Climate Change Plan For Canada

This plan document proposes both short-term action & a long-term perspective to address national climate change objectives without placing an unreasonable burden on any region of Canada. The first section reviews the scientific evidence about climate change and Canada's international commitments to addressing this issue. The second section sets out Canada's approach to climate change, including the key principles that guide the national climate change plan and the steps under way or needed to achieve targeted reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Section three outlines proposed steps in emission reduction in the following areas: transportation, buildings, industry, renewable energy & clean fuels, small & medium size enterprises and fugitive emissions, agriculture, forestry & landfills, and international emissions. Section four discusses how individual Canadians, communities, and governments can contribute to emissions reductions. Section five outlines how to improve understanding of climate change & prepare to adapt. The final section discusses plan reporting & accountability. The annex summarizes climate change modelling & analysis activity, describes the analytic framework developed to evaluate climate change policy options, and reviews & interprets the results of the most recent round of modelling.

Canada’s Top Climate Change Risks identifies the top risk areas based on the extent and likelihood of the potential damage, and rates the risk areas according to society’s ability to adapt and reduce negative outcomes. These 12 major areas of risk are: agriculture and food, coastal communities, ecosystems, fisheries, forestry, geopolitical dynamics, governance and capacity, human health and wellness, Indigenous ways of life, northern communities, physical infrastructure, and water. The report describes an approach to inform federal risk prioritization and adaptation responses. The Panel outlines a multi-layered method of prioritizing adaptation measures based on an understanding of the risk, adaptation potential, and federal roles and responsibilities.

The impacts of changing climate are already evident in Canada and globally. Scientific understanding of climate change indicates that Canada will experience significant shifts in weather patterns over the period of a single generation, a trend that will likely continue for several centuries. Communities of all sizes will face many new risks and opportunities. Managing the impacts of a changing climate will require developing local strategies.

This compendium reviews climate change initiatives by all levels of government across Canada. Summaries of projects are grouped into the following categories, which parallel Canada's National Implementation Strategy on Climate Change and First National Climate Change Business Plan: encouraging action, promoting technology development & innovation, enhancing awareness & understanding, governments leading by example, and investing in knowledge & building the foundation. The summaries include name of contact person and electronic address (e-mail and/or Web site) for further information.

“This is the roadmap out of climate crisis that Canadians have been waiting for.” — Naomi Klein, activist and New York Times bestselling author of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine • One of Canada’s top policy analysts provides the first full-scale blueprint for meeting our climate change commitments • Contains the results of a national poll on Canadians’ attitudes to the climate crisis • Shows that radical transformative climate action can be done, while producing jobs and reducing inequality as we retool how we live and work. • Deeply researched and targeted specifically to Canada and Canadians while providing a model that other countries could follow Canada needs to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% to prevent a catastrophic 1.5 degree increase in the earth’s average temperature — assumed by many scientists to be a critical “danger line” for the planet and human life as we know it. It’s 2020, and Canada is not on track to meet our targets. To do so, we’ll need radical systemic change to how we live and work—and fast. How can we ever achieve this? Top policy analyst and author Seth Klein reveals we can do it now because we’ve done it before. During the Second World War, Canadian citizens and government remade the economy by retooling factories, transforming their workforce, and making the war effort a common cause for all Canadians to contribute to. Klein demonstrates how wartime thinking and community efforts can be repurposed today for Canada’s own Green New Deal. He shares how we can create jobs and reduce inequality while tackling our climate obligations for a climate neutral—or even climate zero—future. From enlisting broad public support for new economic models, to job creation through investment in green infrastructure, Klein shows us a bold, practical policy plan for Canada’s sustainable future. More than this: A Good War offers a remarkably hopeful message for how we can meet the defining challenge of our lives. COVID-19 has brought a previously unthinkable pace of change to the world—one which demonstrates our ability to adapt rapidly when we’re at risk. Many recent changes are what Klein proposes in these very pages. The world can, actually, turn on a dime if necessary. This is the blueprint for how to do it.

A Globally Integrated Climate Policy for Canada builds on the premise that Canada is in need of an approach that effectively integrates domestic priorities and global policy imperatives.

Begins with an overview of climate change and Canada's commitments under the Framework Convention on Climate Change, then reviews national characteristics affecting greenhouse gas emissions, the national greenhouse gas inventory, and measures and policies under the National Action Program on Climate Change. This is followed by chapters covering: a national projection of greenhouse gas emissions to 2020; possible impacts of climate change on Canada, including implications for ecosystems, agriculture, and forestry; adaptation to climate change and Canadian activities in that regard; financial assistance and technology transfer activities related to climate change, including bilateral initiatives and participation at international conferences; research and monitoring activities related to climate change; and education, training, and public awareness initiatives regarding climate change. Appendices include summaries of federal and provincial/territorial policies and measures affecting greenhouse gas emissions.