The total stock of infrastructure matters at least as much as the flows of annual investment described above. In the transition to 2050, the stock of low-carbon and resilient-related infrastructure—the result of those investment flows—should increase over time, whereas the stock of GHG-intensive infrastructure should decrease. 

Figure 6.2 shows the total value of select infrastructure categories important in the transition to 2050, totalling over $250 billion in 2019. In absolute terms, electricity power infrastructure is the highest-value infrastructure asset in the figure, which is consistent with the investment flows from Figure 6.1. Within this category, hydro power generation infrastructure and transmission and distribution networks have the highest asset value, which typically include massive infrastructure projects that are capital intensive to build and maintain. Nuclear production plants, along with wind and solar, are also important components of Canada’s electricity power infrastructure, albeit smaller in terms of asset size. Taken together, continued growth in the stock of Canada’s electricity system infrastructure will have a significant impact on reducing the country’s long-term emissions but also increase the importance of addressing physical risks from a changing climate in the sector. 

The climate-related impacts of other types of infrastructure categories are more complicated, especially when we start considering other clean growth objectives. The total value of bus infrastructure in Canada, for example, declined slightly (-13 per cent) between 2009 and 2019, while the value of rail and rapid transit infrastructure more than doubled (120 per cent). These trends may signal a transition to cleaner, more efficient rapid transit replacing older, less efficient, and polluting diesel bus fleets. Yet as electric and hydrogen buses become more feasible, continued growth in both bus infrastructure and rapid transit could be a desirable outcome.

Figure 6.2 also includes oil and gas infrastructure to illustrate the difficulty in determining the climate-related impacts of infrastructure. The stock of steam production plants (i.e., fossil fuel electricity generation), for example, more than doubled between 2009 and 2019. And while we might expect the stock of these fossil fuel assets to decline over time as Canada dramatically reduces its GHG emissions, this is not necessarily the case. Carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) and other emerging technologies could help reduce the GHG emissions associated with fossil fuel infrastructure.² At the same time, the air pollution and ecosystem impacts from all types of infrastructure may also factor into decision-making, as explored in Indicators #10 and #11.

The data in Figures 6.1 and 6.2, while helpful in identifying historical infrastructure investments in key sectors, provide an incomplete picture of the consistency of investment trends with clean growth. 

First, the data provide insights on only a small subset of climate-related infrastructure in Canada. The figures do not include national-level investment trends in other important areas, such as energy efficiency upgrades, climate resilience, and natural infrastructure. While part of the problem is poor and patchy data in these other areas (see Data Gap section), the larger issue is that Canada lacks a comprehensive definition and taxonomy of climate-related infrastructure investments. 

Table 6.1 proposes a new approach to better define and track climate-related infrastructure investments across four types of infrastructure: low-carbon infrastructure, enabling low-carbon infrastructure, resilient infrastructure, and natural infrastructure. Each of these categories plays an important role in achieving clean growth. Importantly, the categories in Table 6.1 are not mutually exclusive. Investments can meet several objectives simultaneously; in fact, the framework provides a more structured way to identify infrastructure investments that offer the highest clean growth return. It also offers a way to identify projects that perform well on one objective but detract from other objectives, such as low-carbon electricity infrastructure not designed to withstand extreme climate events (i.e., maladaptive). 

Second, the data do not provide insight regarding the extent to which investments are aligned with long-term clean growth goals. Investments may reduce GHG emissions or improve resilience; that does not necessarily mean, however, that they are consistent with long-term goals. 

Given the long life of infrastructure, decisions made today have significant implications for the future. In particular, they can create “path dependencies” that are challenging and expensive to undo. For example, improvements to coastal infrastructure might be directionally consistent with Canada’s goal of improving resilience to rising sea levels. But if the system is only a marginal improvement—for example, it protects high-value assets against small increases in sea-level but not the larger increases expected under potential future climate scenarios—it is not necessarily consistent with Canada’s long-term objective of economic resilience.

This limitation also means that trends in investment data have limited value in informing forward-lookingchoices (both public and private). Historic data can highlight potential gaps that require policy intervention, but additional analysis is ultimately needed to determine where limited public investment dollars are best placed in the future. Setting priorities also requires understanding barriers to private-sector investment in different types of climate-related infrastructure, as well as an assessment of current and future societal benefits that could flow from different projects (Box 6.1).

Although Canada already has good data on select types of infrastructure investments in Canada—illustrated in Figures 6.1 and 6.2—the breadth and resolution in these datasets can improve. Carbon capture, utilization, and storage technologies, for example, could play an important role in decarbonizing Canada’s emissions-intensive industries and are already being deployed at some facilities. However, the datasets from Statistics Canada do not provide detail on this type of specific investment spending. The datasets also do not include new and emerging areas of investment, such as EV charging infrastructure. Adding new categories to existing data surveys to capture low-carbon and low-carbon-enabling infrastructure and reporting at a more detailed level would help provide key insights and would be relatively straightforward. 

Other climate-related investment data are less simple to capture. For example, national and provincial-scale data on natural infrastructure investments are poor in Canada, along with investments in climate-resilient infrastructure. Data on climate-related investments to Canada’s building stock is also scarce, especially for retrofits. These types of small-scale investments are diffused across Canada, which makes them difficult to track and monitor. Yet each of these areas are expected to play a big role in the transition to 2050. Fortunately, various initiatives may offer the potential to include additional data in the future (Box 6.2).

Canada could also draw on international experience and approaches to implement a more comprehensive climate-related infrastructure investment reporting framework consistent with the categories proposed in Table 6.1. International official development assistance funding is, for example, “tagged” as either climate mitigation or climate adaptation. Investments could be tagged based on their primary, secondary, or tertiary objectives to help identify infrastructure investments that achieve multiple objectives. 

Finally, Canadian governments can benefit from forward-looking data and analysis to ensure that current public and private infrastructure investments align with Canada’s long-term clean growth objectives. The Canadian Institute for Climate Choices has ongoing research in these areas that will inform these important discussions in the future.