NWT releases broad climate strategy pointing at 2050 net-zero target

The NWT has a new strategy guiding long-term climate and energy decisions as the territory tries to get to net-zero emissions by 2050.

The North is warming at multiple times the rate of other parts of the planet, but also remains reliant on diesel in many communities, with ageing power plants, no territory-wide power grid and no connection to the south.

Released on Friday, the GNWT’s 2050 Energy and Climate Change Strategy – years in the making – sets no new targets but does firmly commit to net-zero by 2050.

The detail of how that will happen is left to future plans. The strategy instead describes what the GNWT will think about when devising those plans.

It sets out an overarching vision that, in the years ahead, “people are safe and well, communities are safe and livable, infrastructure and supply chains are dependable, and the economy can adapt and grow.”

Things the territory says it will keep in mind while figuring out how to achieve that vision include affordability, Indigenous partnerships and healthy ecosystems.

A “net-zero roadmap” is promised that will guide the NWT’s transition to power sources that aren’t as polluting.

That roadmap is expected to identify five actions that get the territory most of the way to net-zero: modernizing power infrastructure, expanding and connecting the NWT’s various small power grids, using more biomass and biofuels, using electricity more widely in hydro communities, and strengthening partnerships and planning.

The GNWT thinks those actions could get the territory to a 90-percent reduction in emissions by 2050, a figure first given in a Cabin Radio interview early last year.

The remaining 10 percent would be covered by the likes of carbon credits or other offsets, the territory said at the time.

“The energy systems in the territory have never been updated, not in a concerted fashion,” energy minister Caroline Wawzonek told Cabin Radio. “We’re trying to do that work.”

According to the new strategy, the GNWT will pursue net-zero in three cycles. The first runs from 2027-2033, the second 2033-2041 and the third 2041-2050.

“This strategy is designed to be flexible and adaptable,” said Roxanne Springer, acting director of the climate change, cumulative impacts and knowledge division at the GNWT’s Department of Environment and Climate Change.

The system of three cycles “allows us to course-correct,” Springer said, “if we see things are not going the way we want them to go.”

Only when the first cycle’s implementation plan is published – which is expected next year – will we get a sense of what some projects might be, what they cost and how progress will be evaluated.

Actions under the old 2030 energy strategy involved more than $200 million over eight years, said Robert Sexton, the GNWT’s director of strategic energy policy. “There will be concrete actions” and costings in the implementation plans and associated documents, he added.

The new strategy asserts that if all goes to plan, “industrial activity and investment in industrial projects [will] grow while aligning over time with territorial GHG emissions reduction targets.”

No interim targets

The decision to publish a 28-page, high-level strategy with the detail left to future plans is a big change from the GNWT’s previous approach.

The documents the new strategy replaces – the 2030 energy strategy and 2030 climate change framework – together ran to more than 150 pages, named specific projects and included interim targets.

For example, the 2030 documents pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent below 2005 levels and cut greenhouse gas emissions from electricity in diesel communities by an average of 25 percent. They included interim target figures for how many kilotonnes of greenhouse gases the territory would emit in 2020 and 2025.

There are no similar pledges or interim targets in the new strategy. Sexton said interim targets aren’t necessarily useful.

“There’s going to be fits and starts in how fast we can reduce emissions,” Sexton said. “It’s not quite as simple as a linear decline over time.”

The territory is on track to hit the 2030 emissions target its older strategy set, Sexton said, “because of the decline in industrial emissions, which isn’t really a great story,” given the decline of the diamond mining industry.

The 2050 net-zero target is “much, much more ambitious,” he added, representing “complete turnover in our energy system to something that’s much more sustainable and low-carbon.”

The territorial government’s previous commitment to annual progress reports is not included in the new strategy.

The territory “has committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and will report publicly on progress through regular monitoring and evaluation, supported by emissions-reduction modelling,” a spokesperson stated.

In 2024 and 2025, the territory gathered feedback on a draft climate action plan that ultimately informed the new strategy.

At the time, residents who provided input asked for urgent action on the climate crisis, clear timelines and ways to track progress, and coordination across government.

Wawzonek said tracking would be coming.

Taltson is ‘a big one’

Recent low water levels have required more use of diesel, which is both expensive and costly to the environment. As a result, the NWT’s emissions have increased slightly year-on-year for the past few years.

“Low water doesn’t help us. High diesel doesn’t help us,” said Wawzonek.

To try to fix that issue, the territory is advancing an expansion of its Taltson hydro system as a key plank of its energy future – although, in an indication of the high-level nature of Friday’s strategy, Taltson is not mentioned in the document.

The strategy does state that the NWT will not meet its emissions target alone, and officials said the plans published in coming years will rely to some extent on available federal cash.

After the Mackenzie Valley Highway received full federal funding in this week’s budget, Wawzonek hopes Taltson will get the same treatment in the near future.

“There are structural realities up here that we simply cannot fund by ourselves, and that’s where I still point to Taltson as a big one,” the minister said.

“It’s not a silver bullet and doesn’t affect everyone. It doesn’t help everybody. But it helps 70 percent of the population to actually have something resembling a grid.”

“There are no quick solutions,” environment minister Jay Macdonald was quoted as saying in a news release. “However, we now have a plan to guide us.”