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North American Climate and Energy Policy

The economies of the United States, Canada and Mexico have been dramatically impacted in recent years by the precedent-setting North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). New trade partnerships have emerged, and the energy systems of these three countries have become highly integrated. These changes have created critical opportunities for continental collaboration on climate change and clean-energy strategies.

Climate change policy and economic policy are inextricably linked. Policies developed to tackle climate change will have a significant impact on many of North America's bread-and-butter industrial sectors; they will also play a major role in shaping new and emerging sectors such as renewable energy. These linkages are especially important for some of the most critical sectors for reducing emissions—fuels, transportation and electricity—that are already highly integrated within the American, Canadian and Mexican economies. Policy-makers tackling clean-energy and climate change issues need to better recognize the implications of this strong continental economic integration and start using it to their advantage. By working together on clean energy and climate policy, the United States, Canada and Mexico will benefit from economies of scale and administrative efficiency—as they have with NAFTA. The net result will be stronger and unified climate change action.

The North American Leaders' Declaration on Climate Change and Clean Energy (August 10, 2009) (PDF - 122 KB) recognizes many existing opportunities. It puts forward an agenda for cooperation that includes the development of joint plans for low-carbon growth and comparable approaches to measuring, reporting and verifying emission reductions. It also promotes greater exchange of experiences and information.

Actions at the regional and provincial level that promote clean energy production and climate action provide a considerable foundation and important dynamic upon which to build a North American policy approach. These include the development of cap-and-trade systems, renewable portfolio standards, and carbon taxes through various regional, provincial and state-led initiatives.

The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) is working with key players and partners in Canada, the United States and Mexico to encourage policy integration and collaboration on climate change and clean energy. We are committed to delivering an ambitious and relevant policy framework outlining what Canada, the United States and Mexico can contribute and accomplish together.

Contents

• Promoting North American Collaboration on Clean Energy and Climate Change
  IISD and the Pembina Institute are partners in a three-year work program that examines how Canada, the United States and Mexico can work together to develop a coherent North American approach to clean energy and climate change.

• Policy Dialogue Sessions with Civil Society on the UNFCCC Negotiations
  IISD hosted a series of dialogue sessions with Canadian civil society members in 2009 that explored Canadian considerations in relation to important issues in the international climate change negotiations in the lead-up to COP 15.

• Province of Manitoba
  Through strategic policy advice and research, IISD supports the Province of Manitoba in its continued efforts as a leader in responding to the challenge of climate change.

Related IISD Research

• Adaptive Policy-Making
  Designing policies in a world of uncertainty, change and surprise is a challenge facing policy-makers in all sectors. The specific objective of this multi-year project (2005 to 2009) was to advance understanding of adaptive policies and help agriculture and water-resource policy-makers at the local, state and federal levels to design adaptive policies—policies that can adapt to anticipated and unanticipated conditions.

• Building Resilience on the Prairies
  The Canadian prairies provide a dynamic background against which to examine the resilience of communities to past climate stresses as a means of strengthening adaptation to future climate change. By examining successful examples of how agroecosystems have adapted to past climate stress, IISD and its partners identified ways to promote adaptive capacity and build the resilience of prairie agroecosystems to present climate change.

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