Date: May 3, 2014
The climate change legislation in Canada shares much similarity with climate change legislation in Australia. The developments of climate change legislation are involved with political parties in both countries. At first Canada was active in climate change legislation, but in 2011, Canada announced its withdrawal from Kyoto Accord, disappointing those who had anticipated that Canada stands as a leading role in climate change issues.
In 2007, Canada has established Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, which has a legislative framework. At that time, COP 11 was held in Montreal, it was when the act was established and all standards were closely related to Kyoto Protocol’s standards.
To everyone’s surprise, Canada withdrew from Kyoto Accord in 2011, and then abolished Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act in 2012. With this change, it is estimated that future movement of climate legislation will be slower than before. We could say that the 2007 Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act is a framework for following legislation; any later law could be put into this framework. It is interesting that even though the framework itself had been abolished; however, the laws continued to exist and later became a scattered legislation mode. After the frame law had been abolished, the federal sustainability strategies have become the foundation of future development. As to the organization, there haven’t been any new established organizations; Environment Canada continued to move forward the issues of climate change. The authority of Environment Canada includes establishment, assessment, management, execution, etc in climate change issues. These have been the authority and power of Environment Canada. And the policies are synchronized with American climate change policies, with the aligned standards just like in America.
The regulating mechanism and strategies are focused on transportation and energy. Energy regulations were active, Energy Efficiency Regulations was established and the amended 2008 GHG clauses were included. In 2012, Environment Canada announced a series of regulations, and gradually eliminated heat power. In addition, Canada focused its strategies on agriculture and wood industries, specifically put agriculture industry into regulating policies. As it comes to research and information establishment, including clean air process regulations, it is required that GHG emission situation to be investigated and reported. And that The Federal Sustainable Development Strategy requires Environment Canada to carry on relevant reports.
As compared to America’s lack of focus on financial mechanism, there are three aspects of Canada’s financial mechanism: First, technology development. Canada has firstly established Greenhouse Gas Technology Investment Fund Act. In 2010, there is development in clean technology financial fund. Moreover, Canada cares about adjustment. Each year, Canada has spent a lot of fund in researching climate change adjustment strategies and develops adjustment plans since 2007. In addition to that, Canada also established climate finance in helping developing countries in adjusting reduction policies.
In Professor Lin’s opinion, we could continue to observe Canada’s climate change legislation. Since its previous close connection with international environment, until it withdrew from Kyoto Accord, what will be its next step of policies is worth our attentions. Will it stop developing climate change legislation, or will it develop its own policies? Moreover, we could see the similarities of Canada’s new policies and American climate change policies. On top of that, we could see more about the relationship between federal government and local government. Since local governments are inclined to oppose federal policies, so we could look deep as to whether the cooperation between local and federal governments could bring more integration. Canada’s policies care about adjustment deeply. The main focus for us to observe will be the tight financial mechanism connections and the fund invested in promoting adjustments.
Professor Wen-Chen Shih pointed out that, Ontario, Canada has a connected emission system with California, the United States. We could see that there are more active connections between states than the federals. Professor Jiunn-rong Yeh stated that there exists a secondary cross country-state cooperating phenomenon other than cooperation on a country to country level between Canada and America. We could also look deep into the connection of carbon market between the United States and Canada.
Professor Wen-Chen Chang stated that, if we look into North America area, political parties affect the movement of climate change. Besides, when it comes to treaties, Canada adopts dualism. Therefore, after Canada withdrew from Kyoto Accord, the Implement Act does not have a standing. Since Canada didn’t transfer the Implementation Act into domestic law, we could see that Canada stood strong in withdrawing from international mechanism of climate change issues. Other than that, there wasn’t enough ground for making the Implementation Act domestic law. However, we could see that Canada’s action of joining Kyoto Accord and establishing domestic law. It doesn’t mean that Canada does not carry out climate change policies; it was just that the implementation did not have a domestic impact and status. Professor Jiunn-rong Yeh supplemented that we could look into the political phenomenon of putting the issues of climate change under political framework, and that Canada is currently the only country which dropped out of Kyoto Accord and abolished its domestic regulations.