sources, according to Canada’s official NIR.
Action metrics are aggregated as a physical metric, such as square footage for buildings or megawatts for electricity. If metrics cannot be aggregated into one physical unit, either the emissions abatement potential is used as a proxy (e.g., carbon emissions reduced), or each specific metric is indexed and then aggregated into one composite value (e.g., indexed to allow for comparability).
The sector specific progress indicators are noted below.
Agriculture
The agriculture’s sector emissions come from three main sources (animal production, crop production, and on-farm fuel use). Through consultations with industry experts and reviewing the breakdown of GHG emission source lines presented in the NIR, the Climate Action Institute team selected six indicators that represent key climate actions in the sector that correlate with reported emissions:
- Reduction in on-farm diesel use
- Adoption of 4R Nutrient Stewardship Plan to improve fertilizer use
- Advancements in herd management that lead to herd size reductions
- Improvements in milk production per dairy cow
- Increases in meat production per animal to reduce animals required
- Adoption of reduced and no tillage
Buildings
Building action metrics are selected to represent emissions reduction initiatives across the major sources of sector emissions, i.e. embodied emissions (action metric: adoption of low-carbon construction materials, e.g., mass timber), emissions from energy consumption (action metrics: residential heat pump adoption and fossil fuel based home heating system deployment), and energy efficiency (action metric: new or retrofit of industrial, commercial and institutional (ICI) buildings that are LEED certified). As a result, our progress indicators for the sector focus on these areas:
- Residential heat pump adoption
- New or retrofit of ICI buildings that are LEED certified
- New ICI buildings constructed with low-car-bon building materials, e.g. mass timber
- Fossil fuel home heating systems deployment (new)
Electricity
After a review of historical emissions from the most recent NIR, we identified that the majority of emissions decline within the sector was driven by the phaseout of coal generation in Canada. From a climate action perspective, this has been complemented by the buildout of solar and wind capacity. As a result, our progress indicators for the sector focus on these areas:
- Capacity additions in solar and wind power
- Reductions in coal-powered electricity generation
Heavy Industry
In our report, Canada’s heavy industry sector comprises mining, smelting and refining (non-ferrous metals), pulp and paper, iron and steel, cement, and chemicals and fertilizers. Each of these sectors has unique decarbonization challenges, requires different technologies to decarbonize, and are largely still at nascent stages of technology deployment (e.g., low-emissions hydrogen, alternative feedstocks for cement manufacturing, non-emit-ting smelting technologies), resulting in a paucity of robust data to quantify emissions reduction progress for individual technologies. To address decarbonization across all heavy industry sectors while maintaining methodological simplicity our approach focuses on the two major emissions sources in industry: final energy consumption and process emissions from industrial production. As a result, our progress indicators for the sector focus on these areas:
- Changes in emissions intensity of final energy consumption
- Changes in emissions intensity of industrial production
Oil and Gas
Our oil and gas action metrics align with the largest historical source of emissions in the sector as de-tailed in the NIR (i.e., the Athabasca oil sands, and methane emissions within conventional oil and gas production). As a result, our progress indicators for the sector focus on these areas:
- Carbon sequestration from carbon capture applied to oil and gas facilities.
- Volumes of gas flared and vented
- Changes in steam-to-oil ratios
Transportation
Passenger cars, and medium- and heavy-duty vehicles account for 80% of the transportation sector’s emissions. We identify electrification in the form of EV (defined as battery and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles) adoption as a primary driver of climate action, and hence track annual EV sales. We also include annual installations of public chargers, one of the main enabling factors of EV adoption. To account for relative size of the sales and total car stock that needs to be electrified, we also include internal combustion engine vehicle fleet size. Adoption, chargers and fleet size are equally weighted in construction of the action score. Our progress indicators for the sector focus on these areas:
- Adoption of passenger, medium- and heavy-duty EVs
- Deployment of public chargers
- Internal combustion engine vehicle fleet size (new)
C. Capital (25% weight)
Capital flows are aggregated across both the private and public sector.
Public sector climate spending is sourced from federal budgets and the budgets of the four largest provinces. Private sector spending includes climate-oriented private equity and venture capital fundraising and operator capital expenditures, where distinguishable.
The total dollar value of climate expenditures is aggregated and then adjusted relative to the level of capital expenditures required to achieve a net-zero transition—as outlined in The $2 Trillion Transition: Canada’s road to net-zero. This adjustment to derive the final Capital score provides a more accurate comparison of capital progress across the six sectors.
What’s new: The agriculture sector is also tracking agri-food supply chain investments in on-farm practice and technology adoption. These publicly disclosed annual investments are included in the annual capital accounting for the agriculture sector.
The buildings sector updated capital data for previous years with additional government spending on building decarbonization.
D. Emissions (25% weight)
The Emissions score tracks changes in both absolute emissions and emissions intensity.
Changes to both absolute and intensity-based emissions are indexed and then aggregated using equal weights. Final scores are inverted, such that decreasing emissions contribute positively to the emissions score.
Absolute emissions for each sector are sourced from the federal government’s NIRs that are prepared and submitted annually to the UNFCCC, in accordance with the UNFCCC Reporting Guide-lines up to 2023 edition, and using the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas
Inventories since 2024. The most recent NIR, which tracks greenhouse gas emissions data between 1990–2023, was published by the federal government in March 2025.
As they are not included in the latest NIR, we estimate sectoral emissions for 2024 and 2025 as follows:
Sector emissions are reported by Environment and Climate Change Canada’s National GHG Emission Projections and supported by the Canadian Climate Institute’s Early Estimate of National Emissions. The agriculture sector uses these reported estimates for absolute emissions.
Agriculture emissions intensity estimates are based on primary agriculture emissions and pro-duction outputs, covering on-farm nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide, and methane emissions from both crop and animal production. Emissions intensity is measured by dividing primary agriculture emissions (using the sources stated above for absolute emissions) by national total on-farm outputs, which is “agricultural production” (i.e., crops and animals in tonnes). The data sources for the estimated emissions intensity are annual emission estimates reported by Environment and Climate Change Canada in the National GHG Inventory Report and the National GHG Emission Projections, and annual agriculture production of crops and livestock are reported by Statistics Canada.
Emissions are estimated based on the Canadian Climate Institute’ Early Estimates of National Emissions and Environment and Climate Change Canada’s 2024 Reference Case emissions projections. Emissions intensity estimates are defined as emissions (tonnes CO2 equivalent) per square meter of floor space. Emissions are sourced as noted above, and floor space data for residential and commercial buildings was sourced from Natural Resources Canada’s Comprehensive Energy Use Database (NRCan). For years where NRCan estimates are unavailable, floor space was projected using a simple linear trend informed by recent historical growth, providing an indicative estimate aligned with current patterns in building activity.
Emissions intensities were calculated separately for the residential and commercial sectors and rolled up into a single measure using a weighted average determined by floor space.
Emissions for 2024 were taken from the Canadian Climate Institute’s Early Estimate of National Emissions. For 2025, we estimated emissions based on our forecasted change in electricity generation from both coal and natural gas. Coal-powered electricity generation is estimated based on historical monthly reported data for coal use from Statistics Canada Table 25-10-0079-01, up to June 2025. For the second half of 2025, we take an average of the last three months of reported primary energy data (second quarter of 2025) and assume the same level of energy use for the second half of 2025.
Natural gas-powered electricity generation is estimated based on historical monthly reported data of natural gas based primary energy through Statistics Canada Table 25-10-0079-01 up to June 2025. For the second half of 2025, we take the trailing12-month average of reported primary energy data as of June 30, 2025 and compare that percentage change relative to the trailing 12-month average of reported primary energy data as of June 30, 2024. That implied percentage increase is then applied to the total primary energy usage in 2024 to predict our value in 2025. The percentage share of total primary energy from natural gas usage is adjusted relative to historical trends to align with the NIR classification of electricity as an economic sector. This relationship is based on historical monthly generation under Statistics Canada Table 25-10-0015-01 and Statistics Canada Table 25-10-0084-01.
Emissions intensity is calculated as the sector’s total GHG emissions divided by the total electricity generation in any given year.
Total sector emissions are driven primarily by changing volumes in production of oil and natural gas. For 2025, we derive our pro-duction data from Canada Energy Regulator data on the production of crude oil and equivalent and marketable produced gas volumes, annualized and adjusted for seasonality and aligned with RBC Capital Markets’ fundamental supply and demand model for Canadian Oil and Gas production.
Emissions data is a bottoms-up build across oil sands, conventional liquids and conventional gas.
For oil sands, emissions projections are a function of the year-over-year change in production, as de-noted in the Canada Energy Regulator production of crude oil and equivalent and aligned with the disclosed Steam to Oil ratios as disclosed under Alberta Energy Regulator Statistical Report ST53 and the resulting marginal decline in historical emissions intensity across Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD). For conventional liquids pro-duction, data is sourced from the Canada Energy Regulator production of crude oil and equivalent and calibrated with the historical trend in changing emissions intensity from 2020-2023 to predict emissions values based on estimated production. For natural gas, emissions data is a function of the year-over-year change in production, as denoted in the Canada Energy Regulator production of marketable natural gas production with emissions tracking the historical change in venting and flared emissions. Venting and flared emissions are calculated based on historical emissions factors and reported volumes of flared and vented gas across the three major provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. For Alberta, vented and flared gas volumes are taken from Petrinex’s Conventional Volumetric Data Download and calibrated with Alberta Energy Regulator historical data as denoted under Statistical Report ST60b.
For Saskatchewan, vented and flared gas volumes are taken from Petrinex’s Conventional Volumetric Data Download. For British Columbia, vented and flared gas volumes are taken from the BC Energy Regulator Well Flare and Facility Volumetrics data (BIL-311) report. Volumes of flared and vented gas are then calibrated to Canada’s National Inventory Report and Statistical Annexes for each of the provinces, i.e., Alberta, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia as denoted under Table A11-19, Table A11-17 and Table A11-21, respectively. Predicted emissions for both flared and vented volumes are driven by the year-on-year change in reported and annualized volumes based on data reported through August 31, 2025, for Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. Volumes and emissions are then calibrated to Canada’s National Inventory Report Table A9-2. Estimates for vented and flared emissions are based on volumes solely for Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia as the three provinces accounted for 92% and 97% of reported flared and vented gas volumes in 2023, as reported under National Inventory Report Table A9-2.
Emissions intensity is calculated as the sector’s total GHG emissions divided by the total combined oil and gas production (barrels of oil equivalent) in any given year.
Sector emissions consist of five major categories: (1) cars, light trucks and motorcycles, (2) bus, rail and aviation, (3) heavy duty trucks, rail, (4) aviation and marine, and (5) other: recreational, commercial and residential.
Cars, light trucks and motorcycles, and heavy-duty trucks and rail make up about 80% of the sector emissions, which we attempt to estimate based on directional trends. For other categories we apply 10-year average for 2024 and 2025. We use data from IBIS World that provide total vehicle-kilometres driven (version published in Oct 2024), which represents “the total annual sum of kilometres driven by all motor vehicles over the calendar year.” Further, we use 2009 Canadian Vehicle Survey Summary Report published by Natural Resources Canada, which breaks down kilometres driven by vehicle type–of which around 90% are travelled by light vehicles (gross vehicle weight less than 4.5 tonnes) and ~10% by medium and heavy trucks (gross vehicle weight between 4.5 and 15 t, and gross vehicle weight of 15 t or more). Using ICE vehicle fleet sizes for passenger and medium and heavy commercial vehicles, we derived historical emissions intensity per kilometre driven. Fleet size for passenger vehicles is sourced from Statistics Canada’s Table 23-10-0308-01, and commercial vehicle fleet size is sourced from BloombergNEF’s Long-Term Electric Vehicle Outlook 2025 dataset published in June 2025. Using the average of the derived ratio between 2021-2023, we estimate emission for both cars, light trucks and motorcycles, and heavy-duty trucks, rail categories for 2024 and 2025.
Sectoral emissions intensity is derived by ratio of total sectoral emissions and total vehicle-kilometres driven.
Emissions for 2024 were estimated using a combination of the Canadian Climate Institute’s Early Estimate of National Emissions and Environment and Climate Change Canada’s 2024 Reference Case Emissions projections.
Emissions for 2025 were held constant at 2024 levels, reflecting ongoing uncertainty in Canadian heavy industry output under U.S. tariffs. This approach helps ensure that any tariff-related de-clines in production, and the resulting emissions reductions (which are not driven by climate policy), do not artificially improve the emissions score.
We define emissions intensity in terms of kilotonnes of emissions (CO2e) per kilotonne of industrial production across the following heavy industrial sub-sectors as stated in Canada’s National Inventory Report: mining, smelting and refining (non-ferrous metals), pulp and paper, iron and steel, cement, and chemicals and fertilizers. Annual production figures (up to 2023) per sub-sector were sourced from the Canadian Energy and Emissions Data Centre, at Simon Fraser University, which are based on proprietary estimates as well as databases including World Steel and the Global Cement and Concrete Association. Annual emissions figures are sourced from the Canadian Climate Institute’s Early Estimates of National Emissions. Emissions intensities per heavy industrial sub-sector were rolled up into a composite estimate using a weighted average, with weights corresponding to each sub-sector’s contributions to Canada’s heavy industry emissions across all stated sub-sectors.
Government Survey Methodology
The Climate Action Institute’s team used federal budget documents between 2013 to 2025 to measure Canadian government climate sentiment. First, we extracted sections from the table of contents from PDFs and matched respective texts from the documents.
Then we applied ClimateBERT—a large language model trained on climate-related research paper abstracts, corporate and general news and reports from companies—as a first-layer filter to classify and screen large volumes of text before applying more computationally intensive models.
Once filtered, we used OpenAI’s GPT-5 reasoning model with high ‘effort’ specification to further evaluate filtered outputs. We fed detailed prompts with examples to identify whether a section is climate- or environment-related or not. In cases where it is, we further attempted to evaluate if the section outlines new climate- or environment-related funding, mentions new climate- or environment-related regulations and policies, commitments or plans, or refers to past actions and/or sets climate or environment as a contextual narrative. Additionally, based on the context of a section, we asked the reasoning model to classify it into one of six categories: Growth and Competitiveness; Mitigation, Net-Zero and Decarbonization; Energy Systems and Infrastructure; Adaptation and Resilience; Nature and Biodiversity; People, Jobs and Just Transition.
The count of the climate- or environment-related sections and breakdown by category or thematic focus was used to compile the sentiment value for the budget in a given year.
Acknowledgements
The Climate Action Institute would like to thank the following individuals for their insightful conversations and support with technical analysis:
- Bradford Griffin, Director, Canadian Energy and Emissions Data Centre, Simon Fraser University
- Wilson Fink, Advisory Services Manager, Viresco Solutions
- Terence Smith, Senior Director, BCG Centre for Canada’s Future Mario Tenuta, Professor, University of Manitoba
- David McInnes, Principal, DMci Strategies
- Ibrahim Mohammed, Sustainability Specialist, Grain Farmers of Ontario
- Terence Smith, Senior Director, Boston Consulting Group's Centre for Canada's Future
- Mario Tenuta, Senior Industrial Research Chair in 4R Nutrient Management and Professor, University of Manitoba
- Kyle Scott, Managing Partner, Emmertech
- Genevieve Grossenbacher, Director of Policy, Farmers for Climate Solutions
- Donald Killorn, Executive Director, Prince Edward Island Federation of Agriculture
- Andrea Gal, Director of Data & Marketplace Strategy, Canadian Alliance for Net-Zero Agri-Food
- Alexandra Burdett, Operations Director, Agricultural Genomics Action Centre
- Gwen Paddock, Agriculture Finance Expert
- Mark Wallace, Sustainability Specialist, Farm Credit Canada
- Roland Kroebel, Research Scientist, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
- Olivia Richardson, Research Associate, Smart Prosperity Institute
- Manasah Mkhabela, Climate Change Specialist, Government of Manitoba
- Dante Luu, Communications Lead, Carbon Upcycling
- Madison Savilow, Carbon Upcycling
- Tyler Hamilton, Senior Director of Climate at MaRS, MaRS Discovery District
- Ria Perrault, Manager Climate Programs, MaRS Discovery District
View References
We relied on subscriber-only and public publications and data sets to inform our research and analysis. The references below are the public publications we accessed. The list excludes news articles, government legislation, regulations, policy directives, budgets and fall economic statements, regulatory and statutory reports, such as those published by auditor generals and the Parliamentary Budget Officer, climate strategic plans, such as the federal government’s Emissions Reduction Plan, and data sets from federal and provincial departments.
Idea of the Year:
Climate Action Barometer
BloombergNEF, Energy Transition Investment, 2025 BloombergNEF, Long-Term Electric Vehicle Outlook, 2025 Climate Action Tracker, Country Profiles: Canada Canadian Climate Institute, 440 Megatonnes, Early Estimate of National Emissions
Canadian Federal Budgets, 2019-2024 Canadian Provincial Budgets, 2019-2025
Canadian Renewable Energy Association (CanREA), Energy Transition, By The Numbers
Environment and Climate Change Canada, National Inventory Report 1990-2023
Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Institute of Canada, Quarterly Statistics
International Energy Agency. ETP Clean Energy Technology Guide.
RBC Climate Action Institute, Business Survey RBC, internal consumer survey
Statistics Canada, New motor vehicle registrations. Statistics Canada, Installed Plants, Annual Generating Capacity By Type of Electricity Generation Transport Canada, Incentives for Medium- and Heavy-Duty Zero-Emission Vehicles
U.S. Department of Energy. Adoption Readiness Assessment.
Agriculture
BloombergNEF, Regenerative Agriculture Dashboard, 2025.
Canadian Federal Budgets, 2019-2024 Canadian Provincial Budgets, 2019-2024
Environment and Climate Change Canada, Green-house gas emissions projections, 2024.
Environment and Climate Change Canada, National Inventory Report 1990-2023
Emissions Reductions Alberta. Projects, 2024. Fertilizer Canada. Fertilizer Use Survey, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024.
Reports of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development to the Parliament of Canada
Agriculture and Climate Change Mitigation - Agriculture and Agri-Food
S&P Capital IQ, Transaction Screener
Statistics Canada. Supply and demand of primary and secondary energy in terajoules, annual.
Statistics Canada. Number of cattle, by class and farm type.
Statistics Canada. Cattle and calves, farm and meat production.
LSEG Refinitiv Workspace, Deals Screener
Trusted Advisor Partnership
Buildings
Housing Supply Report, Spring 2024.
Statistics Canada. Table 38-10-0286-01 Primary heating systems and type of energy.
Intelligent City
Electricity
Natural Resources Canada, Table A13-1, Electricity
Generation and GHG Emission Details
Statistics Canada, Consolidated Energy Statistics (Table 25-10-0079-01).
Canadian Renewable Energy Association (CanREA), Energy Transition, By The Numbers
Statistics Canada, Electric Power Generation, Fuel Consumed and Cost of Fuel By Electricity Generating Thermal Plants (Table 25-10-0084-01) Statistics Canada, Electric Power Generation By Type of Electricity (Table 25-10-0015-01)
Statistics Canada, Installed Plants, Annual Generating Capacity By Type of Electricity Generation (Table 25-10-0022-01)
Alberta Electric System Operator, Historical Generation Alberta Electric System Operator, Current Supply Demand Report
S&P Capital IQ, Transaction Screener LSEG Refinitiv Workspace, Deals Screener Canadian Federal Budgets, 2019-2024 Canadian Provincial Budgets, 2019-2024
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Heavy Industry
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Statistics Canada, Supply and Disposition of Crude Oil and Equivalent (Table 25-10-0063)
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Canada Energy Regulator, Estimated Production of Canadian Crude Oil and Equivalent
Alberta Energy Regulator, ST53, Alberta In Situ Oil Sands Production Summary
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S&P Capital IQ, Transaction Screener
LSEG Refinitiv Workspace, Deals Screener
Canadian Federal Budgets, 2019-2024
Canadian Provincial Budgets, 2019-2024
Government of Canada, Various Enacted and Pro-posed Legislation
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BloombergNEF, Climate-Tech Investment Database
Canadian Climate Institute, 440 Megatonnes Equitable Origin
Transportation
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Canadian Provincial Budgets, 2019-2025
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Endnotes
Emissions intensity estimates are defined as emissions (tonnes CO2 equivalent) per square meter of floor space. Floor space data for residential and commercial buildings was sourced from Natural Resources Canada’s Com-prehensive Energy Use Database. For years where NRCan estimates were unavailable, floor space was projected using a simple linear trend informed by recent historical growth, providing an indicative estimate aligned with current patterns in building activity. Emissions intensities were calculated separately for the residential and commercial sectors and rolled up into a single measure using a weighted average determined by floor space.
The emissions decline resulting from decreased coal-powered electricity generation is taken from historical emissions factors and implied coal-based generation as reported under Table A13-1 as part of Statistical Annex 13 Electricity Intensity.
The emissions impact from the estimated increase in natural gas powered generation is based on historical conversion factors from 2019-2023 reported data under Table A13-1 as part of Statistical Annex 13 Electricity Intensity.
Total sector emissions within electricity in 2025 are the summation of the estimated decline in emissions from coal-powered electricity generation and the increase in natural gas-powered electricity generation as detailed above. These values are then compared relative to 2005 and 2019 as disclosed under Table A13-1 as part of Statistical Annex 13 Electricity Intensity.