Why Canada might need a climate law and how it might work

Beginning with Brian Mulroney in 1988, four different prime ministers have committed this country to nine different climate targets over the last 32 years.

So far, five of those carbonemissions targets for the years 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2012 have been missed by wide margins. Stephen Harper settwo different targets for 2020; we're going to miss thoseas well.

The pressure to meet those targets was almost entirely politicaland, apparently, insufficient. Neither domestic nor international opinion was enough to convince successive governments to do what was requiredto significantly reduce emissions.

Public opinion may have shifted markedly in the last few years, but some environmentalists and climate policy analysts think that Canada's chances of meeting its next two targets for 2030 and 2050 would improveif those commitments were written into law.

It surely couldn't hurt even if it's still going totake more than a law to ensure Canada does its fair share to combat climate change.

Legally-binding targets

Along withsetting a goal of net-zero emissions by mid-century,Justin Trudeau's Liberals promisedduring last fall's campaign to establish"legally-binding" emissions targets at five-year intervals from now until 2050. They also said thosetargets which would chart a path to 2030 and 2050 would be informed by advice from scientists, economists and other experts.

A timeline for legislation depends on when the government decides to turn its attention to matters unrelated to the pandemic. But there are now two proposalsthat describe how the government could proceed.

The first report was released earlier this month by a coalition of environmental groups (EcoJustice, the Climate Action Network, West Coast Environmental Law, Equiterre, Environmental Defence and the Pembina Institute). The Canadian Institute for Climate Choices, established earlier this year with federal funding, released its own recommendations last week.

Based on international and provincial examples (both British Columbia and Manitoba have introduced similar climatelegislation), the two reports are broadly aligned on what the federal government's climate accountability legislation should look like.

Long-term climate targets would be written into law and clear lines of responsibility for ministers would be established. Neither proposal imagines specific consequences for failing to meet a target but both would require the governmentto report regularly on progress towardreducing Canada's emissions, with oversight provided by an arms-length body or institution.

A fiscal model for climate accountability

In the United Kingdom, which has become a model for climate accountability, a publicly funded expert committee provides independent advice and analysis and monitors the government's progress. That body was established in 2008. Last year, the British government officially legislated a target of net-zero by 2050.

To some extent, such legislation could build the sort of structure around climate policy that already exists in Canada for federal fiscal policy.

Both of the proposals in the two reports would introduce a national carbon budgeta set limit on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions Canadians cumulatively produce each year, or over a given period of time. While a long-term emissions target can seem abstract and distant, a national carbon budget could reframe the climate conversation around more tangible goals and advance the discussion on how each sector of the economy might fit into Canada's low-carbon future.

Carbon budgets for provinces?

But the coalition's proposal goes one significant step further by calling on the federal government to negotiate or set "sub-national carbon budgets" for each of the provinces.

In a perfectly rational world, that might be the smart way to structure climate policy in a federation with each province accepting its fair share of the national goal. But anyone familiar with the nature ofCanada's federation and the significant differences in emissions across provinces knowshow fraught and divisivesuch an exercise would be.

The Trudeau government consistently hasside-stepped questions about regional differences and responsibility by focusing on nationalpolicy, like the federal carbon price. It's hard to imagine the Liberals wanting to engage now in long and painful negotiationsto set provincial carbon budgets.

A new federal climate change accountability act wouldn't be entirely without precedent.

Thirteen years ago, Parliament adopted a private member's bill sponsored by Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez, now the Government House leader that established the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, despite the Conservative government's objections.

The 14-page bill required the government to produce a plan for meeting Canada's target under the Kyoto Protocol and to issue annual reports on progress toward that target. The National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy an independent body established by the Mulroney government was tasked with analyzing the government's plan, whilethe environment commissioner (whose office fallsunder the auditor general)was charged with providing a biannual assessment of the government's progress.

That legislation was in effect for four years. But by 2012, the Conservatives had a majority in the House and they used itto withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol, repeal the act and abolish the NRTEE. (A private member's bill that would have looked beyond Kyoto,originally proposed by former NDP leader Jack Layton,was killed in the Conservative-dominated Senate in 2010.)

'A layer of durability'

The example of Rodriguez's bill reminds us that no new climate legislationis necessarily guaranteed to survive a change in government. While there is a broad consensus on the need to reduce emissions in the United Kingdom, the debate in Canada is still polarized. And as long as it is, action on climate change will always hang in the balance.

Watch: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is questioned about climate conditions for pandemic business financing

PM asked about climate conditions on big business financing

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he expects oil and gas companies to share their environmental plans as part of a commitment to reduce emissions and fight climate change.

But legislation would be one more significant structural support for climate action thatany future government would have to contend with even if only by repealingit.

"Accountability frameworks aren't silver bullets and won't automatically solve the disconnect between policy and targets," said Dale Beugin, vice president of research and analysis at the Institute for Climate Choices. "They do, however, add a layer of durability.

"Just as missing a milestone has reputational and political costs, so too would repealing legislation."

The law's success, in other words, might ultimately depend on whetherCanadians themselvesdemand that it be upheld and honoured.