What a tonne of CO₂ actually is, where Canadian emissions come from, and which choices move your number — with a quick estimator to see your own.
Carbon dioxide is the biggest driver of warming, but methane, nitrous oxide and refrigerants matter too. Scientists convert them all into CO₂-equivalent (CO₂e) so one number can describe any activity's climate impact. One tonne of CO₂e is roughly what a gasoline car emits every 4,000 km.
Canada emits roughly 700 megatonnes of CO₂e a year. Oil and gas production and transportation are the two largest slices (about a quarter each), followed by buildings — mostly the fossil fuels we burn for heat — then heavy industry, agriculture and electricity. Because most of our grid is already clean, Canadian households move the needle mainly through heating and driving, not light switches.
A kilowatt-hour of electricity carries ~1 g of CO₂e in Quebec and ~650 g in fossil-heavy grids like Alberta or Saskatchewan. The same heat pump or EV is dramatically cleaner in some provinces than others — and rooftop solar displaces far more carbon where the grid is dirtiest. That's the quiet superpower of a Saskatchewan or Alberta solar array.
For a typical Canadian household: 1) stop burning fuel for heat (heat pump), 2) stop burning fuel to drive (EV), 3) tighten the envelope (insulation, air sealing), 4) generate your own (solar). Most homes that do the first two cut their footprint by half or more.
The average Canadian's footprint is about 14 tonnes CO₂e per year — roughly triple the global average. Heating and driving are usually two-thirds of it, and both now have mature clean replacements.
Three inputs, one honest ballpark — household energy and driving only (food, flights and goods are additional).
Rough factors: 192 g CO₂e/km for an average gas car; heating by fuel type; grid intensity per kWh. Estimates for education, not accounting.
Estimated household energy + driving footprint
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Swap the gas car for an EV and the furnace for a heat pump on a clean grid, and most households land under 1 tonne.
