Journal Articles / Articles scientifiques by David Houle
Why have only two of the eleven original members of the Western Climate Initiative implemented a ... more Why have only two of the eleven original members of the Western Climate Initiative implemented a cap-and-trade system? This article compares the implementation of cap-and-trade in California and Quebec versus in New Mexico and British Columbia. Ideas around the reality of anthropogenic global warming and the legitimacy of cap-and-trade created favorable context in three countries, although institutions condition the expression of these ideas in the policy-making process. Since parliamentary institutions concentrate power, elite consensus is more important in Canada, while in the United States public opinion plays a more significant role. However, ideational factors shaped by political institutions do not explain differences in cap-and-trade implementation. Growth in shale gas production, welcomed in British Columbia and New Mexico but resisted by Quebec and marginal in California, further explain different outcomes. Ideas, mediated by institutions, are the necessary prerequisites for action, while material factors influence policy instrument choice.
Journal of Public Policy, Apr 2014
This paper contributes to our understanding of why delegitimising focusing events, combined with ... more This paper contributes to our understanding of why delegitimising focusing events, combined with the mobilisation of policy losers, does not always result in major policy change by undermining a monopolistic policy image and policy subsystem. Based on a close enquiry of American biofuel policy development, it argues that we can make headway in this endeavour by focusing on three factors: first, the congruence of a policy image with core values of the polity; second, the multidimensionality of a policy image; and third, policy image management strategies that maintain cohesion among coalition supporters and respond to outside criticism. In understanding better why some policy images (and policy monopolies) prove resilient when they come under assault, this paper offers a single case plausibility probe supported by indicative evidence from other policy studies.
Télescope: revue d'analyse comparée en administration publique
Some aspects of Canadian climate change policy have been extensively studied in recent years. How... more Some aspects of Canadian climate change policy have been extensively studied in recent years. However, studies on Canadian provinces continue to lag. In this paper, we study the differences in instrument choices in Canadian provinces and propose an initial explanation. We use the theoretical framework proposed by Rabe (2004), which suggests the way that policymakers frame the issue of climate change is a main explanation for instrument selection. Rabe’s (2004) typology, which was developed in the US context, can be applied to Canada, and an initial operationalization of this theory in the context of the Canadian provinces is proposed. My main conclusion is that the pattern of instrument choices among Canadian provinces is broadly consistent with the one predicted by the theory, notwithstanding important differences. A challenging aspect of climate change policy is that it is often composed of multiple instruments and is justified by policy-makers using numerous frames.
Télescope: revue d'analyse comparée en administration publique, 2012
Certains aspects de la politique canadienne concernant les changements climatiques ont été largem... more Certains aspects de la politique canadienne concernant les changements climatiques ont été largement étudiés au cours des dernières années, mais les études sur les politiques menées par les provinces canadiennes sont rares. Dans cet article, nous abordons les différences dans le choix des instruments de politique publique des provinces et avançons une première explication. Nous nous appuyons sur le modèle théorique proposé par Rabe (2004) qui insiste sur le cadrage des changements climatiques par les décideurs politiques comme principal facteur explicatif du choix des instruments. Ce modèle peut être utilement appliqué au Canada. Nous proposons une première opérationnalisation de cette théorie pour l’étude des politiques provinciales en changements climatiques. Notre étude montre que le choix des instruments de politique inclus dans les plans d’action des provinces concorde avec celui prédit par l’observation du cadrage de l’enjeu des changements climatiques, et ce, malgré certaines différences importantes. L’un des défis de cette étude réside dans le fait que les politiques sur les changements climatiques sont à la fois composées de plusieurs instruments et qu’elles sont justifiées par l’utilisation de plusieurs cadrages.
Globe - Revue internationale d'études québécoises. vol. 9, n° 1, 2006, p. 211-235., 2006
"Abstract - Thirty Years of Activity at Quebec's Ministry of the Environment: A Preliminary Inven... more "Abstract - Thirty Years of Activity at Quebec's Ministry of the Environment: A Preliminary Inventory. Abstract - This text describes the evolution of policies at Quebec's Ministry of the Environment between 1973 and 2003, and attempts to discern the principal tendencies regarding the Ministry's use of regulatory, economic, voluntary, and direct instruments for the protection of air, water, and soil. The analysis of the data initially demonstrates that the number of interventions increased between 1983 and 1998. These interventions, as the authors remark, draw more often on regulatory instruments against water pollution, voluntary ones against air pollution, and economic ones against soil pollution, particularly for the management of solid waste. These results are interpreted from the perspective of “new governance” theory as it presents itself in the analysis of public policy.
Résumé - Ce texte décrit l'évolution des interventions du ministère de l'Environnement du Québec entre 1973 et 2003 à l'aide des informations recueillies dans la base de données IGE , et tente de dégager les principales tendances quant à l'utilisation, par le ministère de l'Environnement du Québec, des instruments réglementaires, économiques, volontaires et directs pour la protection de l'air, de l'eau et du sol. L'analyse des données démontre, dans un premier temps, que les interventions augmentent de 1983 à 1998. Ces interventions s'appuient plus fréquemment sur des instruments réglementaires pour la protection de l'eau, sur des instruments volontaires pour la protection de l'air et sur des instruments économiques pour la protection du sol, particulièrement dans la gestion des déchets solides. Ces constats sont interprétés sous l'angle de la théorie de la « nouvelle gouvernance » telle qu'elle se présente en analyse des politiques publiques. "
Book Chapters / Chapitres by David Houle
Démocratie et politiques publiques, 2019
Dans le contexte canadien, les gouvernements provinciaux jouent un rôle important dans l’élaborat... more Dans le contexte canadien, les gouvernements provinciaux jouent un rôle important dans l’élaboration des politiques de lutte aux changements climatiques, notamment par leurs efforts de mise en œuvre de mécanismes de tarification du carbone. Cet ensemble diversifié d’instruments de politiques publiques vise à imposer un prix sur les émissions de gaz à effet de serre (GES) avec l’objectif d’inciter les consommateurs et les entreprises à tenir compte de l’impact de leurs décisions sur le climat. L’intérêt des gouvernements provinciaux en matière de protection du climat n’est pas nouveau. Les premiers plans d’action provinciaux dans ce domaine datent de 1995. À l’époque, après avoir considéré l’adoption d’une taxe carbone dans les années 1990s (Macdonald et coll., 2011), le gouvernement fédéral libéral avait annoncé un ensemble d’actions en changements climatiques afin de mettre en œuvre le Protocole de Kyoto, ratifié par le Premier Ministre Jean Chrétien en décembre 2002 (Harrison, 2007). Durant cette période, les actions fédérales en matière de protection du climat culminèrent par la publication, le 16 juillet 2005, de l’Avis d’intention pour réglementer les émissions des gaz à effet de serre qui sont produites par les grands émetteurs finaux, une réglementation visant les grandes entreprises et qui incluait plusieurs mécanismes de tarification du carbone .
L’élection d’un gouvernement fédéral conservateur en 2006 changea la donne de manière fondamentale. Pour plusieurs observateurs et dirigeants provinciaux, il semblait maintenant peu probable que le gouvernement fédéral s’engage sur la voie de la tarification du carbone. L’approche privilégiée par le nouveau gouvernement fédéral était celle d’une réglementation sectorielle, basée sur des normes réglementaires traditionnelles (une approche parfois d’écrite comme ‘command-and-control’) consistant essentiellement à fixer des cibles d’émission que les industries devaient respecter sans que des mécanismes de flexibilité (par exemple, des permis échangeables) soit disponibles. Bien que des négociations aient été entamées avec de nombreux secteurs industriels (Munroe, 2016), seulement deux secteurs ont été réglementés, celui des transports et des centrales au charbon (Commissaire à l’environnement, 2012).
C’est dans ce contexte que les provinces, de plus en plus au fait des impacts des changements climatiques sur leur territoire et des opportunités économiques créées par la croissance des industries vertes, devinrent plus actives en matière de changements climatiques. Elles craignaient moins, comme cela était le cas sous les précédents gouvernements fédéraux de Jean Chrétien et Paul Martin, un possible dédoublement de leurs efforts avec ceux du fédéral (Houle et coll., 2014, Houle, 2015). Certains gouvernements provinciaux incluant le Québec, l’Ontario, la Colombie-Britannique, le Manitoba, et l’Alberta adoptèrent des approches innovatrices en matière de changements climatiques. Simultanément, ces provinces firent preuve d’une préférence en faveur de la tarification du carbone, qui constitua un élément central de leur politique climatique, via l’adoption de taxes sur le carbone ainsi que de systèmes d’échange de droits d’émission (Houle, 2015). De manière inattendue, l’adoption de ces instruments peut être observée autant dans les provinces où une majorité de la population supporte la tarification du carbone que dans celles où seulement une minorité d’électeurs s’expriment en sa faveur. Doit-on en conclure que les décideurs publics ne tiennent pas compte de l’opinion publique sur la question de la tarification du carbone?
Ce chapitre va explorer cette question tout d’abord en définissant la tarification du carbone et montrant le momentum à l’échelle international en faveur de son adoption. Par la suite, pour comprendre le lien entre l’opinion publique et l’émergence de la tarification du carbone dans le contexte canadien nous examinons tout d’abord l’évolution de l’opinion publique à ce sujet et, en particulière, les différences interprovinciales. La dernière section de ce chapitre propose des études de cas, en commençant par celui de la Colombie-Britannique où la taxe carbone instaurée dans cette province fit l’objet d’une intense controverse, surtout pendant les élections provinciales de 2009. Nous comparons ensuite cette campagne électorale avec d’autres élections provinciales de cette période, notamment celles de l’Ontario de 2011 et du Québec en 2012. Ces comparaisons nous permettent de constater, lorsqu’elles sont associées aux observations des données d’opinion publique, que le manque de support initial pour la tarification du carbone n’a, règle générale, empêcher les gouvernements provinciaux de s’engager dans cette voie.
In Luc Turgeon, Martin Papillon, Jennifer Wallner, Stephen White. Eds. Forthcoming. Comparing Canada, Citizens, Government, and Policy, Vancouver, UBC Press
Underestimating the political complexity of enacting and implementing policies to reduce greenhou... more Underestimating the political complexity of enacting and implementing policies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has been a hallmark of social science analysis for more than two decades. Leading social science work on climate change has routinely assumed that nation-states will be dominant political actors, orchestrating any global response and subsequent implementation (Stern 2007; Giddens 2009). The long-standing expectation that a global regime could generate bold national emission reductions, however, now appears decreasingly feasible with the passing of each international climate summit. National governments, whether federal or unitary in structure or based in developed or emerging economies, have struggled both in international bargaining and in delivering unilateral policy commitments. Among the largest national emitters, the federal governments of both Canada and the United States have generally followed this path of policy failure.
Both scholars and policy makers have long gravitated towards a set of priors to guide their thinking about how national governments might join forces to address climate change. This exercise in path dependence drew heavily on the Canadian and American experience in building a cross-continental and, ultimately, international coalition to reduce the release of ozone-depleting chemicals into the atmosphere, leading to the 1987 creation of the Montreal Protocol (Thoms 2002). It also relied heavily upon the innovative American experience with emissions trading for a conventional air pollutant, sulphur dioxide, as a policy tool that offered a cost-effective model for both national and cross-national collaboration on climate change (Raymond 2010). Others have turned to additional precedents, including the Cold War, nuclear arms control, and international trade pacts as possible models for climate governance, all with the hope that these might serve as models for extensive Canadian and American engagement. But more than two decades after the Rio Declaration on Climate Change, neither country has assumed such a role, joined by a chorus of failed efforts from other nations and growing frustrations in international forums.
There have, however, been some important exceptions to this larger pattern as some governments have taken unilateral and multilateral policy steps to reduce their emissions. Led by such countries as Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, the European Union has been most prominent in this regard, through continental strategies such as the Emissions Trading System as well as a mixture of such federal and sub-federal policies as energy taxation and renewable energy mandates (Jordan, et al. 2010). In North America, policy capacity looks considerably more robust when shifting from Ottawa and Washington, DC, to provincial and state capitals. Among the ten provinces and fifty states, one finds virtually every form of climate policy now operational in some set of jurisdictions (Burke and Ferguson 2010).
Many of these policies remain in early phases of implementation, making it difficult to assess their efficacy or political resiliency. Nonetheless, the flurry of sub-federal mitigation initiatives on both sides of the 49th parallel represents a distinctly unexpected development in climate policy, one that may indicate a possible path towards long-term engagement. The exploration of the origin of these varied policy outputs is the primary focus of this chapter, and it generates two fundamental questions. First, given the global nature of climate change and the predominant expectation that it would be addressed largely at the international and national levels, why have the central governments of Canada and the United States remained such marginal players? Second, absent federal leadership, why have many sub-federal governments unilaterally adopted leading roles?
In response, we offer a comparative analysis of the interplay between federal and sub-federal jurisdictions in Canada and the United States as they address the challenge of mitigating climate change. As noted by Collier (1993), comparison is a fundamental tool of political science, allowing researchers to situate analyses within a larger context, thereby revealing broader patterns and suggestive dissimilarities across cases. By comparing these federations, we hope to offer greater insight into both federalism and climate policy than would be possible by examining Canada on its own. This approach builds on recent work comparing Canada, the United States, and other governments (Harrison and Sundstrom 2010; Lachapelle, Borick, and Rabe 2012; Rabe and Borick 2012). Given their close geographic, economic, cultural, and political ties, comparing dynamics in Canada and the United States offers a deeper and more complete account of the way in which federal institutions mediate the response of two interdependent governments to the climate policy challenge. Moreover, our theoretical understanding of the factors influencing climate policy in Canada is strengthened through comparison with the United States. This provides considerable leverage for ascertaining the importance of different variables and specifying the limits and conditions under which our theoretical arguments may or may not hold.
We begin with an analysis of why climate policy development has proven so problematic for international regimes and national authorities while sub-federal governments have emerged as unexpectedly major players. We also examine key patterns of federal and sub-federal policy development in both countries, highlighting points of distinction and convergence. Despite -- and perhaps as a result of -- important differences in prevailing governance structures and domestic political economies, we find surprising similarities and some intriguing differences across cases. We conclude with a consideration of early lessons from this experience, particularly for Canada, and identify possible avenues for future policy development.
Après la ratification de la Convention-Cadre des Nations Unies sur les Changements Climatiques (C... more Après la ratification de la Convention-Cadre des Nations Unies sur les Changements Climatiques (CCNUCC), en 1992, le premier instrument de politique important utilisé par les gouvernements fédéral et provinciaux afin d’implanter ce traité a été l’action volontaire. Elle prit la forme de deux programmes : le Voluntary Challenge and Registry (VCR) et ÉcoGESte. Le premier est un partenariat fédéral-provincial-industries en vigueur de 1995 à 2004. Le second est une mesure similaire mise en oeuvre par le gouvernement du Québec de 1996 à 2005. L’objectif de ces programmes était d’encourager les entreprises, ainsi que les autres institutions de taille importante, à mettre en oeuvre volontairement des plans de réduction de leurs émissions de gaz à effet de serre (GES). Ces programmes incitaient également les entreprises et les institutions participantes à rendre public leur plan afin qu’elles puissent être tenues responsables de leur progrès dans l’atteinte des objectifs qu’elles s’étaient fixés. Les programmes visaient
également à identifier les organisations qui auraient agi rapidement afin éventuellement de leur attribuer des crédits reconnaissant ainsi leurs actions hâtives.
Dans le présent chapitre nous examinons les programmes VCR et
ÉcoGESte selon les trois fils conducteurs du programme de recherche
présenté dans cet ouvrage : (1) Pourquoi les gouvernements ont-ils initialement choisi l’approche volontaire comme principal instrument de politique afin de réduire les émissions de GES dans le secteur industriel ? (2) Quelle évaluation les personnes engagées dans ces deux programmes, autant du côté des gouvernements que de l’industrie, font-elles de l’expérience ? (3) Quelles leçons pouvons-nous tirer de notre étude de cas en rapport avec l’utilisation future des instruments de type volontaire relativement à la politique des changements climatiques ?
Books and Thesis / Livres et thèses by David Houle
Book manuscript submitted to University of Toronto Press.
This dissertation studies the emergence of carbon pricing mechanisms at the sub-federal level in ... more This dissertation studies the emergence of carbon pricing mechanisms at the sub-federal level in Canada to answer two questions. First, why have some Canadian provinces adopted carbon pricing instruments, either a cap-and-trade or a carbon tax, while others have not? And, second, of the provinces that have adopted carbon pricing, how can we explain differences in the design of their carbon pricing instruments? In order to answer these questions, the dissertation has investigated the process of adoption of climate change policy in Canada’s ten provinces through four distinct stages: 1) the diffusion of the ideas supporting carbon pricing, 2) climate policy capacity building, 3) the public debate following the proposition of carbon pricing by the governing party, and 4) the design of the carbon pricing instrument.
After reviewing the climate policy-making processes in the provinces, the dissertation’s answer to the first question is that carbon pricing instruments have been adopted in provinces in which the government has shown early on an acceptance of both the scientific paradigm of anthropogenic climate change and the policy paradigm of liberal environmentalism—the latter promoting market-based climate policy. These provinces are also the ones in which the premier has shown a personal commitment to the issue of climate change, which has contributed to focusing resources on the issue and to building climate policy capacity ahead of other provinces. Among provinces that have adopted carbon-pricing, climate policy is framed as providing important economic benefits through the creation of carbon markets and fostering investments in the renewable energy industry and other green technologies.
The answer to the second question is that provinces, although to varying degrees, have designed carbon pricing instruments in order to take into consideration the particularities of their economic context and the policy preferences of their main industrial emitters. While some provinces, such as Quebec in imposing a cap-and-trade system, have been willing to go well beyond what their industries have been ready to accept, at least initially, others have adopted carbon pricing instruments designed to match closely the policy preferences of their most important GHG emitting industry.
This dissertation studies the emergence of carbon pricing mechanisms at the sub-federal level in ... more This dissertation studies the emergence of carbon pricing mechanisms at the sub-federal level in Canada in order to answer two questions. First, why have some Canadian provinces adopted carbon pricing instruments, either a cap-and-trade or a carbon tax, while others have not? And, second, of the provinces that have adopted carbon pricing, how can we explain differences in the design of their carbon pricing instruments? In order to answer these questions, the dissertation has investigated the process of adoption of climate change policy in Canada’s ten provinces through four distinct stages: 1) the diffusion of the ideas supporting carbon pricing, 2) climate policy capacity building, 3) the public debate following the proposition of carbon pricing by the governing party, and 4) the design of the carbon pricing instrument. After reviewing the climate change policy-making processes that have taken place in the provinces, the dissertation’s answer to the first question is that carbon pricing instruments to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been adopted in provinces in which the government has shown early on an acceptance of both the scientific paradigm of anthropogenic climate change (ACC) and the policy paradigm of liberal environmentalism (LE)—the latter promoting market-based climate policy. These provinces are also the ones in which the premier has shown a personal commitment to the issue of climate change: a commitment which has contributed to focusing resources on the issue and to building climate policy capacity ahead of other provinces. Among provinces that have adopted carbon-pricing, climate policy is framed as providing important economic benefits through the creation of carbon markets and fostering investments in the renewable energy industry and other green technologies. In order to adopt carbon pricing instruments, both the diffusion of ACC and liberal environmentalism, along with the building early on of climate policy capacity, are necessary conditions. The dissertation’s answer to the second question is that provinces, although to varying degrees, have designed their carbon pricing instruments in order to take into consideration the particularities of their economic context and the policy preferences of their main industrial emitters. While some provinces, such as Quebec in imposing a cap-and-trade system, have been willing to go well beyond what their industries have been ready to accept, at least initially, others have adopted carbon pricing instruments designed to match closely the policy preferences of their most important GHG emitting industry. Tracing provincial climate change policy-making process through the two stages of the public debate of carbon pricing proposal and their adoption shows the political contingency of carbon pricing mechanisms being adopted. Carbon pricing instruments are adopted in different contexts—but in all cases they are adopted when political conditions facilitate their adoption. Facilitating political contexts are 1) majority governments headed by premiers committed to carbon pricing instruments; and 2) governments enjoying an interparty consensus around the desirability of carbon pricing, which led to a low electoral salience of the issue of carbon pricing. As an example of the first, carbon pricing was adopted and maintained in British Columbia’s polarized bipartisan system and despite the electoral controversy surrounding the carbon tax during the 2008 election. As an example of the second, minority governments that enjoy interparty consensus around the desirability of carbon pricing—for example, Quebec—can adopt carbon pricing instruments during minority government periods. The absence of either condition makes carbon pricing instruments unlikely. In the Canadian context, three provinces have multiparty systems prone to minority governments: Quebec, Ontario, and Nova Scotia. Both Quebec and Ontario pledged to implement a WCI-inspired cap-and-trade system and experienced minority governments in recent years. However, carbon pricing was not an electoral issue in Quebec, given the consensus that existed on the implementation of cap-and-trade among the main political parties. In the case of Ontario, such interparty consensus does not exist and carbon pricing became an electoral issue in the 2011 election. Along with other taxation and energy issues, part of the Conservative campaign narrative against the Liberal government. The example of British Columbia shows, however, that provincial governments can persist in the adoption and implementation of carbon pricing despite public controversy, as long as they maintain a majority government, which is the usual outcome of the BC polarized party system. Alberta, before the most recent provincial election, was in a similar situation and the issue of carbon pricing was not salient. However, in Ontario the Liberals only secured a minority government in the 2011 election, a more likely outcome under the Ontario multiparty system, and the decision was taken not to proceed with the implementation of the cap-and-trade system in the aftermath of the 2011 election. The Quebec PQ minority government was in a similar position after the 2012 election. However, thanks to the interparty consensus on carbon pricing and low issue salience, the Quebec government decided to move forward on the cap-and-trade system. A comparison among the cases of Quebec, British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario shows the importance of the political context in the adoption of carbon pricing instruments, insofar as adoption which appears to be much more vulnerable in provinces with a fragmented multiparty system. It allow us to predict that now that the Ontario Liberals have secured a majority, they will be able to proceed with the full adoption of a cap-and-trade system, as per Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne’s stated intentions. Moreover, if the interparty consensus in Quebec is compromised and another minority government elected it could jeopardized current carbon pricing policy. Considering now the final stage of the climate policy-making process—the design of the carbon pricing instrument—the presence of the oil and gas sector emerges as a major factor that shapes the development of carbon pricing in provinces in which this sector plays a significant role in the provincial economy. Oil and gas producing provinces that have adopted carbon pricing instruments have designed their carbon pricing instruments so as not to constrain the profit-making capacity of the oil and gas sector. Alberta’s intensity-based emissions trading and British Columbia’s carbon tax do not restrict the growth of industrial GHG emissions and, to date, have allowed the oil and gas sectors to continue to grow. In British Columbia and Manitoba, the growth of the oil and gas sector appears to have prevented these two provinces from fully adopting the cap-and-trade system designed through the Western Climate Initiative (WCI). By contrast, Quebec has resisted the development of shale gas and proceeded with the adoption and implementation of its cap-and-trade system in the framework of the WCI. This dissertation has also investigated how party ideology and public opinion affect governing parties’ incentives to adopt carbon pricing instruments. It finds that public opinion majority support does not explain the adoption of carbon pricing. Carbon pricing instruments have been implemented in provinces with high (Quebec) but also low (Alberta) levels of support for these policies. Furthermore, carbon pricing instruments have not always been adopted in provinces with relatively high level of public support (such as Ontario). Finally, there is no clear relationship between the governing party’s ideology and carbon pricing. Carbon pricing instruments have been supported by right-wing, centrist and left-wing provincial political parties, while the BC NDP and the Ontario and federal conservative parties have opposed it.
Le Québec, tout comme le Canada s’est engagé à réduire les gaz à effet de serre sous le niveau de... more Le Québec, tout comme le Canada s’est engagé à réduire les gaz à effet de serre sous le niveau de 1990. Comment faire pour atteindre cet objectif? Depuis une trentaine d’années, un fort mouvement idéologique a contraint l’État à utiliser le volontarisme comme instrument de politiques publiques. Est-ce qu’un tel instrument de politique publique est susceptible de permettre d’atteindre l’objectif de réduction des gaz à effet de serre ? Pour répondre à cette question, les auteurs de cet ouvrage examinent des cas d’accords volontaires entre diverses industries et les ministères de l’Environnement, à Québec et à Ottawa. À travers ces cas ils décrivent les raisons pour lesquelles les ministères et les industries avaient choisi ce type d’encadrement des activités des acteurs privés et ils permettent aux acteurs eux-mêmes d’évaluer l’efficacité et l’efficience du volontarisme comme outil de politique publique.
Au-delà de l’évaluation que les acteurs eux-mêmes ont faite de la situation, peut-on expliquer le choix de l’instrument de politique par quelques causes à la fois parcimonieuses et généralisables dans un esprit de construction théorique ? Pourquoi le volontarisme plutôt que la réglementation ? Qu'est-ce qui conditionne le choix d’un instrument plutôt qu’un autre? Est-ce que les causes du choix sont structurelles, institutionnelles ou idéologiques?
À la lumière des leçons tirées de ces études de cas, on comprend mieux les limites et le potentiel à plus long terme du volontarisme comme instrument de réduction des gaz à effet de serre.
Dans le cadre de ce mémoire, nous documentons les interventions du ministère de l'Environnement d... more Dans le cadre de ce mémoire, nous documentons les interventions du ministère de l'Environnement du Québec (MENVIQ) pour trois enjeux liées aux contaminants atmosphériques soit les précipitations acides, l'appauvrissement de la couche d'ozone et les changements climatiques. Pour chacun de nos cas d'études, indiquons les instruments choisis par le MENVIQ. Nous formulons également des hypothèses afin d'expliquer les variations observées au niveau du choix des instruments et, particulièrement, de leur degré de coercition. De plus, nous distinguons les instruments de détection, devant fournir des informations au Ministère concernant les causes et les conséquences des problématiques environnementales, et les instruments effectifs, dont l'objectif est de changer les comportements des groupes ciblés. Afin de réaliser notre recherche, nous utilisons abondamment les concepts développés par l'analyse des politiques publiques et, plus particulièrement, par les auteurs associés au paradigme du choix des instruments. Pour les cas que nous avons observés, nous concluons que plus l'étendue des activités qui causent un problème environnemental est perçue comme étant grande, moins les instruments choisis seront coercitifs. Par ailleurs, il semble y avoir un lien entre les ressources à la disposition du MENVIQ et la mise en oeuvre d'instruments coercitifs puisque durant les années où les ressources du Ministère étaient décroissantes nous pouvons observer un recours proportionnellement plus important à des instruments volontaires. Finalement, nous avons également observé que les entreprises régulés ont une préférence pour les instruments moins coercitifs (ex. ententes volontaires) alors que les groupes écologistes tendent à proposer la mise en oeuvre d'instruments plus coercitifs (ex. taxes environnementales, réglementation, etc.). Nous terminons notre mémoire par une discussion des limites relatives à nos travaux ainsi qu'à l'application de la théorie du choix des instruments à l'étude des interventions gouvernementales.
Reports / Rapports by David Houle
This report contributes to the Ecofiscal series on revenue-recycling instruments by discussing th... more This report contributes to the Ecofiscal series on revenue-recycling instruments by discussing the free allocation of emissions permits. Free allocation has similarities to other forms of revenue recycling in that it confers a benefit upon its recipients, reducing their financial burden associated with climate policy.
There are three main reasons for using free allocation: (1) it is a more precise mechanism to compensate those who are harmed the most from the introduction of carbon pricing; (2) it can help build political support by ameliorating competitiveness risks for vulnerable firms and building constituencies with a
vested interest in seeing carbon markets maintained; and (3) free allocations are a useful tool for managing through a period of patchwork climate policy by mitigating emissions leakage—the shifting of polluting industry from jurisdictions with stringent climate regulations to those with lax or non-existent
policies. The manner in which permits are allocated matters and we contrast two main methods: grandfathering and output-based allocations. While in the case of grandfathering, firms are incentivized to reduce emissions, which allows them to sell their allowances, it also creates a moral hazard, as firms
might discount the value of free allowances or reduce production for the purpose of selling unused allowances, potentially exacerbating the problem of emissions leakage. Under an output-based allocation, firms are incentivized to reduce their emission intensity (i.e., produce more while emitting less), but the incentive to reduce emissions by simply curtailing their production is weakened. To realize the full economic advantages of free allocations, including limiting emissions leakage, it is important that they be allocated on an output basis that is updated regularly rather than grandfathered on the basis of historical emissions.
This report aims to improve understanding of the political and economic factors that have led to ... more This report aims to improve understanding of the political and economic factors that have led to the adoption of a linked cap-and-trade system in California and Québec. California has committed to reducing its emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 while Québec has committed to reducing emissions 20% below 1990 levels in the same time period. In their electoral programme the Parti québécois, which has formed a minority government in Québec since the 2012 provincial election, expressed a commitment to a 25% reduction. Though very much the product of state and provincial legislation, the cap-and-trade systems of California and Québec operate under guidelines of the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), a voluntary subnational intergovernmental organization initiated in 2007. There is hope that if the linked cap-and-trade system being established between California and Québec is demonstrated to be effective in allowing these jurisdictions to reduce their aggregate emissions more cost-effectively, other states and provinces will commit to the WCI. Successful implementation of a linked cap-and-trade system in California and Québec could also provide a blueprint for an eventual federal or even continental carbon pricing mechanism.
Report prepared for Sustainable Prosperity, 2014
Key messages:
• Market-based instruments (MBIs), either under the form of emissions trading or c... more Key messages:
• Market-based instruments (MBIs), either under the form of emissions trading or carbon taxation, have been increasingly popular in OECD countries and, in Canada, at the sub-national level.
• Québec, Alberta, British Columbia and, to a lesser extent Manitoba, have all successfully adopted and implemented carbon pricing policies, while Ontario and Saskatchewan have proposed to adopt MBIs though implementation has not yet proceeded.
• The implementation of MBIs began in 2007, after the Harper government decided not to implement any such instrument at the federal level, allowing provinces to experiment without creating redundant carbon pricing schemes.
• Three important types of obstacles to the adoption and implementation of MBIs are identified amongst Canadian provinces: administrative obstacles associated with a lack of environmental and climate change policy capacity, political obstacles associated with the provincial party system and salience of MBIs during elections, and finally economic obstacles, especially the policy preferences of main provincial industries.
• MBIs remain popular amongst Canadians and different strategies can be adopted to overcome obstacles to their implementation. Policy capacity can be secured rapidly through inter-jurisdictional cooperation and/or by using central agencies such as the ministry of finance or specialized regulatory bodies rather than environment ministries. In provinces where resistance to market-based approaches is more significant, a narrow-based carbon tax or limited form of emissions trading (such as credit-based emissions trading) can be implemented as a first step toward a more comprehensive and effective market instruments. These instruments can also be used to augment financial resources to increase climate change policy capacity or funding for new technologies that might, in the long run, help reduce compliance costs associated with more stringent MBIs.
Report prepared for Sustainable Prosperity, 2014
Ce rapport a été rédigé dans le but d’améliorer la compréhension des facteurs politiques et écono... more Ce rapport a été rédigé dans le but d’améliorer la compréhension des facteurs politiques et économiques qui ont mené à l’harmonisation et à l’intégration des systèmes de plafonnement et d’échange de droits d’émission (SPEDE) de la Californie et du Québec. Alors que la Californie s’est engagée à réduire ses émissions au niveau de 1990 d’ici 2020, le Québec s’est quant à lui fixé comme objectif de les ramener à 20 % sous le niveau de 1990 au cours de la même période. Dans sa plateforme électorale, le Parti québécois, qui a formé un gouvernement minoritaire aux élections provinciales de 2012, a indiqué un objectif de réduction de l’ordre de 25 % sous le niveau de 1990. Bien qu’ils émanent principalement de lois adoptées par les provinces et les États, les systèmes de SPEDE du Québec et de la Californie sont basés sur les lignes directrices établies par la Western Climate Initiative (WCI), une organisation intergouvernementale infranationale à adhésion volontaire créée en 2007. Si le jumelage des systèmes de plafonnement et d’échange de droits d’émission du Québec et de la Californie s’avère probant pour la réduction plus rentable de leurs émissions agrégées, on peut espérer que d’autres États et provinces se rallieront à la WCI. La mise en œuvre réussie des systèmes de SPEDE entre le Québec et la Californie pourrait également servir de modèle pour un éventuel mécanisme fédéral, voire continental, de fixation du prix du carbone.
Book Reviews / Recension by David Houle
The Review of Policy Research (RPR) is an international peer-reviewed journal devoted to the publ... more The Review of Policy Research (RPR) is an international peer-reviewed journal devoted to the publication of research and analysis examining the politics and policy of science and technology. These may include issues of science policy, environment, resource management, information networks, cultural industries, biotechnology, security and surveillance, privacy, globalization, education, research and innovation, development, intellectual property, health, and demographics. The journal encompasses research and analysis on politics and the outcomes and consequences of policy change in domestic and comparative contexts.
Politique et Sociétés, 2009
Recension du récent ouvrage Les politiques publiques au Canada : pouvoir, conflits et idéologies,... more Recension du récent ouvrage Les politiques publiques au Canada : pouvoir, conflits et idéologies, de Dimitrios Karmis et Linda Cardinal, Québec, Presses de l’Université Laval.
Politique et Sociétés, 2010
Recension du récent ouvrage Politiques publiques : le Québec comparé, sous la dir. de Jean Crête ... more Recension du récent ouvrage Politiques publiques : le Québec comparé, sous la dir. de Jean Crête aux Presses de l'Université Laval.
Uploads
Journal Articles / Articles scientifiques by David Houle
Résumé - Ce texte décrit l'évolution des interventions du ministère de l'Environnement du Québec entre 1973 et 2003 à l'aide des informations recueillies dans la base de données IGE , et tente de dégager les principales tendances quant à l'utilisation, par le ministère de l'Environnement du Québec, des instruments réglementaires, économiques, volontaires et directs pour la protection de l'air, de l'eau et du sol. L'analyse des données démontre, dans un premier temps, que les interventions augmentent de 1983 à 1998. Ces interventions s'appuient plus fréquemment sur des instruments réglementaires pour la protection de l'eau, sur des instruments volontaires pour la protection de l'air et sur des instruments économiques pour la protection du sol, particulièrement dans la gestion des déchets solides. Ces constats sont interprétés sous l'angle de la théorie de la « nouvelle gouvernance » telle qu'elle se présente en analyse des politiques publiques. "
Book Chapters / Chapitres by David Houle
L’élection d’un gouvernement fédéral conservateur en 2006 changea la donne de manière fondamentale. Pour plusieurs observateurs et dirigeants provinciaux, il semblait maintenant peu probable que le gouvernement fédéral s’engage sur la voie de la tarification du carbone. L’approche privilégiée par le nouveau gouvernement fédéral était celle d’une réglementation sectorielle, basée sur des normes réglementaires traditionnelles (une approche parfois d’écrite comme ‘command-and-control’) consistant essentiellement à fixer des cibles d’émission que les industries devaient respecter sans que des mécanismes de flexibilité (par exemple, des permis échangeables) soit disponibles. Bien que des négociations aient été entamées avec de nombreux secteurs industriels (Munroe, 2016), seulement deux secteurs ont été réglementés, celui des transports et des centrales au charbon (Commissaire à l’environnement, 2012).
C’est dans ce contexte que les provinces, de plus en plus au fait des impacts des changements climatiques sur leur territoire et des opportunités économiques créées par la croissance des industries vertes, devinrent plus actives en matière de changements climatiques. Elles craignaient moins, comme cela était le cas sous les précédents gouvernements fédéraux de Jean Chrétien et Paul Martin, un possible dédoublement de leurs efforts avec ceux du fédéral (Houle et coll., 2014, Houle, 2015). Certains gouvernements provinciaux incluant le Québec, l’Ontario, la Colombie-Britannique, le Manitoba, et l’Alberta adoptèrent des approches innovatrices en matière de changements climatiques. Simultanément, ces provinces firent preuve d’une préférence en faveur de la tarification du carbone, qui constitua un élément central de leur politique climatique, via l’adoption de taxes sur le carbone ainsi que de systèmes d’échange de droits d’émission (Houle, 2015). De manière inattendue, l’adoption de ces instruments peut être observée autant dans les provinces où une majorité de la population supporte la tarification du carbone que dans celles où seulement une minorité d’électeurs s’expriment en sa faveur. Doit-on en conclure que les décideurs publics ne tiennent pas compte de l’opinion publique sur la question de la tarification du carbone?
Ce chapitre va explorer cette question tout d’abord en définissant la tarification du carbone et montrant le momentum à l’échelle international en faveur de son adoption. Par la suite, pour comprendre le lien entre l’opinion publique et l’émergence de la tarification du carbone dans le contexte canadien nous examinons tout d’abord l’évolution de l’opinion publique à ce sujet et, en particulière, les différences interprovinciales. La dernière section de ce chapitre propose des études de cas, en commençant par celui de la Colombie-Britannique où la taxe carbone instaurée dans cette province fit l’objet d’une intense controverse, surtout pendant les élections provinciales de 2009. Nous comparons ensuite cette campagne électorale avec d’autres élections provinciales de cette période, notamment celles de l’Ontario de 2011 et du Québec en 2012. Ces comparaisons nous permettent de constater, lorsqu’elles sont associées aux observations des données d’opinion publique, que le manque de support initial pour la tarification du carbone n’a, règle générale, empêcher les gouvernements provinciaux de s’engager dans cette voie.
Both scholars and policy makers have long gravitated towards a set of priors to guide their thinking about how national governments might join forces to address climate change. This exercise in path dependence drew heavily on the Canadian and American experience in building a cross-continental and, ultimately, international coalition to reduce the release of ozone-depleting chemicals into the atmosphere, leading to the 1987 creation of the Montreal Protocol (Thoms 2002). It also relied heavily upon the innovative American experience with emissions trading for a conventional air pollutant, sulphur dioxide, as a policy tool that offered a cost-effective model for both national and cross-national collaboration on climate change (Raymond 2010). Others have turned to additional precedents, including the Cold War, nuclear arms control, and international trade pacts as possible models for climate governance, all with the hope that these might serve as models for extensive Canadian and American engagement. But more than two decades after the Rio Declaration on Climate Change, neither country has assumed such a role, joined by a chorus of failed efforts from other nations and growing frustrations in international forums.
There have, however, been some important exceptions to this larger pattern as some governments have taken unilateral and multilateral policy steps to reduce their emissions. Led by such countries as Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, the European Union has been most prominent in this regard, through continental strategies such as the Emissions Trading System as well as a mixture of such federal and sub-federal policies as energy taxation and renewable energy mandates (Jordan, et al. 2010). In North America, policy capacity looks considerably more robust when shifting from Ottawa and Washington, DC, to provincial and state capitals. Among the ten provinces and fifty states, one finds virtually every form of climate policy now operational in some set of jurisdictions (Burke and Ferguson 2010).
Many of these policies remain in early phases of implementation, making it difficult to assess their efficacy or political resiliency. Nonetheless, the flurry of sub-federal mitigation initiatives on both sides of the 49th parallel represents a distinctly unexpected development in climate policy, one that may indicate a possible path towards long-term engagement. The exploration of the origin of these varied policy outputs is the primary focus of this chapter, and it generates two fundamental questions. First, given the global nature of climate change and the predominant expectation that it would be addressed largely at the international and national levels, why have the central governments of Canada and the United States remained such marginal players? Second, absent federal leadership, why have many sub-federal governments unilaterally adopted leading roles?
In response, we offer a comparative analysis of the interplay between federal and sub-federal jurisdictions in Canada and the United States as they address the challenge of mitigating climate change. As noted by Collier (1993), comparison is a fundamental tool of political science, allowing researchers to situate analyses within a larger context, thereby revealing broader patterns and suggestive dissimilarities across cases. By comparing these federations, we hope to offer greater insight into both federalism and climate policy than would be possible by examining Canada on its own. This approach builds on recent work comparing Canada, the United States, and other governments (Harrison and Sundstrom 2010; Lachapelle, Borick, and Rabe 2012; Rabe and Borick 2012). Given their close geographic, economic, cultural, and political ties, comparing dynamics in Canada and the United States offers a deeper and more complete account of the way in which federal institutions mediate the response of two interdependent governments to the climate policy challenge. Moreover, our theoretical understanding of the factors influencing climate policy in Canada is strengthened through comparison with the United States. This provides considerable leverage for ascertaining the importance of different variables and specifying the limits and conditions under which our theoretical arguments may or may not hold.
We begin with an analysis of why climate policy development has proven so problematic for international regimes and national authorities while sub-federal governments have emerged as unexpectedly major players. We also examine key patterns of federal and sub-federal policy development in both countries, highlighting points of distinction and convergence. Despite -- and perhaps as a result of -- important differences in prevailing governance structures and domestic political economies, we find surprising similarities and some intriguing differences across cases. We conclude with a consideration of early lessons from this experience, particularly for Canada, and identify possible avenues for future policy development.
également à identifier les organisations qui auraient agi rapidement afin éventuellement de leur attribuer des crédits reconnaissant ainsi leurs actions hâtives.
Dans le présent chapitre nous examinons les programmes VCR et
ÉcoGESte selon les trois fils conducteurs du programme de recherche
présenté dans cet ouvrage : (1) Pourquoi les gouvernements ont-ils initialement choisi l’approche volontaire comme principal instrument de politique afin de réduire les émissions de GES dans le secteur industriel ? (2) Quelle évaluation les personnes engagées dans ces deux programmes, autant du côté des gouvernements que de l’industrie, font-elles de l’expérience ? (3) Quelles leçons pouvons-nous tirer de notre étude de cas en rapport avec l’utilisation future des instruments de type volontaire relativement à la politique des changements climatiques ?
Books and Thesis / Livres et thèses by David Houle
After reviewing the climate policy-making processes in the provinces, the dissertation’s answer to the first question is that carbon pricing instruments have been adopted in provinces in which the government has shown early on an acceptance of both the scientific paradigm of anthropogenic climate change and the policy paradigm of liberal environmentalism—the latter promoting market-based climate policy. These provinces are also the ones in which the premier has shown a personal commitment to the issue of climate change, which has contributed to focusing resources on the issue and to building climate policy capacity ahead of other provinces. Among provinces that have adopted carbon-pricing, climate policy is framed as providing important economic benefits through the creation of carbon markets and fostering investments in the renewable energy industry and other green technologies.
The answer to the second question is that provinces, although to varying degrees, have designed carbon pricing instruments in order to take into consideration the particularities of their economic context and the policy preferences of their main industrial emitters. While some provinces, such as Quebec in imposing a cap-and-trade system, have been willing to go well beyond what their industries have been ready to accept, at least initially, others have adopted carbon pricing instruments designed to match closely the policy preferences of their most important GHG emitting industry.
Au-delà de l’évaluation que les acteurs eux-mêmes ont faite de la situation, peut-on expliquer le choix de l’instrument de politique par quelques causes à la fois parcimonieuses et généralisables dans un esprit de construction théorique ? Pourquoi le volontarisme plutôt que la réglementation ? Qu'est-ce qui conditionne le choix d’un instrument plutôt qu’un autre? Est-ce que les causes du choix sont structurelles, institutionnelles ou idéologiques?
À la lumière des leçons tirées de ces études de cas, on comprend mieux les limites et le potentiel à plus long terme du volontarisme comme instrument de réduction des gaz à effet de serre.
Reports / Rapports by David Houle
There are three main reasons for using free allocation: (1) it is a more precise mechanism to compensate those who are harmed the most from the introduction of carbon pricing; (2) it can help build political support by ameliorating competitiveness risks for vulnerable firms and building constituencies with a
vested interest in seeing carbon markets maintained; and (3) free allocations are a useful tool for managing through a period of patchwork climate policy by mitigating emissions leakage—the shifting of polluting industry from jurisdictions with stringent climate regulations to those with lax or non-existent
policies. The manner in which permits are allocated matters and we contrast two main methods: grandfathering and output-based allocations. While in the case of grandfathering, firms are incentivized to reduce emissions, which allows them to sell their allowances, it also creates a moral hazard, as firms
might discount the value of free allowances or reduce production for the purpose of selling unused allowances, potentially exacerbating the problem of emissions leakage. Under an output-based allocation, firms are incentivized to reduce their emission intensity (i.e., produce more while emitting less), but the incentive to reduce emissions by simply curtailing their production is weakened. To realize the full economic advantages of free allocations, including limiting emissions leakage, it is important that they be allocated on an output basis that is updated regularly rather than grandfathered on the basis of historical emissions.
• Market-based instruments (MBIs), either under the form of emissions trading or carbon taxation, have been increasingly popular in OECD countries and, in Canada, at the sub-national level.
• Québec, Alberta, British Columbia and, to a lesser extent Manitoba, have all successfully adopted and implemented carbon pricing policies, while Ontario and Saskatchewan have proposed to adopt MBIs though implementation has not yet proceeded.
• The implementation of MBIs began in 2007, after the Harper government decided not to implement any such instrument at the federal level, allowing provinces to experiment without creating redundant carbon pricing schemes.
• Three important types of obstacles to the adoption and implementation of MBIs are identified amongst Canadian provinces: administrative obstacles associated with a lack of environmental and climate change policy capacity, political obstacles associated with the provincial party system and salience of MBIs during elections, and finally economic obstacles, especially the policy preferences of main provincial industries.
• MBIs remain popular amongst Canadians and different strategies can be adopted to overcome obstacles to their implementation. Policy capacity can be secured rapidly through inter-jurisdictional cooperation and/or by using central agencies such as the ministry of finance or specialized regulatory bodies rather than environment ministries. In provinces where resistance to market-based approaches is more significant, a narrow-based carbon tax or limited form of emissions trading (such as credit-based emissions trading) can be implemented as a first step toward a more comprehensive and effective market instruments. These instruments can also be used to augment financial resources to increase climate change policy capacity or funding for new technologies that might, in the long run, help reduce compliance costs associated with more stringent MBIs.
Book Reviews / Recension by David Houle
Résumé - Ce texte décrit l'évolution des interventions du ministère de l'Environnement du Québec entre 1973 et 2003 à l'aide des informations recueillies dans la base de données IGE , et tente de dégager les principales tendances quant à l'utilisation, par le ministère de l'Environnement du Québec, des instruments réglementaires, économiques, volontaires et directs pour la protection de l'air, de l'eau et du sol. L'analyse des données démontre, dans un premier temps, que les interventions augmentent de 1983 à 1998. Ces interventions s'appuient plus fréquemment sur des instruments réglementaires pour la protection de l'eau, sur des instruments volontaires pour la protection de l'air et sur des instruments économiques pour la protection du sol, particulièrement dans la gestion des déchets solides. Ces constats sont interprétés sous l'angle de la théorie de la « nouvelle gouvernance » telle qu'elle se présente en analyse des politiques publiques. "
L’élection d’un gouvernement fédéral conservateur en 2006 changea la donne de manière fondamentale. Pour plusieurs observateurs et dirigeants provinciaux, il semblait maintenant peu probable que le gouvernement fédéral s’engage sur la voie de la tarification du carbone. L’approche privilégiée par le nouveau gouvernement fédéral était celle d’une réglementation sectorielle, basée sur des normes réglementaires traditionnelles (une approche parfois d’écrite comme ‘command-and-control’) consistant essentiellement à fixer des cibles d’émission que les industries devaient respecter sans que des mécanismes de flexibilité (par exemple, des permis échangeables) soit disponibles. Bien que des négociations aient été entamées avec de nombreux secteurs industriels (Munroe, 2016), seulement deux secteurs ont été réglementés, celui des transports et des centrales au charbon (Commissaire à l’environnement, 2012).
C’est dans ce contexte que les provinces, de plus en plus au fait des impacts des changements climatiques sur leur territoire et des opportunités économiques créées par la croissance des industries vertes, devinrent plus actives en matière de changements climatiques. Elles craignaient moins, comme cela était le cas sous les précédents gouvernements fédéraux de Jean Chrétien et Paul Martin, un possible dédoublement de leurs efforts avec ceux du fédéral (Houle et coll., 2014, Houle, 2015). Certains gouvernements provinciaux incluant le Québec, l’Ontario, la Colombie-Britannique, le Manitoba, et l’Alberta adoptèrent des approches innovatrices en matière de changements climatiques. Simultanément, ces provinces firent preuve d’une préférence en faveur de la tarification du carbone, qui constitua un élément central de leur politique climatique, via l’adoption de taxes sur le carbone ainsi que de systèmes d’échange de droits d’émission (Houle, 2015). De manière inattendue, l’adoption de ces instruments peut être observée autant dans les provinces où une majorité de la population supporte la tarification du carbone que dans celles où seulement une minorité d’électeurs s’expriment en sa faveur. Doit-on en conclure que les décideurs publics ne tiennent pas compte de l’opinion publique sur la question de la tarification du carbone?
Ce chapitre va explorer cette question tout d’abord en définissant la tarification du carbone et montrant le momentum à l’échelle international en faveur de son adoption. Par la suite, pour comprendre le lien entre l’opinion publique et l’émergence de la tarification du carbone dans le contexte canadien nous examinons tout d’abord l’évolution de l’opinion publique à ce sujet et, en particulière, les différences interprovinciales. La dernière section de ce chapitre propose des études de cas, en commençant par celui de la Colombie-Britannique où la taxe carbone instaurée dans cette province fit l’objet d’une intense controverse, surtout pendant les élections provinciales de 2009. Nous comparons ensuite cette campagne électorale avec d’autres élections provinciales de cette période, notamment celles de l’Ontario de 2011 et du Québec en 2012. Ces comparaisons nous permettent de constater, lorsqu’elles sont associées aux observations des données d’opinion publique, que le manque de support initial pour la tarification du carbone n’a, règle générale, empêcher les gouvernements provinciaux de s’engager dans cette voie.
Both scholars and policy makers have long gravitated towards a set of priors to guide their thinking about how national governments might join forces to address climate change. This exercise in path dependence drew heavily on the Canadian and American experience in building a cross-continental and, ultimately, international coalition to reduce the release of ozone-depleting chemicals into the atmosphere, leading to the 1987 creation of the Montreal Protocol (Thoms 2002). It also relied heavily upon the innovative American experience with emissions trading for a conventional air pollutant, sulphur dioxide, as a policy tool that offered a cost-effective model for both national and cross-national collaboration on climate change (Raymond 2010). Others have turned to additional precedents, including the Cold War, nuclear arms control, and international trade pacts as possible models for climate governance, all with the hope that these might serve as models for extensive Canadian and American engagement. But more than two decades after the Rio Declaration on Climate Change, neither country has assumed such a role, joined by a chorus of failed efforts from other nations and growing frustrations in international forums.
There have, however, been some important exceptions to this larger pattern as some governments have taken unilateral and multilateral policy steps to reduce their emissions. Led by such countries as Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, the European Union has been most prominent in this regard, through continental strategies such as the Emissions Trading System as well as a mixture of such federal and sub-federal policies as energy taxation and renewable energy mandates (Jordan, et al. 2010). In North America, policy capacity looks considerably more robust when shifting from Ottawa and Washington, DC, to provincial and state capitals. Among the ten provinces and fifty states, one finds virtually every form of climate policy now operational in some set of jurisdictions (Burke and Ferguson 2010).
Many of these policies remain in early phases of implementation, making it difficult to assess their efficacy or political resiliency. Nonetheless, the flurry of sub-federal mitigation initiatives on both sides of the 49th parallel represents a distinctly unexpected development in climate policy, one that may indicate a possible path towards long-term engagement. The exploration of the origin of these varied policy outputs is the primary focus of this chapter, and it generates two fundamental questions. First, given the global nature of climate change and the predominant expectation that it would be addressed largely at the international and national levels, why have the central governments of Canada and the United States remained such marginal players? Second, absent federal leadership, why have many sub-federal governments unilaterally adopted leading roles?
In response, we offer a comparative analysis of the interplay between federal and sub-federal jurisdictions in Canada and the United States as they address the challenge of mitigating climate change. As noted by Collier (1993), comparison is a fundamental tool of political science, allowing researchers to situate analyses within a larger context, thereby revealing broader patterns and suggestive dissimilarities across cases. By comparing these federations, we hope to offer greater insight into both federalism and climate policy than would be possible by examining Canada on its own. This approach builds on recent work comparing Canada, the United States, and other governments (Harrison and Sundstrom 2010; Lachapelle, Borick, and Rabe 2012; Rabe and Borick 2012). Given their close geographic, economic, cultural, and political ties, comparing dynamics in Canada and the United States offers a deeper and more complete account of the way in which federal institutions mediate the response of two interdependent governments to the climate policy challenge. Moreover, our theoretical understanding of the factors influencing climate policy in Canada is strengthened through comparison with the United States. This provides considerable leverage for ascertaining the importance of different variables and specifying the limits and conditions under which our theoretical arguments may or may not hold.
We begin with an analysis of why climate policy development has proven so problematic for international regimes and national authorities while sub-federal governments have emerged as unexpectedly major players. We also examine key patterns of federal and sub-federal policy development in both countries, highlighting points of distinction and convergence. Despite -- and perhaps as a result of -- important differences in prevailing governance structures and domestic political economies, we find surprising similarities and some intriguing differences across cases. We conclude with a consideration of early lessons from this experience, particularly for Canada, and identify possible avenues for future policy development.
également à identifier les organisations qui auraient agi rapidement afin éventuellement de leur attribuer des crédits reconnaissant ainsi leurs actions hâtives.
Dans le présent chapitre nous examinons les programmes VCR et
ÉcoGESte selon les trois fils conducteurs du programme de recherche
présenté dans cet ouvrage : (1) Pourquoi les gouvernements ont-ils initialement choisi l’approche volontaire comme principal instrument de politique afin de réduire les émissions de GES dans le secteur industriel ? (2) Quelle évaluation les personnes engagées dans ces deux programmes, autant du côté des gouvernements que de l’industrie, font-elles de l’expérience ? (3) Quelles leçons pouvons-nous tirer de notre étude de cas en rapport avec l’utilisation future des instruments de type volontaire relativement à la politique des changements climatiques ?
After reviewing the climate policy-making processes in the provinces, the dissertation’s answer to the first question is that carbon pricing instruments have been adopted in provinces in which the government has shown early on an acceptance of both the scientific paradigm of anthropogenic climate change and the policy paradigm of liberal environmentalism—the latter promoting market-based climate policy. These provinces are also the ones in which the premier has shown a personal commitment to the issue of climate change, which has contributed to focusing resources on the issue and to building climate policy capacity ahead of other provinces. Among provinces that have adopted carbon-pricing, climate policy is framed as providing important economic benefits through the creation of carbon markets and fostering investments in the renewable energy industry and other green technologies.
The answer to the second question is that provinces, although to varying degrees, have designed carbon pricing instruments in order to take into consideration the particularities of their economic context and the policy preferences of their main industrial emitters. While some provinces, such as Quebec in imposing a cap-and-trade system, have been willing to go well beyond what their industries have been ready to accept, at least initially, others have adopted carbon pricing instruments designed to match closely the policy preferences of their most important GHG emitting industry.
Au-delà de l’évaluation que les acteurs eux-mêmes ont faite de la situation, peut-on expliquer le choix de l’instrument de politique par quelques causes à la fois parcimonieuses et généralisables dans un esprit de construction théorique ? Pourquoi le volontarisme plutôt que la réglementation ? Qu'est-ce qui conditionne le choix d’un instrument plutôt qu’un autre? Est-ce que les causes du choix sont structurelles, institutionnelles ou idéologiques?
À la lumière des leçons tirées de ces études de cas, on comprend mieux les limites et le potentiel à plus long terme du volontarisme comme instrument de réduction des gaz à effet de serre.
There are three main reasons for using free allocation: (1) it is a more precise mechanism to compensate those who are harmed the most from the introduction of carbon pricing; (2) it can help build political support by ameliorating competitiveness risks for vulnerable firms and building constituencies with a
vested interest in seeing carbon markets maintained; and (3) free allocations are a useful tool for managing through a period of patchwork climate policy by mitigating emissions leakage—the shifting of polluting industry from jurisdictions with stringent climate regulations to those with lax or non-existent
policies. The manner in which permits are allocated matters and we contrast two main methods: grandfathering and output-based allocations. While in the case of grandfathering, firms are incentivized to reduce emissions, which allows them to sell their allowances, it also creates a moral hazard, as firms
might discount the value of free allowances or reduce production for the purpose of selling unused allowances, potentially exacerbating the problem of emissions leakage. Under an output-based allocation, firms are incentivized to reduce their emission intensity (i.e., produce more while emitting less), but the incentive to reduce emissions by simply curtailing their production is weakened. To realize the full economic advantages of free allocations, including limiting emissions leakage, it is important that they be allocated on an output basis that is updated regularly rather than grandfathered on the basis of historical emissions.
• Market-based instruments (MBIs), either under the form of emissions trading or carbon taxation, have been increasingly popular in OECD countries and, in Canada, at the sub-national level.
• Québec, Alberta, British Columbia and, to a lesser extent Manitoba, have all successfully adopted and implemented carbon pricing policies, while Ontario and Saskatchewan have proposed to adopt MBIs though implementation has not yet proceeded.
• The implementation of MBIs began in 2007, after the Harper government decided not to implement any such instrument at the federal level, allowing provinces to experiment without creating redundant carbon pricing schemes.
• Three important types of obstacles to the adoption and implementation of MBIs are identified amongst Canadian provinces: administrative obstacles associated with a lack of environmental and climate change policy capacity, political obstacles associated with the provincial party system and salience of MBIs during elections, and finally economic obstacles, especially the policy preferences of main provincial industries.
• MBIs remain popular amongst Canadians and different strategies can be adopted to overcome obstacles to their implementation. Policy capacity can be secured rapidly through inter-jurisdictional cooperation and/or by using central agencies such as the ministry of finance or specialized regulatory bodies rather than environment ministries. In provinces where resistance to market-based approaches is more significant, a narrow-based carbon tax or limited form of emissions trading (such as credit-based emissions trading) can be implemented as a first step toward a more comprehensive and effective market instruments. These instruments can also be used to augment financial resources to increase climate change policy capacity or funding for new technologies that might, in the long run, help reduce compliance costs associated with more stringent MBIs.
Cet état de fait récemment constaté par un nombre croissant de chercheurs nous invite à porter davantage d’intérêt aux initiatives de ces gouvernements afin d’observer et d’expliquer l’évolution des politiques en changements climatiques. Jusqu’à maintenant, comme en témoigne de récentes synthèses, la littérature concernant ce sujet oriente la discussion sur le niveau international et dans une moindre mesure, les états nationaux. De plus, alors que de nombreuses études sont de nature normative ou descriptive, il n’existe qu’un nombre limité de travaux visant à proposer des explications des politiques adoptées par les gouvernements en changements climatiques. Afin d’adresser ces problèmes, cette communication porte spécifiquement sur les politiques en changements climatiques d’un état fédéré, le Québec, de l’émergence de l’enjeu à la période actuelle. Le principal objectif est de proposer un modèle explicatif du choix des instruments de politiques suffisamment général pour s’appliquer à d’autres gouvernement sous-fédéraux et dans faire une première application pour le cas du Québec.
La communication débute par une revue de la littérature portant sur les politiques en changements climatiques ainsi que certaines contributions de l’étude des politiques environnementales et des politiques publiques susceptibles d’apporter des éléments complémentaires intéressants. Par la suite, un modèle de la sélection des instruments, basé sur les préférences des industries les plus importantes, est proposé. Après avoir présenté des hypothèses sur les préférences des industries selon leurs caractéristiques, une observation empirique est menée pour vérifier la plausibilité de celles-ci. À cette fin, le contexte et l’évolution de la politique québécoise en matière de changements climatiques sont brièvement présentés.
La dernière section présente les analyses et les résultats découlant de l’application du modèle théorique, discute les problèmes rencontrés et propose des pistes de réflexions concernant la théorie mais également les politiques en matière de changements climatiques. Une des conclusions offertes est que ces politiques peuvent être analysées comme le prolongement des politiques de développement économique du Québec, ayant les intérêts des principales industries en leur centre. Cette vision contraste avec celle, proposée par certains auteurs, d’une politique orientée seulement par l’évolution des connaissances sur les changements climatiques ou basée sur une recherche de l’efficacité et de l’efficience dans l’atteinte des objectifs de réduction des GES.
Biofuels have been described as means to tackle climate change and as important contributor to escalated food prices
and food insecurity.
In early 2008, the negative view of biofuels gathered steam when the food versus fuels dichotomy became the official
discourse of international organizations. A top official in the UN Food and Agriculture Organization described using arable
land to make fuel 'a crime against humanity.' Domestic governments that had subsidized the production of biofuels and
were legislating minimum biofuel content were put on the defensive by the critique of international organizations.
Government responses differed. While European policy-makers were sensitive to the criticisms and modified their
policies, the Canadian government largely rebuffed the criticisms and proceeded with its pro-biofuels policies.
This paper examines the Canadian and European biofuels debates for the light it sheds on the internationalization of
domestic policy debates and policy outcomes. Scholars argue that domestic politics and policy-making are increasingly
subject to the influence of the ideas and interests of international actors—other governments, international organizations,
and/or transnational advocacy and epistemic networks. There is also considerable evidence that the impact of
international actors and institutions is mediated by the domestic institutional framework of decision-making. This paper
argues that while structural aspects of the domestic policy community/network are important delimiters of
internationalization’s effects, several other factors are also important, including short-term partisan and political
considerations and longer-term policy paradigms for agriculture and the environment.
Keywords: cap-and-trade, California, Quebec, Western Climate Initiative.
Keywords: Quebec climate policy, research, carbon market, electrification, wind energy, carbon offsets, international climate change politics
mitigate carbon. Current efforts by Canadian provinces to shift electricity policy toward renewable sources can be
expected to encounter political resistance from fossil fuel industries. We look at two Canadian provinces with very
dissimilar electricity policies: Ontario and Alberta. Ontario has chosen to eliminate coal-fired electricity generation
and invest heavily in renewables, supported by subsidies in the form of a Feed-in-Tariff. Alberta, on the other
hand, has stayed its policy course and continues to rely on coal for a majority of its electricity needs. This paper
examines the extent and means by which the coal industry has worked to influence policy in Alberta and Ontario.
We investigate to what degree industry political action explains the two contrasting policy directions. Using
qualitative methodology, we draw on literature on agenda setting and public policy development, as well as the
role of business in environmental politics, to contribute to understanding of industry lobbying (among other
factors) as an explanation for the progression of Canadian climate change policy. To date, there has been almost
no scholarly study of the political activities of the coal industry on Canadian climate policy and this paper is
intended to help fill that gap. The paper will draw on research currently being done by the authors on distributive
impacts of Canadian climate change policy.
United States, the EU and Canada. This discussion reveals considerable similarity across the three polities in ideas about the goals of biofuels policy as well as ideas about the appropriate means/instruments to promote biofuel production and consumption. Part III examines the case for
the transnationalization of biofuels policy. It documents the discourses and activities of international institutions, non-governmental organizations, and networks of state and/or non-state actors that comprise the transnational biofuels policy community and who are seeking to have an
impact on domestic biofuels policies. Part IV examines whether the policy ideas of the transnational policy community have filtered into and shaped domestic policy developments with respect to biofuels in the United States, the EU and Canada. Part V concludes."
Although the most recent legislative initiatives in the EU and the United States reaffirm governments’ efforts to promote the production and consumption of renewable fuels, they nonetheless indicate a shift toward promotion of `advanced’ renewable fuels. Unlike ethanol and biodiesel, which are produced mainly from food crops (ethanol from sugar cane and starch crops like corn; biodiesel from vegetable oils like palm oil, soybean oil and canola oil), advanced biofuels are made from non-edible plant and animal sources: cellulosic ethanol from crop residues like plant stems and leaves, fast growing grasses, wood waste and wood chips; and biodiesel from algae. Whereas ethanol and biodiesel offer net benefits over fossil fuels in carbon dioxide emissions, advanced biofuels are expected to yield even greater savings in curbing the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that contribute to global warming and climate change. Besides this greater emphasis on advanced renewable fuels, recent legislative initiatives in both the EU and the US require biofuels and other renewable fuels to meet environmental performance criteria that include both specified GHG savings thresholds and impacts on land use.
There is evidence that the EU is outpacing the US in its initiatives to require sustainability performance criteria of renewable fuels. The EU requires all renewable fuels for transport to meet environmental sustainability criteria, establishing high GHG savings thresholds, and applies these thresholds across all biofuels, including those produced by existing biofuels plants. By contrast, the US exempts most existing ethanol plants from this requirement. Moreover, the EU is also deviating from the US in taking initiatives to examine the social sustainability of biofuels policies as measured by their impact on the availability of foodstuffs at affordable prices, in particular for people living in developing countries, and on `wider development issues’ (Commission of the European Communities 2009). There are no similar social sustainability reporting criteria for US renewable fuels.
What explains the convergence of the US and the EU in promoting biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel? But equally, what explains their divergence, most particularly of late, with the EU’s bigger shift to requiring environmental performance standards of renewable fuels? It is the purpose of this paper to address these two questions. To do so, we adopt a discursive institutionalist approach that highlights the interactive role in policy development of the social representation of policy ideas about biofuels (discourse) and the institutional context in which these policy ideas are exchanged and legitimated. We identify the discourses that surround renewable fuels in the two political systems and offer an explanation for why these discourses have dominated over time. This explanation centres on how strategic actors in the US and the EU have constructed biofuels as a solution to pressing policy problems, and how the success of their efforts to do so have been affected by the institutional and ideational contexts of renewable fuels policy-making in the EU and the US.
Using qualitative methods that rely on textual analyses, we document the existence and influence of six discourses about biofuels in both the EU and the US. Four are long-standing and they are, first, renewable fuels are a means to enhanced energy security by reducing dependence on imported petroleum or natural gas; second, in displacing fossil fuels like oil and natural gas that are leading sources of carbon dioxide emissions, renewable fuels reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and thus help tackle climate change ; third, biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel promote economic objectives of agriculture and rural development by raising corn/oilseed prices and creating jobs in renewable fuels plants located in rural areas; and fourth, renewable fuels promote economic competitiveness through the development of innovative technologies. The four discourses, which are complementary, co-exist with one another in both the EU and the US. However, the energy security discourse dominates in the US, followed closely by the discourses that link biofuels to jobs and incomes for rural, agrarian America, as well as to economic innovation and competitiveness. In the EU, again all four discourses are fully evident, but the official discourse elevates the linkages between biofuels/renewable fuels, on the one hand, and reduced emissions of greenhouse gases and energy security, on the other.
While these four discourses have been predominant, we also document the existence of two other discourses that gained prominence, particularly in the European Union, after 2005-06 and which refute discourses about biofuels as solutions to pressing policy problems. They are, first, food-based biofuels (ethanol, biodiesel) are not environmentally sustainable; their contribution to GHG is modest and their effects on land use deleterious (Doornbosch and Steenblik 2007; Zah et al. 2007; Searchinger et al. 2008). And second, public policies to promote biofuels have unethical social costs, as manifest, for example, in the rapid escalation in the costs of basic food staples, including corn and vegetable oils (ethanol and biodiesel feedstocks) in 2007-08 (OECD and FAO 2007; OECD 2007, 2008; IMF 2007). These counter discourses, which rely on scientific analyses of experts in government agencies as well as international institutions, have had an influence on policy debates and renewable fuels policies in both the EU and the US with the impact appearing greater in the EU. We argue that the centrality of the biofuels—GHG savings discourse in the EU made EU public policies to promote biofuels particularly vulnerable to the epistemic analyses of the counter discourse that questioned biofuels’ environmental benefits. In the US, while the counter-discourse has had some impact, the dominance of the energy security discourse as a rationale for biofuels policies has meant a greater reluctance to thwart that goal by imposing environmental sustainability criteria on existing biofuels/ethanol plants.
In tracing the construction and legitimation of these plural discourses over time, we identify the social, economic and political actors who have promoted them, and seek an explanation for why their policy ideas about biofuels/renewable fuels have prevailed. Our account takes us to the economic actors who profit economically from government biofuels policies (farmers, biofuels producers), the social actors who pursue collective public values of environmentalism, the public officials responsible for renewable fuels policies, and the scientific experts (including those inside government agencies) whose knowledge legitimates (or not) renewable fuels’ epistemic assumptions. We argue that features of the institutional and normative context of renewable fuels policy-making in the two political systems do much to explain not only the similarities in their policy discourses, but also differences in the relative prominence of particular biofuels policy discourses. Most particularly, we draw attention to the institutional role of the European Commission and values of environmentalism in the EU as explaining the greater prominence of the environmental sustainability discourse in EU biofuels policy debates and public policies. In the US, we emphasize the central role of Congress, and the influence therein of economic actors who benefit from renewable fuels policies, as well as that of the Environmental Protection Agency in its epistemic and regulatory role.
We develop our argument as follows. We begin in Part I with a discussion of discursive institutionalism, theorizing the interactive relationship between discourses and institutions, as well as the factors expected to affect dominant discourses in the two political systems. Part II provides a brief discussion of our methodology. Parts III and IV documents the policy discourses and policy developments in the EU and US, respectively. Part V provides a comparative overview of the EU-US cases, suggests how a discursive institutionalist framework gives us purchase on their policy developments, and concludes.
Cet état de fait récemment constaté par un nombre croissant de chercheurs nous invite à porter davantage d’intérêt aux initiatives de ces gouvernements afin d’observer et d’expliquer l’évolution des politiques en changements climatiques. Jusqu’à maintenant, comme en témoigne de récentes synthèses, la littérature concernant ce sujet oriente la discussion sur le niveau international et dans une moindre mesure national. De plus, alors que de nombreuses études sont de nature normative ou descriptive, il n’existe qu’un nombre limité de travaux visant à proposer des explications des politiques adoptées par les gouvernements. Afin d’adresser ces problèmes, cette communication porte spécifiquement sur les politiques en changements climatiques d’un gouvernement sous-fédéral, le Québec, de l’émergence de l’enjeu à la période actuelle. Le principal objectif est de proposer un modèle explicatif du choix des instruments de politiques suffisamment général pour s’appliquer à d’autres gouvernement sous-fédéraux et dans faire une première application pour le cas du Québec.
La communication débute par une revue de littérature portant sur les politiques en changements climatiques ainsi que certaines contributions de l’étude des politiques environnementales et des politiques publiques susceptibles d’apporter des éléments complémentaires intéressants. Par la suite, un modèle de la sélection des instruments, basé sur les préférences des industries stratégiques, est proposé. Après avoir présenté des hypothèses sur les préférences des industries selon leurs caractéristiques, une observation empirique est menée pour vérifier la plausibilité de celles-ci. À cette fin, le contexte et l’évolution de la politique québécoise en matière de changements climatiques sont brièvement présentés.
La dernière section présente les analyses et les résultats découlant de l’application du modèle théorique, discute les problèmes rencontrés et propose des pistes de réflexions concernant la théorie mais également les politiques en matière de changements climatiques. Une des conclusions offertes est que ces politiques peuvent être analysées comme le prolongement des politiques de développement économique de la province, ayant les intérêts des principales industries en leur centre. Cette vision contraste avec celle, proposée par certains auteurs, d’une politique orientée seulement par l’évolution des connaissances sur les changements climatiques ou sur les instruments de politiques et basée sur une recherche de l’efficacité et de l’efficience.
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Many political scientists have attempted to explain the dynamics of influence among the media, policy and public agendas with regard to environmental issues. While we acknowledge seminal works by Michael Howlett and Stuart Soroka in Canada, we contend that a specific focus on the agenda-setting stage with regard to environmental issues is still lacking.
Compared to previous studies dealing with this topic, we locate our field of inquiry at the provincial level, we use a fifteen-year time-span and we break down environment as an issue into various sub-problems (for instance: climate change, ozone-depletion substances, waste management, acid rain, and so on).
Since we primarily aim at testing the media-driven hypothesis drawn from the literature, we analyze environmental policy in Quebec since the 1990s. Therefore, we rely on a computer-assisted frequencies analysis of newspaper articles (editorials and news stories) and proceedings of environment-related committees of the National Assembly of Québec. Time series are then constructed and analyzed. This suggests causal patterns that account for the dynamics of influence among the agendas. We discuss our results in the concluding section.
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changements climatiques et les instruments de
marchée pour réduire les émissions de gaz à effet
de serre (GES), en particulier les taxes carbones,
peuvent constituer un enjeu important dans une
campagne électorale. Dans les faits, les changements
climatiques ont également été un enjeu dans quatre
autres élections au Canada ces dernières années
incluant celles de la Colombie-Britannique en 2009
et 2013, de l’Alberta en 2012 et de l’Ontario en
2011. Une comparaison entre ces élections nous permet
de faire plusieurs observations sur les stratégies
utilisées par les partis politiques concernant l’enjeu
des changements climatiques et d’en tirer des leçons
importantes. La principale leçon est que même si une
majorité de canadiens est en faveur des instruments
de marché, les partis politiques de droite, autant sur
la scène provinciale que fédérale, ont été en mesure
d’utiliser cet enjeu pour polariser l’électorat et mobiliser
leurs partisans. Cependant, lorsque les partis
de droite appuient l’idée d’utiliser des instruments
de marché pour lutter contre les changements climatiques,
ils sont en mesure de créer un consensus
inter-partisan sur cette question. C’est notamment
ce que montre l’expérience du parti libéral de la
Colombie-Britannique qui représente l’aile droite de
l’échiquier politique de cette province.
Of course, trying to bring to the attention of the general public and elected officials concerns about particular problems, even new problems, is a very legitimate and useful enterprise. However, one could ask if in the absence of a comprehensive description and a sound understanding of the past policy choices, their achievements, and their failures we have the adequate knowledge to build a normative analysis on what should be done or to develop a critical analysis of the policy process and instruments choices made.
Listening to experts gives sometimes the impression that there is a double standard. We have to be very careful when we address the questions of climate change science, pollutants dispersion, ecosystems, human health, etc. (or subjects studied by the natural sciences) and discuss only proved facts and carefully designed falsifiable theories. However, when it comes to public policy (or subjects studied by the social sciences) some scientists dismiss actual policies without much information about them, proposing “innovative” instruments, and comparing textbook policy instruments (developed by hypothetical-deductive thinking) with actual implemented instruments.
There is no reason to suppose that the achievement of scientific methods in social sciences should be lesser than the achievement in non-experimental natural sciences. Both domains are confronted by complexities and phenomenon that cannot be reproduced in an experimental setting. If one is optimistic about the success of the scientific enterprise to understand the dynamic of climate change or air and water pollution one should be equally optimistic about the success of the same enterprise to address the questions of environmental policy and instruments choices. Consequently, we insist in this paper on the explanatory function as an important step toward a normative and critical perspective on the environmental policy instrument choices. The underlying idea is that without an adequate description of the selected instruments and an explanation of the observed choices, formulation of advice is somewhat hazardous.
The first part of this paper addresses the general study of public policy in order to discuss the importance to develop specific sub-fields. Then, we review the major contributions of this literature in order to situate the study of policy instruments. Also, we present some issues addressed by the literature in public administration/management and assess their important for the debates in public policy and, more precisely on policy instrument selection. In the second part of the paper, we briefly summarize the history and the principal explanatory theories proposed in the literature on policy instruments. Then, we turn to the question of the choice of environmental policy instruments. We argue that a contextual explanation, integrating institutional and ideational explanations and paying attention to the characteristics of particular environmental problems and national and sub-national entities, might improve our understanding of environmental policy instrument choices. Finally, we present an integrative framework in order to reconstruct the meta-narratives of policy instrument choices.
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Dans le cadre de ce travail, nous nous proposons d’étudier une récente évaluation du programme ontarien Drive Clean. Il s’agit d’un programme d’inspection et de maintenance (I/M) obligatoire des véhicules routiers instauré par le gouvernement de l'Ontario en 1999.
Dans un premier temps, nous définirons la politique de lutte contre la pollution atmosphérique liée au secteur du transport dans laquelle s’intègre, à notre avis, le programme Drive Clean. Nous présenterons plus en détails le programme à la section II pour ensuite aborder l’évaluation, à la section III. Finalement, nous terminerons notre travail par une analyse critique de l’évaluation du programme.
"
Nations Framework Convention of 1992, countries have attempted to formulate and develop innovative policies to address this complex issue. This course examines the decision-making process and policy instrument choice made by various jurisdictions in Canada, the United States, and the European Union in the context of ongoing political debates surrounding the issue of climate change. The principal objective is to familiarize students with the relevant literature in political science, public policy and climate change policy and with the different options (regulation, voluntarism, and market-based approaches) available to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions. Finally, proposes a theoretical framework for analyzing and explaining policy instrument choice and their implementation using the theories and methods of political science.
Provincial carbon pricing instruments have still limited
impacts on emissions and behavior.
– More ambitious targets required.
– Lack of engagement from societal actors in carbon market (eg. small businesses, financial sector, citizens in general).
• Uncertainties about how to further develop provincial
carbon pricing, increasing after 2020.
• The challenge: increase resilience and effectiveness of
provincial carbon pricing.
Pathways for further development of provincial carbon
pricing:
– 1) linkages between current carbon pricing mechanisms
– 2) institutions and complementary policies to support
carbon pricing and encourage a broader involvement.
– 3) federal climate policy that support subnational
carbon pricing mechanisms
Les experts:
David Houle (Université de Toronto)
Mark Purdon (London School of Economics and Political Science)
Erick Lachapelle (Université de Montréal)
Pierre‑Olivier Pineau (HEC Montréal).
Les taxes sur le carbone et les marchés de droits d’émission représentent l’approche prédominante en matière de gouvernance du climat. Alors que certaines provinces, dont le Québec, ont adopté ces instruments, d’autres, comme l’Ontario, n’ont pas été en mesure de le faire. Comment peut-on expliquer les différences entre les provinces dans la mise en œuvre d’instruments économiques pour lutter contre les changements climatiques?
Date et heure: Lundi 3 novembre 2014 de 11 h 45 à 13 h
Lieu: Pavillon De Koninck, local 3470