Making climate aspirations accountable
Canada edges closer to climate action history with accountability legislation
Vague, aspirational talk from governments on the topic of reducing greenhouse gas emissions may soon become passé. Canada’s newly announced Bill C-12 is a promising sign that this federal government is willing to make real change:
“The Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act delivers on the Government of Canada’s commitment to legislate Canada’s target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The Act will establish a legally binding process to set five-year national emissions-reduction targets for 2030, 2035, 2040, and 2045, as well as develop credible, science-based emissions-reduction plans to achieve each target.”
The phrase “legally binding” here should bring about cheers from climate activists who have long complained about the lack of teeth in past legislation. It means there could be a real cost, or at least domestic legal trouble, for Canadian federal governments (present and future) who don’t rise to the challenge of drastically reducing emissions.
However, the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices recently noted that measures like this “are not a silver bullet” since they can’t force future governments to stick to them. But the “transparency and accountability they provide can play an important role in keeping governments on track.”
More than words
Accountability like this should be the true measure of a government’s ambition, whether it’s climate policy or any other area. If intentions are genuine, then the legal requirements here shouldn’t be scary at all – especially when the public is clearly in your corner and wants to see this work done. And on climate, Canadians generally believe in what the Trudeau government is doing.
Source: Abacus Data poll published on November 28, 2020.
Accountability legislation is also shrewd political thinking. Sure, a future government might repeal the legislation (should it pass), but cutting down something like this could be disastrous for any party. A “legally binding” promise to the electorate, other nations and businesses that Canada will meet our emissions targets is the closest a government can come to being sincere.
Environmental organizations applauded this announcement. “The more robust this legislation, the better Canada’s chances are of avoiding the disastrous impacts of the climate crisis,” said Alan Andrew of Ecojustice. “It moves us past the vagaries of the election cycle with legal requirements on governments to achieve climate progress,” said Isabelle Turcotte of the Pembina Institute.
Lawyer David V. Wright also did a really deep dive on the bill for ablawg.ca: “No previous federal government has so explicitly committed to a long-term emissions reduction pathway and milestones, let alone one with numerous accountability and transparency mechanisms.” He also noted the bill has a number of “weaknesses and limitations.”
Missing targets
One reason this draft bill is so significant and so necessary in Canada is because of our inability to walk the talk. CBC says it well here: “Canada has set multiple emissions reduction targets in past decades and has never met a single one. It's also on track to miss its current target for 2030.”
We simply aren’t getting the job done. Even a global pandemic that has shut down large chunks of our national economy hasn’t made a real difference in the emissions we create. The World Meteorological Organization has described the expected drop in 2020’s global emissions as a “tiny blip” that would fall within the normal fluctuations of our upward trajectory in global temperatures.
Legislated accountability on climate action is a bit like cutting up your credit card, knowing that your future self may be tempted to get another one. Nevertheless, the act of cutting it up still matters.
Net-zero is … complicated
I can’t say that I totally understand how we’ll reach our net-zero objective. But I like the idea of a government saying they’re willing to stand in court to answer for not getting there. And as simplistic as that fantasy is, I think that’s an important part of motivating Canada to start meeting these incremental targets.
To help understand net-zero better, I’ll end with a helpful explanation from Duncan McLaren’s piece for Carbon Brief:
“A net-zero target contains within it two related, but different responses to the problem of rising temperatures. The first is to stop releasing GHGs in the first place, by cutting emissions. The second is to remove CO2 from the atmosphere using “negative emissions technologies” (NETs). A net-zero target is met when these two balance.”
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