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2. Introduction
The issue of climate change, and Canada’s response to it, has been at the heart of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy’s work for many years.
The NRTEE has, for example, been examining questions related to the use of fiscal policy to promote long-term greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions, climate change adaptation in the Canadian context, and a long-term technology scenario for how Canada might substantially reduce its GHG emissions while meeting the energy needs of a growing economy.
The provisions of the KPIA are quite specific in allowing the NRTEE to carry out its obligations in light of the purpose that has been defined for the organization under the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy Act. And so the NRTEE has chosen to combine in this document some specific analysis of the government’s Climate Change Plan and Statement with commentary on salient policy and analytical issues related to Canada’s climate change response, based in part on the Round Table’s previous work and understanding. In doing so, it is fulfilling its obligations with respect to an assessment of the government’s Plan and Statement, while providing a broader information base and perspective on the issue of climate change within the context of Canada’s long-term sustainability.
The NRTEE finds it necessary to respectfully place on the record its view that its role is not to hold the government specifically to account for any actions or non-actions with respect to sustainable development issues. This specific oversight role is mentioned nowhere in the NRTEE Act that sets out its fundamental purpose. The NRTEE’s purpose-as defined in Section 4 of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy Act-is to provide a broad policy advisory role to the federal government. That purpose has, over the Round Table’s history, been further defined by the decisions and choices made by the membership of the NRTEE, which is an authority accorded to them by the Act. The specific intent of the Act, and effective result of our approach, has been to establish the NRTEE as an independent source of policy advice to government flowing from its unique perspective on environment and economy issues.
The necessary starting point for this report is some definition and commentary of what it is the Round Table has been asked to do under the KPIA. Using the formulation found in the KPIA, the NRTEE was asked to assess the "likelihood" that the government Plan and Statement would achieve their stated objectives-objectives that the KPIA sets outs as "reasonably expected," implying a degree of uncertainty and qualification-including the objectives agreed to by Canada under the Kyoto Protocol. The Round Table was obligated to "advise the Minister" within a designated and relatively short time frame.
It is also important at this juncture to be clear about what the NRTEE’s report does not do. Because the government combined the Plan and the Statement in its own document, the Round Table has focused its analysis and assessment on how the Plan translates action into results, as expressed in the Statement. As a result, the NRTEE has not focused any analytical attention on the policies and measures per se. Consistent with its principal objectives under the KPIA, the NRTEE conducted a qualitative analysis of the assumptions underlying each of the specific measures and policies with a view to establishing the likelihood that such measures and policies would achieve their stated reduction objectives. It is not in the Round Table’s mandate to comment on the merits of the measures and policies themselves. It is only concerned with the question of whether the measures and policies might reasonably be expected to achieve the emission reductions expressed in the Statement. Furthermore, because the government’s Statement expresses the reductions achieved only in the Kyoto time period (2008-2012), the NRTEE is not in a position to comment on emission reductions that would likely be achieved as a result of the Plan beyond 2012.
The NRTEE further notes that since it is obligated to carry out this analytical function for 2007 through to 2012, its assessment must necessarily be considered an iterative one. It expects that further information and understanding about the actual versus expected outcomes set out in the government’s Plan and Statement will emerge and evolve. As judgements about whether signatories to the Kyoto Protocol have met their obligations are withheld until the conclusion of the protocol’s time period, so too must the NRTEE’s final judgment and conclusion be cumulative. In short, this is the first word on the subject, not the last. Although the NRTEE believes that the analytical approach it has taken is pragmatic and appropriate, it should not therefore be seen in any way as comprehensive or definitive.
The specific methodology is described in more detail in the section that follows.
