Market-Based Instruments for Climate Change Policy in Canadian Provinces

Abstract

Climate change is a complex and global problem which necessitates action on multiple scales and levels. While reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and adapting to climate change represent important policy challenges, the literature documents many cases of small to medium size governance units that have successfully addressed common pool resource management problems. In North America, sub- national governments, states, provinces, municipalities, and networks of private actors, have taken initiatives to address the climate issue, at times going so far as to regulate GHG emissions, using a great variety of instruments including voluntary agreements, emission norms, taxes, permits, planning, and infrastructure investments. Thought too early to assess with any certainty the effectiveness of these experiments, they represent a vast and interesting laboratory providing insight into how communities mobilize to address the climate crisis and resolve such issues as target setting and the allocation of emission rights. This panel aims at taking stock of these experiments and addressing the following questions: How and why have sub-federal initiatives on climate change occurred? What is the role of policy diffusion in their adoption? What problems have occurred during implementation? What roles are played by international regimes and national/federal governments in their emergence and for their future? And finally, given the disparities of targets and instruments observed, can they be linked or harmonized.