Only Hot Air? The Implications of Replacing Gas and Oil in Canadian Homes

Canadian homes emit about six percent of Canada’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The Federal government aims to bring down 2030 building emissions by 42 percent compared to 2019, with the entire economy producing net zero emissions by 2050.This report examines current sources of emissions from Canadian homes and presents a scenario in which air and water heated by fossil fuels are retrofitted with electrical heat pumps.Our modeling finds that Canada would need to retrofit over 400,000 dwellings per year to fully electrify all dwellings by 2050 and meeting 2030 targets requires even more aggressive action: over half a million retrofits would be required per year.Even in an extreme scenario where no new emitting buildings came on the market after 2022, emissions only fall by about 26 percent to 2030, still not enough to meet government targets.Retrofits aren’t cheap. Meeting the 2050 target could cost between $4.5 billion to $6.3 billion per year. This is roughly equal to two or three modern hospitals per year.Numbers like these show that other emissions-reducing measures will have to bear more of the burden. These include energy efficiency improvements to homes, building code revisions, and combining heat pumps with traditional natural gas furnaces