This is a guest post by Clare Demerse of Clean Energy Canada.

Canada’s premiers and prime minister headed home from Vancouver last week having launched a brand-new climate change negotiation process. Set against a backdrop of clean tech power brokers and pipeline skirmishes, the lead-up to last week’s meeting generated headlines mainly for the faultlines it brought to the surface.

No doubt about it: Tough conversations are coming, especially about the best way to price carbon pollution. But as the hot rhetoric cools down, here are four reasons for optimism based on the results of last week’s First Ministers’ meeting.

First, this initiative is unprecedented. The politicians who signed the declaration said they’ll try to craft something we’ve never had before: a national plan to hit a climate target.

Under Paul Martin, we saw a climate plan proposal from Ottawa — but it was federal rather than national, and most of it didn’t go into effect. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, of course, never offered a serious plan to cut greenhouse gas pollution in line with Canada’s targets. And during the long years when Ottawa was missing in action, some premiers raced ahead, while others barely got out of the starting gate.

So if last week's agreement works — which, of course, is still a very big “if” — the outcome will be a Canadian first.

Second, this process gets the right players involved.

Climate change is way too big to fit neatly into an environment minister’s portfolio. It’s also an energy issue, an infrastructure issue, a finance issue, a transportation issue, and so on. To really succeed in tackling climate change, you need leadership right from the top — the puzzle pieces just don’t line up without it. Premiers and prime ministers need to make climate action a priority, decide in broad strokes how to go about it, and then give their ministers marching orders to get it done.

Similarly, we need both Ottawa and the provinces at the table; climate change is an area of shared jurisdiction. The federal government can provide funding, set (some) national standards, and negotiate for Canada at global climate talks, but provinces make crucial decisions about electricity and energy development.

So federal, provincial and territorial First Ministers are the right cast of characters to get Canada on track. It won’t be easy, of course — regional tensions were already on full display in Vancouver — but this participant list opens up the possibility of success.

Third — as Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall reminded everyone more than once — this was always a discussion about the economy, not “just” the environment. And that’s a good thing.

As the declaration puts it, the transition to a clean economy “is necessary to ensure the future prosperity of Canada and Canadians.”

Exactly. Our analysis, published last week, concluded that clean energy just had its best year ever globally, with US $367 billion invested — nearly 50 per cent more than new investment in fossil fuel power.

You don’t even have to take our word for it. The CEO of Enbridge, best known for its Northern Gateway oil pipeline proposal, said this week that power generation — particularly from renewables — is “going to be a significant element of growth both in North America and globally.”

But while the U.S., China, Japan, and Mexico (to name just a few) saw their clean energy investment grow in 2015, Canada’s dropped by 46 per cent relative to the year before.

We need to reverse that trend as soon as possible — our competitors certainly aren’t standing still. Which brings us to a final reason this meeting matters: the process that the leaders announced last week can deliver a plan to build Canada’s clean energy economy.

The traditional approach to climate negotiations has been to fight about the allocation of pain. Who will make the deepest cuts? Who will charge the highest prices? For obvious reasons, those are not easy political conversations — and the vastly different emission profiles of Canada’s provinces make them even trickier.

But with the global economy making a rapid shift from fossil to clean energy, there’s now a huge opportunity to talk about. Instead of arguing about what we’re going to cut, it’s time to figure out what we’re going to build.

We can’t tackle climate change without building a clean energy economy. At its core, the recipe for reducing greenhouse gas pollution in Canada (and anywhere else) is simple: invest in clean power and then electrify everything. Move away from using fossil fuels to drive our cars and heat our homes; use clean power instead.

In Canada, this means building far more clean power, along with a smarter grid and a new generation of cars, buildings and industrial processes. And there’s money to be made every step of the way.

First Ministers acknowledged that reality in their declaration, which mentions the economy nearly as often as it does the climate. One of the four working groups this meeting established has a mandate to “stimulate economic growth, create jobs, and drive innovation” — and will do its work under the direction of ministers of economic development.

To reap those economic benefits, leaders need to use the months ahead to set ambitious clean energy goals for Canada — and then commit to policies to meet them. How much new clean power will we bring onto the grid? How many more electric vehicles will be on the road by 2030? How many buildings will we retrofit with state-of-the-art technologies to cut energy waste? How much clean technology will we be selling to the world? And in the process, how many new jobs will we create?

Canada’s governments, and all of us, need to seize this opportunity. Last week's meeting moved us a step closer to doing so.

Clare Demerse is a senior policy advisor in Ottawa for Clean Energy Canada, a climate think tank that is a project of Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Dialogue. 

You can click here to read more about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and climate change.

Image: Prime Minister of Canada

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This is a guest post by Sustainable Prosperity, a national green economy think tank.

This is a big week for Canadian energy and climate policy, with Monday’s Canadian Round Table on the Green Economy and Tuesday’s premiers’ climate summit. With all the talk of a “green economy,” we’re releasing a new video explaining what that ubiquitous term really means.  

What better time than now to bust a few myths about the “what” and the “how” of a greener Canadian economy?

Myth #1: A greener Canadian economy only exists in fairy tales.  

Many people view a green economy as something a long way out that will be difficult to achieve. But the good news is that the green economy is already here in many respects. It’s in the new ways to create energy, water, food and many of the other basic necessities. It’s also reflected in programs like British Columbia’s carbon tax and Quebec’s cap-and-trade system for emissions reductions. We already know how to green our economy. We just need to do more of it.

Myth #2: Greening the economy is incompatible with prosperity

Sustainable Prosperity’s vision of a greener economy is compatible with a strong economic future for Canada, including increased productivity, employment and innovation. Leading economic voices are pointing to the tremendous economic opportunities that await those economies that figure out how to “green while we grow.”

The global consultancy McKinsey, for example, believes that by 2020 there will be a global market in excess of US$ 2 trillion for technologies and services that deliver sustainability solutions. The recent United Nations report on the “new climate economy” identified trade in US$2.2 trillion low-carbon and energy-efficient opportunities alone.  Some countries are already taking advantage of such opportunities. Germany, for example, has reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 22 per cent during the past 20 years while doubling its economic output.

Myth #3: Greening the economy is just about windmills and organic food.

The view that a green economy is made up of things that are unambiguously “green” – like windmills or organic food – is pretty widespread. But if we are going to green our economy – that is make it truly sustainable in the long-term – we will need to focus on the whole of the economy. In a greener Canadian economy, every sector is improving its environmental performance.

We are not going to stop trading our resources, nor is the world going to stop needing them. But there is a great deal we can do to make our economy as a whole – resource sectors included – greener. The benefits of that will not only come in the form of greater efficiency and a smaller environmental footprint, but also in the development of sustainability solutions that will find their own markets.

Ultimately, every part our economy and society stands to benefit from a focus on “greening while we grow.”

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Few Canadians think about public policy, though it touches our lives in innumerable ways every day. Our collective safety and security, well-being and prosperity do not appear out of thin air. They are, in large measure, the outcomes of a vigorous public policy process.

Charities have a long history of playing important roles in that policy process. Here are just 10 examples of policies that have been shaped by the work of Canadian charities.

1) Laws against drunk driving. Mothers Against Drinking and Driving (MADD) Canada has long played a leading role in advocating for stronger policies against impaired driving. MADD Canada emerged in 1989 from an Ontario-based anti-drinking and driving group that was one of several early pioneer organizations that advocated against drinking and driving.

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2) Regulation of tobacco products. The anti-tobacco lobby in Canada dates back to at least the middle of the twentieth century, when the National Cancer Institute of Canada declared there may be a link between lung cancer and smoking. In the subsequent decades, dozens of charities have contributed to the effort to limit the sale and use of tobacco products.

3) Removal of bisphenol-A from baby bottles. In 2000, the Canadian Environmental Law Association turned its attention to the issue of toxins and human health. In the years following, dozens of charities — many of which joined forces in the Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and Environment — developed a sound research base and engagement strategy that contributed to a 2008 Health Canada ban on the use of bisphenol-A in baby bottles.

4) The effective provision of mental health services to youth in Ontario.  Starting with careful planning in 2004, Children’s Mental Health Ontario informed the development of a Child and Youth Mental Health and Addictions Strategy for the province. The organization worked for eight years to move the issue of children’s mental health up the provincial health agenda, and in late 2011 was rewarded for its efforts when the provincial government pledged significant funding to help support kids with mental health and addictions issues.

5) The Registered Disability Savings Plan. By the late 1990s, Al Etmanski and his wife Vickie Cammack had concluded that the charity they founded — Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network — needed to focus some of its energy on changing the policy framework to permit families of children with disabilities to better prepare for their children’s financial future. After years of developing credible research and building a constituency, they were rewarded with success. The Registered Disability Savings Plan was announced in the 2007 federal budget.

6) Increases to Alberta's Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped. Each year between 2005 and 2009, the Government of Alberta made increases to the monthly benefit under the Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped program. By 2010, charities on the front line serving Alberta’s disabled community believed a further increase was warranted. Dozens of charities — many of which coordinated their efforts through the Alberta Disabilities Forum — continued to make the case until the province announced an additional increase in 2012.

7) The development and delivery of high-quality early childhood care. The charities that have tirelessly devoted their energy to early childhood development and care are too numerous to mention. Canada’s public discourse on this issue is populated by a broad network of universities, service delivery agencies, think tanks and other charities whose most recent success is the emergence of child care as a central issue in the 2015 federal election campaign.

8) The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement. While our governments at all levels are the central institutions of public governance, decisions made in the public interest don’t necessarily require government involvement. The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement emerged from a long negotiation between the 19 member companies of the Forestry Products Association of Canada and seven leading Canadian environmental non-government organizations.  It aims to ensure sustainable forestry practice in more than 73 million hectares of public forests.

9) The measures that eliminated acid rain. The Canadian Coalition on Acid Rain was formed as a charity in 1981 by 12 member groups. By 1990, when the coalition achieved success with the passage of amendments to the US Clean Air Act, there were 58 member groups, all of whom had contributed to the research, advocacy and education that contributed to ultimate success.

10) The emergent green economy. Dozens of charities in Canada are contributing research, convening, organizing and education elements to a broad-based movement that aims to shift our economy to a more sustainable footing. With any luck, we’ll be able to look back in ten years time and easily identify some big wins.

The list could go on and on, and it’s as varied as the concerns Canadians have for their society, and the hopes they have for its future.

While the list of successes is long and should be celebrated, there is an even longer list of false starts, blind alleys and clear failures in the space between policy decision makers in government and policy advocates in the charitable sector.

No policy advocate can expect success all the time, but as a sector, and as a society, we can do better. And given the complexity of many of the challenges before us — both at home and in our relations with the globalized world — there is good reason to try.

Three Reasons Canadian Charities Are Vital to Creating Public Policy

There are at least three arguments in favour of Canadian charities engaging with governments in the public policy process.

The first invokes deeply held Canadian democratic values. The quality of a democracy depends on considerably more than citizens turning out to vote in elections. The extent to which elections are informed and motivated by citizens engaging with each other on issues they care about is an indicator of the overall health of our political system.

Many Canadian charities are elemental expressions of citizen aspirations to participate in caring for each other and governing ourselves. As such, these groups are an important platform for engagement between citizens and the elected officials and public servants who act on their behalf.

The second argument is that charities often have good policy advice to give. It is expressed very well in Canada Revenue Agency’s Policy Statement on Political Activities (CPS-022):

Through their dedicated delivery of essential programs, many charities have acquired a wealth of knowledge about how government policies affect people's lives. Charities are well placed to study, assess, and comment on those government policies. Canadians benefit from the efforts of charities and the practical, innovative ways they use to resolve complex issues related to delivering social services. Beyond service delivery, their expertise is also a vital source of information for governments to help guide policy decisions. It is therefore essential that charities continue to offer their direct knowledge of social issues to public policy debates.

The third argument is that governments need good advice. Much has been written about the diminishing capacity of governments in Canada, whether municipal, provincial or federal, to do the kind of policy development necessary to respond to the challenges they face.

At the same time as their resources are shrinking, governments are facing heightened scrutiny and expectations from an electorate that is increasingly diverse. Canadian charities can help in a range of ways, including bringing front line knowledge to bear, convening stakeholders, facilitating and informing dialogue, delivering and assessing demonstrations and pilots, and providing neutral spaces for engagement.

But most of all, charities serve a vital purpose in bringing the public interest to the forefront of public conversations. Without years of lobbying by Canadian charities, we may well lack many societal features Canadians now cherish.

While charities’ work can have enormous payoffs in the public policy sphere, it’s seldom an easy path, and an arcane regulatory environment leaves many would-be advocates unclear how aggressively charities can lobby for policy change.

This article originally appeared in The Philanthropist.

Image Credit: David Precious via Flickr

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