Canada’s environment and sustainable-development commissioner has offered a sharp critique of the federal government’s lack of progress on its climate agenda on several fronts—from carbon taxes to ensuring a “just transition” for workers.

Jerry DeMarco, who falls under the Office of the Auditor General, tabled five reports on Tuesday. The findings underscore the monumental challenge of reaching net zero, particularly in a world where transition costs are high and as recent energy-security concerns hamper the shift away from fossil fuels.

Here’s what you need to know: 

Leaving coal workers in the dust: The commissioner found that Natural Resources Canada (NRC) and Employment and Social Development Canada were “not prepared” to help workers transition from fossil-fuel industries, particularly those in the coal sector. NRC was tasked with writing “just-transition” legislation in 2019, but only started consulting on it in 2021. 

That could intensify the blow to workers as companies transition to cleaner energy sources. Last year, Calgary-based TransAlta announced it had fully retooled three coal-fired plants in Alberta to natural gas, eliminating its entire coal footprint nine years ahead of the government’s 2030 deadline. TransAlta CEO John Kousinioris has himself bemoaned the human cost of the undertaking, saying it was the “toughest part of the transition.”

A broken climate lens: After creating a mechanism for examining federally funded projects for their climate effects, Infrastructure Canada revised its “climate lens” in 2021 and made it worse, the commissioner reported. In the “streamlined” approach to help chew through a backlog of approvals, the department removed multiple elements and technical requirements, and as a result, couldn’t be sure its mitigation assessments were “complete, reliable and comparable.”

Making matters worse, Infrastructure Canada couldn’t, and didn’t, report on how its multibillion-dollar expenditures might help meet the country’s emissions targets or make infrastructure more resilient.

Exaggerated benefits of hydrogen: The federal government used “unrealistic assumptions” for modelling hydrogen’s potential to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, DeMarco reported. That in turn has led the commissioner to doubt Canada’s ability to meet its target of cutting emissions 30 per cent by 2030, as laid out in a 2020 federal climate plan. 

A regressive tax on carbon: The commissioner also said Indigenous groups and small businesses remain “disproportionately affected” by the federal carbon tax, despite government efforts to funnel proceeds to low- and -middle-income Canadians. Experts have long warned that carbon taxes seem to place a higher burden on lower-income households without appropriate levels of redistribution.