Of the 10 potential candidates identified in news reports so far, at least three can claim credentials in some aspect of climate response or energy transition, while another three are seen to be more closely aligned with fossil fuel interests. Depending on which of those voices show up in the campaign, one veteran observer says a lukewarm Liberal response could open the door for the New Democratic Party to regain ground on climate change and energy.

In his statement Monday morning, Trudeau asked Governor General Mary Simon to prorogue Parliament until March 24, declaring that he isn’t the right choice to lead his party into this year’s federal election. The announcement followed months of drama, dissent and cratering public support, culminating in the resignation last month of Finance Minister and Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland, now considered a top leadership contender. In the wake of Freeland’s announcement, a growing wave of Liberal caucus members prevailed on Trudeau to stand aside.

“This country deserves a real choice in the next election, and it’s become clear to me that if I’m having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election,” Trudeau told media.

Those words opened a leadership process that will begin with a six-hour national caucus meeting Wednesday, the Toronto Star reported, then a discussion by the Liberal Party’s national executive, The Globe and Mail said, in the story that broke the news.

Trudeau, who will stay on as PM and Liberal leader until his successor is chosen, made his announcement just two weeks before Donald Trump begins his second term in the White House. Trump greeted the news by doubling down on his mutterings about annexing Canada as a 51st U.S. state – a notion that has already prompted at least one call to defend Canadian sovereignty by standing up for community energy and energy democracy.

CBC has the most complete rundown so far of the potential candidates. They are (in alphabetical order):

• Transport Minister and former Treasury Board president Anita Anand

• Former Liberal MP Frank Baylis

• Mark Carney, a climate finance expert and former governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England who has never held elected office but is reportedly making the rounds to pitch his candidacy to the Liberal caucus

• Innovation, Science and Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne, who’s been at the forefront of efforts to promote Canada as a destination for clean energy investment

• Former British Columbia Premier Christy Clark, a relentless advocate for her province’s liquefied natural gas industry while she was in office

• Freeland, once referred to as Trudeau’s “Minister of Everything” and long touted as a future leadership candidate

• Government House Leader Karina Gould

• Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly

• Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who stepped in as interim finance minister when Freeland resigned and once saw fit to consult the federal ethics commissioner over his ties to New Brunswick’s powerful Irving Oil empire

• Natural Resources and Energy Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, a former environment and climate minister who ran a cleantech firm before he entered politics

Fernando Melo, federal director of policy and government affairs at the Canadian Renewable Energy Association (CanREA), declined to comment on individual candidates’ track records or future prospects. But “anyone who has served in the Liberal government has shown a remarkable understanding of the role of renewable energy and energy storage in accelerating Canada’s economy, and in a moment of affordability, helping to reduce costs for all Canadians,” he says.

CanREA has “a really open door engaging with all the parties right now,” he adds. Whichever one forms the next government, “the big question will be how we ensure that Canada remains an attractive place to invest capital” while provinces carry through with the now 13,000 megawatts of clean electricity they’re in the process of procuring.

“It’s a competitive market for investment, and it’s not just Canada that needs new renewable electricity and storage. The globe does,” Melo says. “So whoever forms a government needs to think long and hard about how we continue those things.”

Tyler Meredith, a former policy director to Freeland and founding partner of Meredith Boessenkool & Phillips policy advisers, says that climate and energy issues would more likely come to the surface in a longer leadership campaign that ran 90 to 100 days, with time for policy debates on different topics across all the regions of the country. A shorter calendar – dictated by the prorogation date of March 24, and the likelihood that the government will fall to a non-confidence motion immediately afterwards – would “leave very little time to have a really rich policy debate.”

But all of the candidates will be looking for ways to differentiate themselves, Meredith says, from each other and from Trudeau – and for some of them, that will mean focusing on energy and environment.

In spite of the Conservative opposition holding a 25-point lead over the Liberals – and Trudeau carrying a -43 net favourability rating – in the aftermath of Freeland’s resignation, Meredith stresses that all the leadership candidates will be running for government, not opposition. “Don’t discount the possibility that this leadership race has the effect of potentially energizing things,” he says.

Climate Emergency Unit team lead Seth Klein says that the Liberal leadership race could also open up an opportunity for the NDP – particularly if the winning candidate is Clark, whose provincial climate-action plan was literally written (or, at least, rewritten) in the boardroom of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, or Freeland, long seen as the biggest obstacle to more ambitious climate action in the Trudeau cabinet.

“If you are a climate voter, you’re much more likely to have seen the Liberal Party as the strongest on climate over the last few years, whereas the NDP ranks at the same level as the Conservatives,” Klein says, mainly because “you never heard about climate” from NDP leader Jagmeet Singh. But if the Liberals choose a leader who looks to be shifting its priorities in a different direction, “that would open up space for the NDP to pick up the banner.”

In a release Monday afternoon, Climate Action Network Canada said that Trudeau “accomplished more on climate policy than any other Canadian Prime Minister so far,” leading “a revolution in how we tackle climate change” that still fell short of what the country needed.

“The resulting policies have contributed to, and will continue, improving the lives of people and communities,” executive director Caroline Brouillette said. But “we have seen that no climate approach will be successful without dismantling the fossil fuel industry’s grip on Canada’s policy and politics.”

This article originally appeared in The Energy Mix. It has been edited to conform with Corporate Knights style. Read the original article here. 

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As for the Conservatives, they see a wedge issue they can stir up to their political benefit, and their “Axe the tax” slogan is tailor-made for riling up their base: it rhymes, it fits on a baseball cap, and it supports their “divide and conquer” strategy for electoral victory. Combined with the Liberals’ intransigence on the issue, the stage is set for a shouting match over the carbon tax at a time when we urgently need a grown-up conversation about how to address the climate emergency while securing Canada’s place in the emerging new-energy economy.

Canada is one of the most decentralized federations in the world, and achieving consensus on national policy is difficult at the best of times. In addition, unlike most of its OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) trading partners, revenue from oil and gas exports is important to the national economy and the economic lifeblood of the producing provinces. While the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that the federal government has the constitutional right to put a price on carbon, it has proven a formidable political challenge to find a solution that responds to the climate emergency while reconciling the interests of producing and consuming provinces as well as the competing imperatives of short-term gain and long-term prosperity.

The result is the revenue-neutral, two-part federal carbon-pricing policy we have today: a carbon tax on fuel rebated to households and most of the economy, and an output-based regulatory pricing and trading system for emissions-intensive industries (the big polluters). Both systems share a common carbon price that increases to $170 per tonne by 2030 from its current level of $80 per tonne. Provinces and territories may opt in or out of either or both parts by substituting their own approach as long as they are consistent with the federal government’s carbon-pricing schedule. The result is a patchwork with four tax regimes and nine separate industrial pricing systems that could all come apart at the seams if national and provincial leaders keep turning up the heat.

The Canada Carbon Rebate — now you see it, now you don’t

The first part of our carbon-pricing system is the one most familiar to Canadians: a “tax and dividend” approach in which fuel distributors pay the carbon levy and pass it on to consumers. The revenue – about $8.3 billion in 2022/2023 – is returned to the provinces in which it is raised, mostly in the form of quarterly rebates that are based on the total carbon emissions of the province but not on the emissions of individual households. For most households, the rebate is larger than the tax paid, and the idea is to provide an incentive for them to reduce their carbon emissions so that they can continue to come out ahead as the carbon levy increases year by year.

Polling from Nanos indicates that nearly half of Canadians don’t believe that the carbon tax is effective, and as the people whose behaviour it is designed to influence, they should know. The impact that the tax has at the gas pump is less than the routine variation in gas prices to which Canadians have become accustomed. The impact on heating bills is more noticeable but not by itself sufficient to cover the capital costs of the deep retrofits and heat pump conversions needed to get the buildings off fossil fuels. Meanwhile, the government is faltering on public relations; indeed, a large portion of the population does not realize that the quarterly rebates are related to the carbon tax, and many do not even know they are receiving the rebates, which are mostly delivered via direct bank deposits. The government’s recent rebranding of what was previously called the “Climate Action Incentive Payment” as the “Canada Carbon Rebate” signals a renewed commitment to shoring up sagging support for carbon pricing.

Economists have oversold the effectiveness of carbon pricing in the real world.

Skepticism about the impact of the carbon tax is fuelled by assertions that it is the most efficient and effective way to reduce emissions, which fly in the face of common sense. Economists have oversold the effectiveness of carbon pricing in the real world, where fuel prices are a relatively small portion of the cost of services and amenities. Lower-income households feel its pinch more than others, but they are also in a weaker position to make the investments needed to reduce their energy use.

From building codes to vehicle fuel-efficiency standards, examples abound where rules and regulations win hands down over carbon or energy pricing in bringing about efficiency and emission reductions. In 1987, U.S. president Ronald Reagan was able to trigger a dramatic increase in refrigerator efficiency with a new set of appliance rules for the manufacturers. It boggles the mind to imagine just how much fuel tax it would have taken to raise the price of electricity high enough to achieve the same results.

Carbon pricing has been on the policy agenda since the 1980s, but in the last few years the technological pathway for decarbonizing buildings, transportation and electricity has come into sharper focus, and the urgency of addressing the climate emergency has increased. At worst, the Canada Carbon Rebate is an innocuous, zero-sum shell game. At best, a continuously rising carbon price will have a marginal direct effect on emissions while increasing the receptivity and success of the quicker, targeted and more direct measures that are needed now to address the climate emergency.

The biggest polluters pay the least

If you think the Canada Carbon Rebate is complicated, buckle up: there are hundreds of pages of rules and regulations governing the various federal and provincial systems for industrial carbon pricing.

In a nutshell, the second part of Canada’s “carbon tax” system works like this: Each facility covered by the federal output-based pricing system (OBPS) is permitted to freely emit greenhouse gases up to an annual limit. That limit depends on the facility’s emissions output and an emissions-intensity standard specific to the product being made in the facility, be that cement or steel, et cetera. If the facility’s emissions exceed this cap, then the company must either pay the carbon price on the additional emissions or submit what are called surplus allowances – effectively, credits it has banked from previous years when it didn’t exceed the cap or bought on the secondary market from other companies.

Still with me?

Those free emission allowances are adjusted to protect the viability and competitiveness of Canadian producers in global markets, so that, say, a steel company in Northern Ontario doesn’t drown in carbon taxes trying to compete with cheaper steel from abroad. It’s a system built for gaming, and a small army of consultants and lobbyists work hard at minimizing the costs that companies are paying for their emissions. Large emitters pay the carbon charge on only a portion of their actual emissions and so end up paying less for carbon than the average Canadian family. Suncor Energy, for instance, one of the largest oil companies in Canada, paid just $1.67 per tonne of greenhouse gases in 2020 when Canadian families were paying $30 per tonne. (Suncor estimates it will pay $8.97 per tonne between 2021 and 2030, less than a 10th of the $103 average price of carbon during this period.)

Large emitters end up paying less for carbon than the average Canadian family. Suncor Energy paid only $1.67 per tonne in 2020, when families paid $30.

Although transparency was a stated design objective of the OBPS, the carbon market that it spawned is a muddy swamp, causing headaches for regulators and uncertainty for investors. As Dave Sawyer, the Canada Climate Institute’s chief economist, notes, “It’s astounding that systems are not in place to track how these markets function and whether the market price holds.”

The rationale for granting these emission allowances to large emitters like pulp and paper mills is that they’re considered “trade exposed,” or at an unfair disadvantage in global markets against competitors that aren’t similarly taxed. This argument is stronger from some industries than others: in the case of steel or cement, paying a carbon tax of $50 per tonne doubles the costs of production, while in the case of oil extraction, it adds only a few dollars per barrel – enough to incentivize pollution reduction but not a competitiveness deal-breaker.

But the tide is turning now as the green transition moves forward, industrial processes evolve, and the European Union and the United States move to impose tariffs on carbon-intensive imports (so-called carbon border adjustment mechanisms). In other words, carbon pricing is coming for these industries, one way or another, and these industries need to decarbonize to survive. To be effective, the current output-based pricing system must be evenly applied across the country, driven by a carbon price aligned with international best practice, and integrated with other government initiatives for industrial decarbonization.

Ultimately, carbon pricing is a small component of the full suite of government spending, lending, and regulatory and tax instruments that are needed to effectively respond to the climate emergency while securing a place in the global low-carbon economy. The last thing the country needs is a “take no prisoners” battle to the death over the carbon tax that could set back what climate progress has been made. If the Liberals did an about-face on the retail portion of the tax while doubling down on the industrial pricing, it would lower the temperature on the climate conversation at a time when the world can’t afford any further warming.

Ralph Torrie is director of research at Corporate Knights.

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One observer said the two countries’ joint declaration of intent, which calls for green hydrogen shipments from Canada to Germany to begin in 2025, was likely the first global trade deal for renewable hydrogen or its more easily-transported derivative, green ammonia. In Stephenville, Trudeau called the bilateral commitment to build a trans-Atlantic hydrogen supply chain by 2030 a historic moment, CBC reports.

“We must look to resources like hydrogen which can and will be clean and renewable. We can be the reliable supplier of clean energy a net-zero world needs,” he said. “The need for clean energy is almost limitless, and that’s where Canada, and Atlantic Canada specifically, gets to step up. With our renewable resources, we have a huge advantage.”

“We believe that Atlantic Canada presents a huge opportunity for us, but also for Canada to contribute to a green energy transition,” Scholz said, adding that his country will be looking for 90 to 110 terawatt-hours of hydrogen by 2030. “Canada is a close and like-minded partner in the energy transition.”

The coverage of Scholz’ visit pointed to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the intense energy supply crisis confronting Germany as a result, as the context for a faster shift to renewables. “”We cannot as a world continue to rely on authoritarian countries that will weaponize energy policy as Russia is, that don’t concern themselves with environmental outcomes, or labour rights or even human rights,” Trudeau said.

Yet “the joint declaration of intent makes clear the agreement is not legally binding and stipulates it will be up to Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources and Germany’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action to keep track of whether it’s making progress on its goals,” the Globe and Mail writes. “The Canadian-German agreement sets no targets for volumes of hydrogen produced and contains no commitments of new money to help commence exports to Europe by 2025.”

Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said the volumes of product that Canada can export that quickly “are probably going to be modest,” acknowledging that the timeline is “very ambitious”. But that “reflects the fact that Germany sees how this can help them in their current context,” with an immediate need to break free of Russian fossil fuels as soon as possible.

“Part of this is being driven by the desire to displace Russian gas,” Wilkinson said.

But behind the bid for clarity and speed on the green hydrogen deal, Scholz’ visit featured a sequence of mixed messages on whether Canada and Germany see a future for liquefied natural gas exports from Canada’s East Coast.

Since the beginning of Russia’s war, Canadian fossil fuel companies have been pushing hard to resurrect LNG export schemes that had already been rejected for economic or environmental reasons. Analysts and observers have been explaining for months that the projects wouldn’t go into production in time to address Germany’s immediate need, and the country’s commitment to rapid decarbonization would soon wipe out the demand that would justify a longer-term import/export deal.

We believe that Atlantic Canada presents a huge opportunity for us, but also for Canada to contribute to a green energy transition.

-German Chancellor Olaf Scholz

As The Energy Mix reported last week, when the Canadian and German governments announced Scholz’ itinerary almost two weeks ago, neither the word “liquefied” nor the acronym “LNG” showed up in either official statement. Later news reports confirmed that LNG would not be on the agenda for the three days of deliberations.

But none of that stopped Trudeau and Scholz from confusing matters when discussions went live.

At a news conference in Montreal Monday, the two leaders “appeared to pour cold water on the idea of shipping Canadian natural gas to Europe,” with Trudeau pointing to the cost and complex logistics of shipping gas from Western Canada “to a still-unbuilt liquefaction terminal on the Atlantic coast,” CBC reports.

“One of the challenges around LNG is the amount of investment required to build infrastructure for that,” Trudeau said. “There has never been a strong business case because of the distance from the gas fields, because of the need to transport that gas over long distances before liquefaction.”

He said Canada’s “best” contribution to the global gas market would be to ship product to Asia (which brings its own set of serious challenges), or via pipeline to the United States, freeing up supplies that Germany could more easily acquire from other exporters.

While Canada would be willing to ease regulatory hurdles for LNG exports, “there needs to be a business case,” Trudeau added. “It needs to make sense for Germany to be receiving LNG directly from the East Coast. Those are discussions that are ongoing right now between our ministers, between various companies, to see if indeed it makes sense.”

Scholz agreed that any LNG deal would need a business case, “because if it’s too expensive, it will not fly.”

But Trudeau still held open the possibility that LNG bound for Germany might be “doable”, with Scholz adding that Germany “would really like Canada to export more” gas to Europe.

“As Germany is moving away from Russian energy at warp speed, Canada is our partner of choice,” he said, during a German-Canadian economic conference in Toronto. “For now, this means increasing our LNG imports. We hope that Canadian LNG will play a major role in this.”

“We are creating the atmosphere for very direct talks between the business sectors of Canada and Germany [to see] if there is something which could be done now in this very crisis,” the German chancellor told Power & Politics host Vassy Kapelos. “But this is part of the follow-up between the businesspeople of the two countries.”

One of the challenges around LNG is the amount of investment required to build infrastructure for that.

-Prime Minister Justrin Trudeau

In the fog of comments and counter-comments, it wasn’t immediately clear how seriously either leader was advocating for direct LNG trade between the two countries. “Asked if there had been developments making new Canadian LNG projects more likely since Monday, a government source with knowledge of the talks said there had been ‘no change’ and Scholz was ‘well aware of sort of the timeline that would be associated’ with new Canadian LNG,” Reuters wrote Tuesday.

At the same time, with winter approaching and its own supplies in doubt, Germany “is quite keen for gas from just about anywhere,” the Reuters source added.

Reaction from Canadian civil society reflected the layered message coming out of Scholz’ three-day visit.

“After months of discussions focussed on East Coast liquified natural gas (LNG), the visit results in a welcome shift in rhetoric and focus towards green hydrogen,” Climate Action Network-Canada said in a statement.

“At a moment when the Canadian fossil fuel industry has been intensifying its lobbying efforts and instrumentalizing the invasion of Ukraine to promote fossil fuel expansion, the Canada-Germany Hydrogen Alliance offers a glimpse of economic opportunity and job creation beyond oil and gas,” CAN-Rac added. “As Canada’s domestic ‘clean hydrogen’ strategy continues to blur the lines between renewable and fossil-based hydrogen, the Canadian government has the chance to learn from Germany’s clear categorization and focus on green hydrogen.”

“There’s something beautiful about wind power from Newfoundland and Nova Scotia blowing away petro-power in Europe,” added Greenpeace Canada Senior Energy Strategist Keith Stewart. “Fossil fuels are at the core of the current conflicts in Europe and around the world, whether they are paying for weapons or fueling climate disasters.  So it is great they’re signing a deal proving renewable energy is the way forward, even though they can’t quite bring themselves to shut the door completely on LNG just yet.”

But that opening still raised flags with some CAN-Rac member groups.

“While we are encouraged to see the new Canada-Germany agreement for production and export of green hydrogen, we are concerned that the door is being left open to blue hydrogen fuel,” said Keith Brooks, programs director at Environmental Defence Canada. “Blue hydrogen, produced from fossil fuels, is not a clean fuel, and in fact may contribute just as much greenhouse gas emissions as burning gas, or even more. The world needs truly clean, renewable energy sources now.”

“We welcome the race toward a zero-emissions economy,” said Louise Comeau, director of climate change and energy solutions at the Conservation Council of New Brunswick. “We need to run that race with fair rules of engagement for communities and companies,” and “liquefied natural gas is not a legitimate contestant in this race. It won’t cross the finishing line in time to help Germany or the planet.”

This article is republished from The Energy Mix. Read the original article.

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In the election campaign, the Liberals made some bold climate-change promises, including capping greenhouse gases (GHGs) from the oil and gas sector, forcing the industry to make big reductions in its methane emissions, and ensuring the country’s electricity sector becomes carbon-neutral by 2035. 

The specific planks – along with many other commitments – are meant to put meat on the bones of the Liberal government’s commitment to the UN in July that Canada will reduce its GHG emissions by 40 to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030, on the road to net-zero carbon by 2050.

Trudeau fell short in his bid for a majority government as many critics questioned the need for the summer election call during the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the Liberals can count on support from the New Democrats, Green Party and Bloc Québécois for ambitious climate action at home and on the world stage. 

For many voters, the election was less about climate change and more about a rising cost of living and affordable housing. To maintain support for costly climate policies, the Liberals will have to ensure that Canadians don’t feel overwhelmed by the wrenching transition ambitious climate action will entail.

Still, Canada – led by a reinstated Prime Minister Trudeau – has a key role to play in getting the world on a better track. 

As Canadians were casting their ballots Monday, UN Secretary General António Guterres and British Prime Minister Boris Johnston kicked off “climate week” in New York by hosting a closed-door session of world leaders to address shortfalls in GHG targets and climate finance.

A UN analysis of countries’ emission-reduction pledges – known as nationally determined contributions, or NDCs – concluded that the world remains far off track to meet the Paris Agreement goal of holding the global increase in average temperature to 1.5°C, or even 2°C. 

After reviewing all the updated NDCs submitted this year, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the new targets would still leave the world on pace for a 2.7°C increase in average global temperature by 2100 – and that assumes the leading countries actually meet their commitments.

To maintain support for costly climate policies, the Liberals will have to ensure that Canadians don’t feel overwhelmed by the wrenching transition it will entail.

Gathered in New York for the opening of the General Assembly, Guterres and Johnson made it clear that all nations have to step up their ambition and action. The re-elected Liberal government can provide international leadership, but only if Canada is meeting its own obligations. 

To date, the federal and provincial climate policies have failed to stop the inexorable rise in GHG emissions, which are believed to have fallen in 2020 as a result of the pandemic only to rebound this year as the economy recovered. In 2015 – the year in which the Liberals were elected – Canada had emissions of 723 megatonnes; that climbed to 730 in 2019. In a report this month, Climate Action Tracker said Canada’s policies are “highly insufficient” to meet its commitments. 

Clearly, it takes time to develop policy, enact it and then see its impacts. The stubbornly high emission levels, however, illustrate the enormous challenge in achieving a transition that requires major changes to the country’s energy production and consumption.

With the election win, the Trudeau government can be expected to move quickly to legislate the planned increase in the carbon price from $50 per tonne next year to $170 in 2030, through yearly increments of $15. That higher levy will drive up the cost of gasoline, heating fuels and electricity fired by fossil fuel for Canadian consumers and businesses.

The Liberals have said they will continue to provide rebates to families to compensate them for the higher carbon price – an average family of four in Ontario will collect roughly $2,018 annually from the rebate by 2030. However, small businesses and the not-for-profit sector will see their costs rise significantly.

The minority Liberal government will also have to enact measures to reverse the dramatic increase in emissions seen from the oil and gas industry over the past 15 years. In its platform, the Liberal Party said emissions from the sector must not rise above current levels and promised to set targets for GHG reductions in the industry for 2025 and 2030 consistent with a path to net-zero by 2050.

That won’t be easy. Any policies aimed at achieving the pledge will almost certainly provoke a backlash from oil- and gas-producing provinces unless accompanied by massive aid for both the companies and their workforces (including retraining and financing the adoption of new technology). Industry critics, on the other hand, will loudly oppose any further subsidies for oil and gas producers, even if they help reduce emissions from production.

The Liberal pledge to make the electricity system emissions-free by 2035 will conflict with plans in some provinces to use natural gas as a replacement for coal or to back up intermittent renewable sources like solar and wind.

As a wealthy country with one of the world’s highest rates of GHGs per person, Canada has a special responsibility to address climate change, even though it accounts for only 1.6% of global emissions. Failure to meet the Liberals’ lofty promises would once again undermine Canada’s reputation, which has suffered from broken commitments in the past and the rapid expansion of the oil sands, known throughout the world as one of the most carbon-intensive sources of oil.

In a report this month, Climate Action Tracker said Canada’s policies are “highly insufficient” to meet its commitments.

In the past six years of Liberal government, Canada has staked out a leadership position on climate change internationally. Ottawa joined with the U.K. in establishing the Powering Past Coal Alliance, which encouraged countries around the world to phase out reliance on coal-fired power.

In a pre-recorded message to the UN meeting in New York, Chinese President Xi Jinping said his country would no longer finance the construction of coal-based power plants abroad, which represents a major victory in the powering-past-coal effort. However, Beijing remains committed to coal-fired electricity at home. 

In July, Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson and his German counterpart were chosen to co-lead a process aimed at securing greater commitment from developed countries to deliver on their commitment of US$100 billion in climate financing for developing countries. 

Canada has pledged $5.3 billion (Canadian) toward that global commitment. The Biden administration announced it would seek approval from Congress to double its climate financing to US$11.4 billion annually.

Countries’ representatives are now preparing to gather in Glasgow in early November for the 2021 Conference of the Parties. COP26 president Alok Sharma – who also serves as the U.K.’s Minister of State at the Cabinet Office – says it’s critical that we achieve significant progress on climate financing to help developing countries prepare for the inevitable impacts of climate change and reduce emissions in order to limit the damage. Tellingly, these countries won’t be adequately represented at COP26 because of vaccine inequity.

In 2015, a newly elected Trudeau arrived at the Paris climate summit with a promise that Canada was “back” and ready to forge an ambitious role in battling climate change after 10 years of resistance from former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper. 

Since then, the Liberal government has made considerable progress, including being re-elected on its platform that proposed a large increase in the carbon prices. 

Now it must work with other parties – including the Conservatives where possible – to ensure the path to a net-zero carbon economy is secured domestically and work with global leaders to meet the goal of the Paris Agreement. The growing urgency of the climate crisis makes clear the inadequacy of half measures.

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As UN Secretary-General António Guterres said recently, 2021 will be “a make or break year” to confront the climate emergency. In business and government, he said, “decision-makers must walk the talk.”

“Long-term commitments must be matched by immediate actions to launch the decade of transformation that people and planet so desperately need.”

So far, Earth Day 2021 feels different. The U.S. is back on board and is hosting its own climate summit on April 22. Ahead of the virtual gathering of world leaders, the White House announced that it would be reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by between 50% and 52% by 2030, based on 2005 levels, in line with calls from the UN. Facing pressure to adopt tougher emissions targets, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today announced that Canada would be upping its target to a 40% to 45% reduction in emissions by 2030, from 2005.

Of course, Canada has failed to meet all past climate commitments, and as the New York Times pointed out this week, Canada is “the only G7 nation whose greenhouse gas emissions have increased since the Paris Agreement.” But University of Alberta climate economist, Andrew Leach, said at least this time the federal government’s latest budget should help Canada get “in the ballpark” of its previous 36% target.

The weeks leading up to Earth Day have seen a torrent of actions, ideas and announcements that tell us that Earthlings are getting serious about winning the war on carbon. Last month, U.S. President Joe Biden kicked things off by unveiling a US$2-trillion infrastructure plan infused with green economy boosters. The package includes $174 billion to turbocharge the EV market, $100 billion to modernize the electric grid and $16 billion to help fossil fuel workers transition to new jobs.

Including the U.S. and Canada, more than 100 countries – representing nearly two-thirds of global emissions – are now committed to going net-zero. Another 1,500 corporations have pledged to do the same. In March, the UN announced that 22 European pension funds, foundations and other major investors, totalling US$1.2 trillion in assets, have committed to cutting the carbon emissions of their portfolios to net-zero by 2050 or sooner. That brings the total to 37 investors, managing US$8 trillion, that have signed on to a carbon-fighting investing plan created by the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change.

“The global investment community has been called on to play its part in the transition to net-zero – and it is answering that call,” said IIGCC CEO Stephanie Pfeifer.

As of March, six of the largest U.S. banks and a handful of Canadian banks have vowed to align their lending portfolios with the goals of the Paris Agreement. Goldman Sachs’s commitment was particularly noteworthy, since the financial giant has been widely criticized for its recent financing of fossil fuel companies. Is Wall Street finally taking climate change seriously? Ensuring those net-zero pledges are met is the critical next step.

Ultimately, it won’t be the banker boomers and Gen-Xers saving the planet.

Youth in Portugal, the U.S., Canada, Australia and beyond are spearheading a host of lawsuits arguing that their governments failed to safeguard their right to a stable climate.

At the global Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) Youth Summit in February, where 2,000 youth from 120 countries gathered virtually, a top UN official urged young people to seek jobs in government to ramp up lagging climate goals. “We can’t keep doing things from outside,” said Damilola Ogunbiyi, co-chair of UN Energy and head of SEforALL.

A coalition of youth-led groups in the U.S. clearly agrees. They have put forward an official proposal to the Biden administration: establish an independent “Office of Young Americans” situated within the executive office of the president.

Said 17-year-old Isabella Fallahi, founder of Polluters Out, a global youth-led coalition targeting the fossil fuel industry, “We need to be given not just the mic but decision-making abilities.”

A version of this article appears in the Spring Issue of Corporate Knights.

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