When it comes to getting landlords to retrofit the buildings responsible for up to 18% of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, bad incentives are leading to bad outcomes.

On Friday, the United States House of Representatives passed the Inflation Reduction Act, clearing the way for President Biden to imminently sign the legislation, which passed the Senate last week, into law.

Environment and Climate Change Canada is considering two options to put a steadily-lowering ‘cap’ on oil and gas sector emissions: a national oil industry cap and trade program, or additional regulations under the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act that could result in an industry-specific carbon pricing rate.

The Supreme Court of the United States’ recent decision in West Virginia v. EPA ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency lacks authority under the Clean Air Act to broadly regulate carbon emissions in the US.

On Wednesday, Canada launched its Greenhouse Gas Offset Credit System to regulate the sale of carbon offsets under the national carbon pricing law. The program will allow registered parties to generate and sell verified carbon offset credits issued by Canada’s federal environmental agency, Environment and Climate Change Canada.

On Wednesday, the US Securities and Exchange Commission proposed a regulation to establish standardized requirements for funds marketed as featuring environmental, social, and governance (ESG) characteristics.

In the ruling, which determined the law to be unconstitutional, the Alberta Court of Appeal acknowledged the seriousness of climate change - as well as its evident concern about the law’s potential negative impact on Western Canada’s oil industry.

With the writ dropped for Ontario’s 2022 election on June 2, voters must decide what the next four years of provincial environmental policy will look like. To assist, we’ve outlined some of the key features and differences between the four major parties’ climate and environment plans, and provided a short analysis to illustrate what’s good, what’s bad, and what’s missing in each party’s proposal.

The new plan is to “coast”, in the words of Greenpeace Canada, largely on initiatives either begun by the previous provincial Liberal government (i.e., coal-fired power generation phase-out) or mandated by the current federal Liberal government (i.e., carbon pricing).

The recent 271 page report describes, sector by sector, how Canada’s emissions are being generated, and what policies the federal government - budgeting $9.1 billion in new climate-related spending - is planning or implementing to decarbonize Canada’s economy, with a near term goal of 40-45% emissions reduction (as compared to 2005 levels) by 2030.