Climate Change Considerations in the Federal Impact Assessment Act: Steps Forward… on a Path to Business As Usual?

Abstract

After many years of inconsistency in assessing greenhouse gas emissions in federal environmental assessments, integration of climate change considerations is now explicitly required under the new Impact Assessment Act (IAA or the Act). The Act contains prominent climate-related requirements in both the assessment and decision-making phases. As one might expect, the statutory provisions themselves are relatively succinct; details are left to guidance that was not initially in place when the Act came into force in August 2019. In July 2020, the federal government released its final “strategic assessment on climate change” (SACC), updated in October 2020, which contains the final guidance to support implementation of the Act’s climate change provisions. This article presents and discusses key features of this guidance, as well as remaining areas of uncertainty and concern. Overall, the final SACC is an important step forward for implementation of the IAA as it provides some clarity with respect to what the IAA’s climate change provisions will mean in practice. However, the guidance does not provide complete clarity, and there are several features that are cause for concern, particularly with respect to use of carbon offsets and the ability of a proponent to discuss how a project “may displace emissions internationally” without providing a downstream emissions analysis. To the extent that one is looking to the SACC, and the IAA regime in general, as a tool for achieving Canada’s international climate change commitments, it remains uncertain how implementation of the IAA will assist Canada in achieving its commitments in respect of climate change. In many ways, the SACC sets a basis for business as usual.