{"id":47032,"date":"2021-03-30T15:34:26","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T19:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/?p=47032"},"modified":"2021-12-06T06:23:30","modified_gmt":"2021-12-06T11:23:30","slug":"how-can-premiers-bypass-buy-america-go-big-on-climate-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/story\/47032\/how-can-premiers-bypass-buy-america-go-big-on-climate-action\/","title":{"rendered":"How can Premiers bypass Buy-America? Go big on climate action"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s an open secret that President Joe Biden is twisting political arms to get world leaders to come to his April 22 climate summit<\/a> with new, bigger commitments on climate action. Yet Canada risks showing up empty-handed unless key Premiers are willing to get on board with the Trudeau government\u2019s new climate plan. <\/p>\n\n

That would be bad for everyone\u2019s business.<\/p>\n\n

Biden has made climate change one of his signature issues. In his first two weeks on the job, he launched a blizzard of executive actions that are pushing the limits of what a President can do on his own. <\/p>\n\n

There\u2019s a lot that Presidents can do, but they can do a lot more if Congress helps. The challenge is that oil and coal lobbyists are out in force, saying if the U.S. goes too far or too fast then competitiveness will suffer. To counter that deep-pocketed lobby, Biden\u2019s team needs to show that he is bringing the rest of the world along with him on the road to a fossil-free world.  <\/p>\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n

The Trudeau government has pointed to its December 2020 climate plan<\/a> that showed, for the first time, how Canada would meet the current greenhouse gas reduction target.  <\/p>\n\n

The Americans\u2019 reply has been blunt: Not Good Enough. <\/p>\n\n

Trudeau and other world leaders are expected to show up on April 22 with a new, bigger target and evidence for how they are going to meet them. <\/p>\n\n

There is a lot of room for improvement. The current target (originally established by Stephen Harper) is to reduce emissions to 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Canada\u2019s shiny-new climate plan shows how we can get emissions down by 31 percent through existing provincial actions and new federal ones. <\/p>\n\n

The plan also notes that Canada could reduce emissions by up to 40 percent if provinces are willing to take additional actions on policy that are within their jurisdictions. <\/p>\n\n

This is really code for Alberta and Ontario getting their act together. Together they represent 61 percent of national emissions<\/a>, yet Premiers Kenney and Ford have both dramatically weakened the provincial climate action plans they inherited from their predecessors. <\/p>\n\n

They are also loudly demanding that Prime Minister Trudeau protect them from U.S. protectionism. If you want to stay on President Biden\u2019s good side\u2014and that matters when it comes to Buy America rules\u2014it makes sense to help out the President on an issue where he has gone out on a political limb. <\/p>\n\n

If Premier Ford, for example, were to return to Ontario\u2019s earlier target and adopt measures to achieve it, he could close roughly half the gap to a 40 percent target. It\u2019s not unthinkable. Ford\u2019s term began with electric vehicle charging stations literally being ripped out of public transit parking lots, yet he is now eagerly courting auto manufacturers keen to go all-electric. <\/p>\n\n

Alberta\u2019s emissions are much larger than Ontario\u2019s and hence there\u2019s even more room to improve, though it requires Kenney to admit that Alberta is more than oil. <\/p>\n\n

The Supreme Court decision<\/a> on the carbon tax has created a political opening<\/a> for provincial leaders to reset their climate ambitions. That decision – which recognized that \u201cclimate change is real\u201d and \u201cposes a threat to humanity\u2019s future\u201d – also made it clear that the federal government can and should do more within its sphere on oil and gas methane rules, renewable energy, and electric vehicles. <\/p>\n\n

We desperately need the federal government to lead on a fair and effective transition plan for oil workers and oil-dependent communities so no one is left behind. The federal government has taken modest steps towards funding green infrastructure, but we still haven\u2019t had the courage to say no to fossil fuel expansion (unlike Biden, who is blocking new fossil fuel leases on public lands). As a first step, Trudeau could match one of Biden\u2019s commitments by barring Export Development Canada from funding fossil fuel projects at home and abroad prior to the April 22 meeting. <\/p>\n\n

Add in action from the other provinces and we have an unprecedented opportunity to create good jobs building back better by building back fossil-free.<\/p>\n\n

Much stronger action to avert climate chaos has always been the right thing to do. It is now the politically smart thing to do. <\/p>\n\n

Let\u2019s get it done.<\/p>\n\n

This blog initially appeared on Medium<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s an open secret that President Joe Biden is twisting political arms to get world leaders to come to his April 22 climate summit with new, bigger commitments on climate action. Yet Canada risks showing up empty-handed unless key Premiers are willing to get on board with the Trudeau government\u2019s new climate plan. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":47034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"not set","p4_local_project":"not set","p4_basket_name":"not set","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[23],"p4-page-type":[16],"class_list":["post-47032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-live-sustainably","tag-climate","p4-page-type-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47032"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51174,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47032\/revisions\/51174"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47032"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/canada\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=47032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}