Just in time for the COP21 conference in Paris, the Yukon government released a progress report for its 2009 Climate Change Action Plan.

The nearly 50-page progress report states that in the six years since the first plan was created, the “majority” of the government’s 33 original goals have been completed or are underway.

The report itself, however, provides little information as to what’s actually been done in those six years to comprise that majority.

“I don’t think in the report it’s actually gone into saying specifically what’s been completed and what hasn’t been completed,” Kirsten Burrows, the senior analyst for the government’s Climate Change Secretariat, said Thursday.

Part of that is due to the fact that some of the long-term goals are just that, long-term.

In 2012, the government created sector-specific greenhouse gas reduction targets – of the 11 in total, there are four goals that are to be completed by 2015, and one in 2014.

Several other targets have completion dates for 2020.

One target is to have the transportation sector decrease its emissions by 10 per cent by the end of this year.

“We won’t know until 2017 if we’ve met this target because of the industry standard time-lag in terms of reporting,” Burrows said.

From what is shown now, the Yukon is just one kiloton away from meeting the transportation goal – but it will take 18 months to know for sure, Burrows said.

Emissions for the transportation sector have seen a decrease overall since 2011.

Burrows partly attributes this drop to the decline in the mining industry – since there are some off-grid mines in the territory that are no longer operating, there are fewer large trucks travelling to those mines, thus decreasing greenhouse gas emissions.

The sector seeing an increase in its emissions, ironically, is the Yukon government.

Preliminary data show that between 2010 and 2013, the government jumped from 0.3 kilotons of greenhouse gases to 42 kilotons.

“This data is subject to revision,” Burrows points out.

As with the transportation sector goal, final data will be known in 2017 – but it is highly unlikely that the territory came remotely close to quashing 20 per cent of emissions by the end of this year, as stated in the 2012 target.

The report dedicates five pages of initiatives to attempt to stifle the emissions used in the Yukon government’s internal operations.

The majority, 65 per cent, of the government’s emissions come from heating more than 550 government buildings.

One initiative to combat this is to establish modern buildings that are energy efficient.

The example Burrows mentioned is the new F.H. Collins Secondary School, which is touted to use 20 per cent less energy than a standard building would.

The government’s contribution to the territory’s total emissions is low, roughly six per cent.

It is transportation that makes up the majority of total emissions, sitting at about 57 per cent in total.

It has taken a while to understand the toll of which transportation takes.

Part of the problem, was in the reporting of emissions – as of now, the territory is switching up how it tracks its carbon footprint.

Historically, the territory has relied on Environment Canada and Statistics Canada to supply the data for greenhouse gas emissions.

But when officials at the Department of Environment had a hunch that emissions were being under-reported, a report was commissioned by Research Northwest in 2013 to gain more insight into the issue.

Its main finding confirmed the hunch – Environment Canada’s data for the transportation sector was off by 70 per cent one year, and 92 per cent another year.

“As a result, Yukon GHG emissions were considerably under-reported in Environment Canada’s analysis for the period 2009 through 2012,” the report states, thus making it difficult to gauge whether or not the territory is meeting its emissions goals on time or not.

Burrows said the territory has found a way to get more accurate emissions data, from the Department of Finance – more specifically, by calculating the amount of tax collected by the government from fuel sold in the territory.

Going forward, the department is confident in its methods for tracking emissions.

The report states that planning for reducing emissions can be a tricky exercise – population growth and weather trends can influence whether a target will be hit or missed.

“We’re aware that these targets are ambitious,” Burrows said.

But it doesn’t mean that the territory will stop working to address climate change challenges, she added.

The report identifies 28 new climate change actions, mostly focused on adaptation and mitigation.

There is no timeline set for the next possible progress report.

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