Global climate action: Canada must do much more than it has so far

We need a new political consensus across party lines, Aniket Bhushan says.

On global climate action, Canada talks a good game and craves the spotlight, but does not do enough. It is time for a new political consensus on what we need to do on the international stage.

The start of the Liberal mandate in 2015 coincided with agreement at the UN on the Sustainable Development Goals and a partly successful agreement at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference. The first big global-development spending announcement of the mandate was a commitment to “double” the level of support for climate action in developing and emerging economies.

Establishing a Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change, putting a price on carbon and promoting clean tech have also been important achievements, as was the commitment to spend $2.65 billion over five years (2015-20) on climate action in developing countries and appointing an ambassador for climate change.

Collectively, they helped restore Canada’s credibility on climate action. But they are at least partly, if not entirely, overshadowed by the decision to buy and upgrade a pipeline with taxpayer dollars, which will add significantly to emissions.

Our analysis shows Canada’s recent spending on global climate action, while an increase compared to a period of cuts, does not put us on track to “double” support (on an annualized basis). Canada doesn’t even figure among the top 10 global climate donors and lacks many of the tools other countries employ to drive climate action. A specific gap is the lack of a mechanism to engage the private sector on global action.

Canada’s strategy is very lopsided: multilaterals, such as the World Bank and Green Climate Fund, in 2017 accounted for over 91 per cent of Canada’s climate contributions. This makes Canada an outlier compared to peers. Opportunities to incentivize links between the private sector, research institutions and civil society in support of global climate action are being missed.

A new political consensus is required if we are to strike a better balance between the economy and the environment, as most voters want. The progressive left may want to leave every ounce of resource in the ground no matter the cost. There is merit to that because Canada isn’t on track to achieve even the relatively unambitious target of cutting GHG emissions 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 — even as we know that the country is warming at a rate twice that of the rest of the world and has one of the highest per capita emissions in the world.

But at approximately 1.8 per cent of global annual emissions, if you were to “switch Canada off,” taking emissions instantly to zero, leaving every drop of crude in the ground, ending every subsidy, guess how long that benefit to global emissions would last? About a week.

This is precisely why Canada needs to do far more with its global climate action strategy. By our count, significant public resources have already been devoted to clean-tech research and promoting exports in this fast-growing, $270-billion global market. And yet our research shows Canada has lost market share in global climate-friendly exports.

What should be done?

A new political consensus across parties is required, one that recognizes Canada must do more on global climate action. This requires a bigger budget — exactly the opposite of the recent Conservative announcement to cut aid by 25 per cent (which our research shows will fail to yield the results touted).

It requires incentivizing links between the private sector, academia and civil society. It requires an admission that we need to both lower emissions at home and aggressively promote clean-tech exports.

Doing so means updating our approach to trade and development linkages. Inaction and inability to keep up with peers will have real consequences in the form of protectionism and restricted market access.

While most of the climate discussion has been domestically focused, parties also need to articulate what Canada plans to do internationally.

Aniket Bhushan leads the Canadian International Development Platform (http://cidpnsi.ca/), a data analytics hub on Canada’s engagement on global development issues based at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, where he is also adjunct research professor.