IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v10y2018i10p3747-d176369.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Challenges and Opportunities of a Forthcoming Strategic Assessment of the Implications of International Climate Change Mitigation Commitments for Individual Undertakings in Canada

Author

Listed:
  • Robert B. Gibson

    (School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada)

  • Karine Péloffy

    (Lawyer, MSc, BCL, LLB, Montréal, QC H2P 2E3, Canada)

  • Meinhard Doelle

    (Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS B3H 4R2, Canada)

Abstract

Canada is preparing to initiate a challenging, but potentially ground-breaking, strategic assessment on the implications of its climate change mitigation commitments for project assessments. The strategic assessment is immediately needed to provide project-level guidance for decision makers who will be required under new federal legislation to consider the extent to which each assessed project “contributes to sustainability” and “hinders or contributes to” meeting Canada’s climate commitments. However, Canada, like many other countries, has not yet translated its Paris Agreement climate commitments into an adequate suite of specific policies, pathways, budgets, and other directives for compliance. Consequently, the climate commitments’ strategic assessment will need to play a fully strategic role—in policy development as well as policy interpretation and elaboration for assessment purposes. This paper outlines the key considerations and required steps for a strategic assessment that fills the policy gap between Paris and projects, and develops guidance centred on a suite of tests for evaluating proposed major projects that may have important effects on Canada’s prospects for meeting its climate commitments.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert B. Gibson & Karine Péloffy & Meinhard Doelle, 2018. "Challenges and Opportunities of a Forthcoming Strategic Assessment of the Implications of International Climate Change Mitigation Commitments for Individual Undertakings in Canada," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-21, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:10:p:3747-:d:176369
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/10/3747/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/10/3747/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ceecee Holz & Sivan Kartha & Tom Athanasiou, 2018. "Fairly sharing 1.5: national fair shares of a 1.5 °C-compliant global mitigation effort," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 117-134, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Joyeeta Gupta & Aarti Gupta & Courtney Vegelin, 2022. "Equity, justice and the SDGs: lessons learnt from two decades of INEA scholarship," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 393-409, June.
    2. Ploy Achakulwisut & Peter Erickson & Céline Guivarch & Roberto Schaeffer & Elina Brutschin & Steve Pye, 2023. "Global fossil fuel reduction pathways under different climate mitigation strategies and ambitions," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-15, December.
    3. Fanning, Andrew L. & Hickel, Jason, 2023. "Compensation for atmospheric appropriation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 119717, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Karl W. Steininger & Keith Williges & Lukas H. Meyer & Florian Maczek & Keywan Riahi, 2022. "Sharing the effort of the European Green Deal among countries," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-13, December.
    5. Paula Castro, 2020. "Past and future of burden sharing in the climate regime: positions and ambition from a top-down to a bottom-up governance system," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 41-60, March.
    6. Céline Guivarch & Nicolas Taconet, 2020. "Inégalités mondiales et changement climatique," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(1), pages 35-70.
    7. Marcucci, Adriana & Panos, Evangelos & Kypreos, Socrates & Fragkos, Panagiotis, 2019. "Probabilistic assessment of realizing the 1.5 °C climate target," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(C), pages 239-251.
    8. Nicole J. Berg & Heleen L. Soest & Andries F. Hof & Michel G. J. Elzen & Detlef P. Vuuren & Wenying Chen & Laurent Drouet & Johannes Emmerling & Shinichiro Fujimori & Niklas Höhne & Alexandre C. Kõber, 2020. "Implications of various effort-sharing approaches for national carbon budgets and emission pathways," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 162(4), pages 1805-1822, October.
    9. Andrew L. Fanning & Jason Hickel, 2023. "Compensation for atmospheric appropriation," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 6(9), pages 1077-1086, September.
    10. Håkon Sælen, 2020. "Under What Conditions Will the Paris Process Produce a Cycle of Increasing Ambition Sufficient to Reach the 2°C Goal?," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 20(2), pages 83-104, May.
    11. Manish Kumar Shrivastava & Saradindu Bhaduri, 2019. "Market-based mechanism and ‘climate justice’: reframing the debate for a way forward," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 497-513, October.
    12. Li, Mengyu & Duan, Maosheng, 2020. "Efforts-sharing to achieve the Paris goals: Ratcheting-up of NDCs and taking full advantage of international carbon market," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 280(C).
    13. Jose Rafael Núñez Collado & Han-Hsiang Wang & Tsung-Yi Tsai, 2019. "Urban Informality in the Paris Climate Agreement: Content Analysis of the Nationally Determined Contributions of Highly Urbanized Developing Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-17, September.
    14. Ceecee Holz & Guy Cunliffe & Kennedy Mbeva & Pieter W. Pauw & Harald Winkler, 2023. "Tempering and enabling ambition: how equity is considered in domestic processes preparing NDCs," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 271-292, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:10:p:3747-:d:176369. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.