2.1.2 Canada Acting in Concert with the World

Getting to 2050: Canada's Transition to a Low-emission Future — Advice for Long-term Reductions of Greenhouse Gases and Air Pollutants

An important enabling condition to minimize both the environmental and economic risks associated with deep emission reductions, and climate change more generally, is that Canada act in concert with the rest of the world in terms of both domestic emission reduction efforts and access to potentially lower-cost international emission reductions. This is particularly relevant as the world considers a post-2012 approach.

With respect to environmental risk, Canada's share of global emissions and hence its contribution to the stock of atmospheric carbon is low, and if action is not taken globally, Canada's efforts alone could do little to stabilize atmospheric concentrations. But since Canada is particularly sensitive to climate change impacts, it is in Canada's national interest to demonstrate its leadership in emission reductions to ensure that it influences the development of an appropriate international emissions reduction regime.

A second obvious rationale for Canada not acting alone is that it limits any possible competitiveness risks that might emerge from unilateral action. We believe that the most critical assumption that the NRTEE has made in its work, particularly in our modelling, is that whatever policy framework Canada puts into place, it is comparable to its competitors and trade partners, predominantly the United States. While this is a fair assumption for major industrialized trading partners, such as Europe and California, which have already made medium- and long-term emission reduction commitments, there is uncertainty with respect to action by the so-called BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). If our major trading partners, particularly the United States, do not implement comparable policies within a reasonable time frame, the economic risk of the deep domestic reductions investigated in this report rises.

At the same time, domestic action by Canada can take advantage of potential linkages to policy instruments adopted internationally – in particular emissions trading – and so in theory can reduce the overall costs of achieving deep GHG reductions. The NRTEE views this as particularly imperative given the deep long-term reductions contemplated and the associated high domestic emission reduction prices that are revealed below.

It is not the NRTEE's view that any of this should be justification for Canada not taking action now to either reduce emissions now, or put in place the most effective policy framework for deep, long-term reductions in the future.

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