The authors of this study envision the creation of a climate liability market to address climate change. The aim of this study is to envision how a recent shift in attitudes, towards assessing the realization of climate harm and holding emitters accountable, could translate into an economic instrument.
Public transit and air pollution: Evidence from Canadian transit strikes
Little is known about the causal impacts of public transit on local air pollution. Exploiting variation in transit availability resulting from transit strikes in 18 Canadian cities between 1974 and 2011, this study identifies the short‐run effect of public transit on air pollution. Overall, the results suggest that expanding the current configuration of public transit in North American cities is unlikely to yield improvements in local air quality.
Industrial policy in Alberta : lessons from AOSTRA and the oil sands
Half a century ago, Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority (AOSTRA) emerged, despite criticism from the dominate conventional oil industry. As the government of Alberta deals with the challenges of diversification and decarbonization, Sara Hastings-Simon explains how the lessons learned from that investment can help the province unlock its economic growth in a low carbon future.
Carbon Pricing in a Federal State: The Case of Canada
Canada has broad-based emissions pricing in place across the country. But this implementation shows a lack of uniformity, both in terms of policy design and policy implementation.
The Greenhouse Gas Emissions Coverage of Carbon Pricing Instruments for Canadian Provinces
This paper provides a comparison of the coverage of Canadian carbon pricing systems (defining coverage as the proportion and types of emissions priced under the various systems), by emissions source. It compares provincially announced pricing systems to the federal benchmark (the minimum coverage provinces must meet) and the federal backstop, the pricing system that will be imposed on provinces with insufficient coverage or who opt to not develop their own policies.
The Ground Rules for Effective OBAs: Principles for Addressing Carbon-Pricing Competitiveness Concerns through the Use of Output-Based Allocations
The purpose of this paper is to describe principles of policy design that can help make the implementation of output-based allocations (OBAs) efficient, fair and effective. The principles discussed in this paper apply not only to Alberta and the federal government, but also to those provinces that are implementing their carbon price through a cap-and-trade system.
Assessing Policy Support for Emissions-Intensive and Trade-Exposed Industries
This paper provides an overview of policies for emissions-intensive and trade exposed (EITE) industries, and compares Canadian policies to policies in Australia, California and the European Union. Both domestic and international EITE policies are evaluated using the metrics of administrative costs, economic efficiency, emissions reduction incentive, and equity, across and within sectors.