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Climate Change Policy In Canada Essay

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Climate policy in Canada is primarily implemented through information, persuasion and voluntary action programs. Canadian policymakers have generally been reluctant to use instruments that put an explicit price on emissions (i.e. tax). This type of attitude towards climate policy stems from the fear of having a negative impact on their overall economic performance and competitiveness of the Canadian industry (Bohringer and Rutherford, 2010). However simply using soft measures such as voluntary programs does not prevent increases of GHG emissions. All in all, the Harper government had been very clear that it had no intention of imposing the types of policies required by the Kyoto Protocol, which officially lead to Canada withdrawing from the agreement.
Climate Change Policies under Harper Government This section will examine the Harper government’s approach to climate change, and later contrast it to the current Trudeau government’s approach. Despite the fact that the current Trudeau government has only been in power for a short amount of time, we can still identify various differences in their approach to tackling the climate change issue. This comparison will essentially demonstrate the fact that a political change in government can sometimes result in a policy issue to be placed on …show more content…

It has been clear to many that Prime Minister Stephen Harper possessed a hostile perspective towards climate change issues, in contrast to previous Conservative Prime Ministers (i.e. Brian Mulroney). Mulroney made the environment a high priority within his cabinet and on the policy agenda (Healy, 2008). His government developed a first ever Green Plan, and Canada was the first industrialized country to ratify the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), under which the Kyoto Protocol was developed (Healy,

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