The government of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won its election in October 2015 promising to make Canada a world leader in the effort to address climate change. At one of his first international summits, the United Nations Conference on Climate Change held in Paris in December 2015, Trudeau pledged that Canada would set policy in line with a 2 degree centigrade reduction in global temperatures by 2030, a half degree more ambitious than most other countries, including the United States. It was a clear break with his predecessor, Stephen Harper, who argued that Canada could not allow its policies to be misaligned with those of the United States, which could put Canadian businesses at a competitive disadvantage in their largest foreign market.
In the past year, Trudeau has worked with the Obama administration to put new restrictions on methane flaring, and has already adopted a 54.5 mile per gallon fuel efficiency standard to take effect in 2025 in tandem with the United States. Then in December, Trudeau told provincial leaders that unless they imposed a tax or effective price on carbon on their own by 2018, Ottawa would do it for them.
Yet in the coming weeks, Trudeau may reluctantly complete a pivot away from his former priority—addressing climate change—to a new one: promoting Canadian energy exports.
The fast pace with which U.S. President Donald Trump has shifted U.S. energy and environmental policy since the inauguration has been disorienting for Canadian policymakers. Trump’s strong support for fossil fuel production signals continued (if not increasing) U.S. energy production. Canada is the United States’ largest foreign supplier of oil, natural gas, and coal as well as uranium and electricity; more U.S. energy production will displace Canadian imports and depress prices for many energy commodities worldwide. Yet energy production accounts for roughly 7 percent of Canadian GDP, and most of that is exported to the United States.
The good news for Canada is Trump’s strong support for the Keystone XL pipeline. Canadian energy needs new markets, and for that, it requires access to the sea. Keystone will bring Canadian oil to the Gulf of Mexico; although the president’s executive order rescinding the rejection of TransCanada’s previous presidential permit application indicates that the United States wants to extract some revenue from Canada for permitting the pipeline to go ahead. The Trudeau government has given conditional approval to the expansion of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline, which connects oil sands in Alberta to the Pacific through Vancouver, but has rejected an Enbridge-planned Northern Gateway pipeline to the Pacific port of Prince Rupert. A TransCanada pipeline called Energy East, which would provide access to the Atlantic, is still under federal review.
Trudeau’s ambition to make Canada a world leader on climate policy is now dependent less on what steps Canada takes domestically than what it can achieve internationally to rebuild a consensus for action. This requires that the United States is brought back into the effort, since without U.S. action, the effects of climate change cannot be meaningfully mitigated, and other major carbon emitters, such as China, Russia, and India will refuse to act.
By refocusing on persuading the Trump administration to address climate change in some way, Trudeau can delay his promised federal carbon tax – returning Canada to the Harper policy. Trudeau will also stakeout an area of policy differentiation from the new U.S. administration that will establish Trudeau is not a “poodle” to Washington, which will be a popular stance domestically.
Along with the pro-growth effort to diversify Canadian energy export markets, the pivot from climate action to climate persuasion will yield political benefits for Trudeau at home even if, as seems likely, he is unsuccessful in convincing Donald Trump to take action in concert with other countries to reduce U.S. carbon emissions.
