Realizing a carbon neutral economy: A new governance framework

Ann Dale et al. was awarded a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to research the new governance arrangements to implement a carbon neutral society.

Recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2018) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Global Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (2019) have issued alarming warnings about the continuing viability of human systems. The former warns that unless we limit our greenhouse gas warming to 1.5 degrees in 12 years, we will face catastrophic collapse. The panel states that avoiding collapse requires transforming the world economy at a speed and scale that has no documented historic precedent. They warn that we are now at the stage where this will only happen with political will (Global Commission on Adaptation Report, GCAR, 2019). The biodiversity report warns that nature is in its worst shape in human history and we are facing accelerating species loss at a rate ten of hundreds of times faster than in the past (IPBES, 2019). Both reports show climate pollution and biodiversity loss represent two of the most critical imperatives of modern society. It is no longer about creating enabling conditions for change but rather, intentionally leading the necessary changes (IPCC, 2018) and deliberatively intervening in current development paths.

This research builds on a 7-year climate change adaptation and mitigation project that examined local climate action initiatives in 11 community case studies in British Columbia (MC3: Meeting the Climate Change Challenge). Our research identified the critical role that multi-level governance can play in transformative change in current development paths (Dale et al., 2019) and identified the need to embed new institutional arrangements into existing government systems to avoid back-sliding with changes in political leadership of governments (Dale et al., 2019). A most dramatic example is the federal climate plan, the Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change, well received by critics and the provinces, but since then, with electoral changes, four provinces have fought the federal government even on implementing a carbon tax, though the majority of economists and climate scientists have argued it is one of the most efficient ways to change societal and economic behavioural paths (Dahlby, 2019; The Economist, 18-08-19; Wall Street Journal, 01-19; Time, 09-19, special issue). The primary goal of this research is to explore what new multi-level governance arrangements must be instituted in Canada to move to a carbon neutral society by 2030, 2040 and 2050. Two seminal reports by the Sustainable Canada Dialogues Science Consortium conclusively state that this is necessary and feasible by 2050 (2014; 2017). Given the ICPP, IPBES and CGAR reports cited, we argue that the desired transformation of current development paths to a carbon neutral economy must be dramatically accelerated; this can only happen by fundamental transformation of Canada’s current government arrangements to a coordinated, multi-level governance model, which engages and coordinates governments at all levels, and civil society. We will analyze several cases where Canadian governments have responded to pressing environmental, security and public health challenges with government and non-government partners. The research will link and ground proposed governance innovations with concrete practices and possibilities of public administration: ‘machinery of government’ considerations, coordinating mechanisms and strategies with and across governments, and a multi-faceted portfolio of policy instruments (associated with different levels of government–everything from land-use planning tools to regulatory instruments to taxation). Our research question is: What are the governance and complementary institutional arrangements that need to be put in place in Canada to realize a carbon neutral economy by 2050, recognizing that achieving this goal will involve working across levels of government and with the for-profit, non-profit and community sectors? We propose to identify policy and institutional changes which need to be made by the years 2030 and 2040, key junctures along the way to the year 2050, along with alternative development paths.