Greenhouse gas emissions and green technologies in Canada

Climate change has become the most serious global environmental threat in recent history. Climate change is a consequence of the increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere. To address these negative environmental impacts, national and international authorities have set targets to reduce GHG emissions through different mechanisms such as energy conservation, improved transport processes, and the development of alternative clean energy resources. This paper compares the total and manufacturing sector GHG emissions of Canada with other industrialized countries. The paper also presents the trends in environmentally related innovations measured by patent statistics to combat this problem. The paper complements previous studies on green innovation measures by using all patent applications instead of merely Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications to examine whether there has been a significant change in the share of Canadian green innovation in relation to total innovation.