The climate is heating up in a couple of important ways. It’s heating up in a literal sense — global warming continues largely unabated, and each year sets new records for temperatures across the globe.
The consensus among scientists is that this is mostly a human-driven phenomenon, and that hundreds of years of fossil fuel burning — mostly in rich countries — are to blame.
Metaphorically, things are heating up on climate policy in Canada as well. The Trudeau government is keen to be seen as doing something on the environment file, and with a key platform promise to keep on a pan-Canadian approach to climate policy.
All governments should proceed with caution.
That something must be done about climate change and emissions is not anymore in much doubt. But it does not follow from this fact that because Policy X is by definition “something,” that Policy X must be done.
This is a policy area fraught with complexity and challenges, and the sometimes-messy Canadian federation currently seems ill-suited to dealing with the problem in a meaningful and efficient manner.
A recent “First Ministers” meeting between federal, provincial, and territorial leaders on climate change policy produced what can charitably be referred to as a first step on a national approach to lowering greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
A key platform promise for the federal Trudeau Liberals last year was to arrive at just such a national climate policy, with the provinces and territories firmly on board. Their initial meeting on the topic leaves little room for optimism that recalcitrant provinces will be brought along with a newly-activist federal government in this policy area, despite the friendly noises made by some premiers at the mere fact the feds are now willing at least to sit down at the table.
British Columbia has its carbon tax, and it has functioned well for years without destroying that province’s economy. Nova Scotia’s emissions are firmly on a downward track — though at great cost to its energy consumers — since its decision to move away from coal-generated power.
Saskatchewan refuses to endorse anything that looks like a national carbon tax. Many other sub-national governments are pursuing different emissions reduction policies, with mixed results.
This limits the discretion of a federal government with an election promise to keep on the climate. As with so many other issues in our country, the initial bonhomie that characterized the first meeting of governments risks rapidly degrading into a loud chorus of provincial complaints, handcuffing
a federal government with the best of intentions.
If history is a guide, today’s provincial support for a federal government “at the table” on climate change can fast morph into tomorrow’s complaints of an intrusive Ottawa stepping on the divinely-bestowed jurisdictions of the provinces. Such is the often bipolar nature of our powerful provincial and territorial governments.
This is unfortunate. Canada is a massive country, and climate change is a problem that knows no borders, national or provincial. Voters, consumers and industry would be best-served by a national policy approach to the issue, not a hodge-podge of 13 different sets of rules for every province and territory in the country.
If anything, we should be coordinating GHG reduction plans with other countries, which the recent Paris Accord admirably sought to do and to which Canada, to its credit, is a signatory. Yes, the provinces deserve their seat at the table, but at the end of the day the federal government has just as much lawmaking power and constitutional responsibility in this area as they do.
Inevitable provincial complaints of “unilateral” action by Ottawa on climate change — if it comes to that — hold no more water than federal complaints about a province that legislates in its own jurisdiction.
The problem is global, not provincial, warming. In the absence of a global government, national ones are the best we have to set rules around GHG emissions reductions.
The federal government has a tight line to walk on this issue, but the objective should be GHG emissions reductions through one national climate policy, not 13.
