In recent years, the provision of economic incentives through carbon financing and carbon offsetting has been central to efforts at forest carbon mitigation. However, notwithstanding their ...potentially important roles in climate policy, forest carbon offsets face numerous barriers which have limited widespread implementation worldwide. This paper uses the case study of the Canadian province of British Columbia to explore the barriers associated with achieving widespread implementation of forest carbon offsets in the next several decades. Drawing on interviews with experts from government, non-governmental organizations, the private sector and First Nations, six main barriers are identified and discussed: (1) deficiencies of carbon markets, (2) limited economic benefits, (3) uncertain climate effectiveness, (4) negative public opinion, (5) limited and uncertain property rights, and (6) governance issues. While respondents from different sectors agreed on various points, divergence was also observed, notably on the trade-off between generating environmentally sound offsets and promoting cost-effective ways to achieve mitigation. We discuss these differences in the context of the goals and objectives of different actors, and offer insights for understanding the uptake (or not) of carbon offset policies.
•This paper explores the barriers to the implementation of forest carbon offsets in British Columbia.•Barriers include markets, economics, governance, public opinion, efficacy and property rights.•There are differences in sectoral perceptions of, and goals for offsetting.•Insights for understanding the uptake (or not) of carbon offset policies are presented.
The role of forest management in mitigating climate change is a central concern for the Canadian province of British Columbia. The successful implementation of forest management activities to achieve ...climate change mitigation in British Columbia will be strongly influenced by public support or opposition. While we now have increasingly clear ideas of the management opportunities associated with forest mitigation and some insight into public support for climate change mitigation in the context of sustainable forest management, very little is known with respect to the levels and basis of public support for potential forest management strategies to mitigate climate change. This paper, by describing the results of a web-based survey, documents levels of public support for the implementation of eight forest carbon mitigation strategies in British Columbia's forest sector, and examines and quantifies the influence of the factors that shape this support. Overall, respondents ascribed a high level of importance to forest carbon mitigation and supported all of the eight proposed strategies, indicating that the British Columbia public is inclined to consider alternative practices in managing forests and wood products to mitigate climate change. That said, we found differences in levels of support for the mitigation strategies. In general, we found greater levels of support for a rehabilitation strategy (e.g. reforestation of unproductive forest land), and to a lesser extent for conservation strategies (e.g. old growth conservation, reduced harvest) over enhanced forest management strategies (e.g. improved harvesting and silvicultural techniques). We also highlighted multiple variables within the British Columbia population that appear to play a role in predicting levels of support for conservation and/or enhanced forest management strategies, including environmental values, risk perception, trust in groups of actors, prioritized objectives of forest management and socio-demographic factors.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
How organized resistance to new fossil fuel infrastructure became a political force and how this might affect the transition to renewable energy. Organized resistance to new fossil fuel ...infrastructure, particularly conflicts over pipelines, has become a formidable political force in North America. In this book, George Hoberg examines whether such place-based environmental movements are effective ways of promoting climate action, if they might inadvertently feed resistance to the development of renewable energy infrastructure, and what other, more innovative processes of decision-making would encourage the acceptance of clean energy systems. Focusing on a series of conflicts over new oil sands pipelines, Hoberg investigates activists' strategy of blocking fossil fuel infrastructure, often in alliance with Indigenous groups, and examines the political and environmental outcomes of these actions. After discussing the oil sands policy regime and the relevant political institutions in Canada and the United States, Hoberg analyzes in detail four anti-pipeline campaigns, examining the controversies over the Keystone XL, the most well-known of these movements and the first one to use infrastructure resistance as a core strategy; the Northern Gateway pipeline; the Trans Mountain pipeline; and the Energy East pipeline. He then considers the “resistance dilemma”: the potential of place-based activism to threaten the much-needed transition to renewable energy. He examines several episodes of resistance to clean energy infrastructure in eastern Canada and the United States. Finally, Hoberg describes some innovative processes of energy decision-making, including strategic environment assessment, and cumulative impact assessment, looking at cases in British Columbia and Lower Alberta.
Land-based emissions are an important contributor to global climate change. Various jurisdictions worldwide have implemented forest carbon mitigation strategies and policies to reduce their GHG ...emissions or increase carbon sequestration. Yet the policy literature on forest carbon mitigation is limited, and no attempt has been made so far to systematically document a jurisdiction's existing forest carbon mitigation policies and policy gaps. This paper applies policy gap analysis to policies for GHG and forest management in the province of British Columbia (BC), Canada, as a case study focusing on the challenges posed by existing policies and the opportunities for policy innovation to more effectively promote forest carbon mitigation. This policy gap analysis shows that while BC has an ambitious climate action regime for fossil fuel-based emissions, it has few policies explicitly targeting forests or the use of harvested wood products for carbon mitigation. As a result, forest carbon mitigation is an under-exploited opportunity for the province. Throughout history, forest management policies have evolved in response to changing social values, such as protection of fresh water, fish and wildlife, and biodiversity. As this case study of BC illustrates, it is time for jurisdictions to renew their forest policies to more effectively incorporate opportunities for carbon mitigation.
•Climate change poses adaptation challenges and mitigation opportunities for forests.•British Columbia has ambitious climate policies but few relate to forest management.•A policy gap analysis reveals a number of opportunities to use forest policy to sequester carbon or reduce greenhouse gases emissions.•Jurisdictions should renew their forest policies to more effectively incorporate opportunities for carbon mitigation.
La possibilité d'accroître, sur les marchés, l'offre de pétrole canadien provenant de sables bitumineux est de plus en plus contestée, les projets de nouveaux pipelines suscitant beaucoup de ...controverse. Dans cet article, je conçois un cadre d'analyse du risque politique dans ce domaine, et je l'applique à cinq projets de pipelines. Le risque politique lié aux projets d'infrastructures majeures est ainsi fonction : du nombre de droits de veto des institutions; du fait que les groupes d'opposition ont ou non un droit de veto; du fait qu'un projet peut ou non être réalisé grâce à l'utilisation d'infrastructures existantes; de l'importance des risques environnementaux; et de la répartition des risques et des avantages entre différents gouvernements. Mes résultats montrent qu'un risque politique considérable est lié à chacun des cinq projets étudiés, mais que le type et l'ampleur de ce risque varient selon les projets. Market access for Canada's oil sands has been increasingly contested as proposals for new pipelines have become so controversial. This article develops a framework for political risk analysis and applies it to five pipeline proposals. The political risk to major infrastructure projects is a function of the number of institutional veto points; whether opposition groups have access to veto points; whether the project can take advantage of existing infrastructure; the salience of concentrated environmental risks; and the jurisdictional separation of risks and benefits. Each of the projects faces formidable political risks, but the risks vary in type and magnitude by project.
The need to involve the public and stakeholders in decision-making around issues of technological complexity and conflicting values and knowledge systems is widely accepted in the field of natural ...resources management. Addressing both analysis and deliberation, analytic-deliberative processes are increasingly used for complex decision contexts. Yet, there remain significant disagreements about best practices for what constitutes a successful engagement process, be it analytic-deliberative, or otherwise. In response, theoretical frameworks and guidelines have been proposed to inform the design and evaluation of participatory engagement processes broadly. A common critique, however, is that the complexity and inflexibility of existing frameworks can make them inaccessible or impractical for natural resources managers and practitioners to use. Here, we propose a simple yet comprehensive framework for the design and evaluation of analytic-deliberative processes. We trial this framework in the context of an engagement process involving stakeholders and Indigenous peoples across the Canadian province of British Columbia on topics relating to forest carbon mitigation. Our recommendations highlight the importance of involving multiple actors, views and worldviews. We also emphasize the importance of inclusive deliberation that is based on the best available science, but also on other forms of expertise, including lay and traditional knowledge. Perhaps most importantly, our recommendations are consistent with others who call for opening-up analysis, deliberation and appraisal in participatory engagement. This means acknowledging that a one-size-fits-all solution does not always exist, but rather that plural and conditional policy options are often more advised in the context of complex environmental issues.
To be successful, actions for mitigating climate change in the forest and forest sector will not only need to be informed by the best available science, but will also require strong public and/or ...political acceptability. This paper presents the results of a novel analytical-deliberative engagement process that brings together stakeholders and Indigenous Peoples in participatory workshops in the interior and coastal regions of British Columbia (BC) to evaluate a set of potential forest carbon mitigation alternatives. In particular, this study examines what objectives are prioritized by stakeholders and Indigenous Peoples when discussing forest carbon mitigation in BC’s forests, as well as the perceived effectiveness of, and levels of support for, six forest-based carbon mitigation strategies. We start by describing the methodological framework involving two series of workshops. We then describe the results from the first round of workshops where participants identified 11 objectives that can be classified into four categories: biophysical, economic, social, and procedural. Afterwards, we discuss the second series of workshops, which allowed participants to evaluate six climate change mitigation strategies against the objectives previously identified, and highlight geographical differences, if any, between BC’s coastal and interior regions. Our results effectively illustrate the potential and efficacy of our novel methodology in informing a variety of stakeholders in different regions, and generating consistent results with a surprising degree of consensus on both key objectives and preference for mitigation alternatives. We conclude with policy recommendations on how to consider various management objectives during the design and implementation of forest carbon mitigation strategies.
L'objectif de ce livre est d'examiner les répercussions de l'intégration nord-américaine sur la vie culturelle, intellectuelle, politique, sociale et économique des Canadiens. Les résultats de cette ...analyse sont étonnants. On y apprend que l'exode des cerveaux ne correspond pas vraiment à ce que les médias en ont dit; que les industries culturelles sont une des premières sources de revenus de nos voisins du sud; que les échanges interprovinciaux, malgré un déclin incontestable (spécialement au Québec), l'emportent très nettement sur le commerce avec les États-Unis; que les négociations de l'ALENA ont été menées sans consultations du milieu syndical et en parfaite harmonie avec le milieu des affaires; que le fédéralisme canadien piloté par Ottawa tend à étouffer l'autonomie provinciale et ainsi à s'autodétruire; que les préoccupations écologiques du Canada sont assez timides par rapport à celles des États-Unis. Dans cette perspective, il faut, selon les auteurs, défendre l'autonomie de l'État canadien dans ses alliances commerciales, sociales et culturelles et faire preuve d'un respect plus prononcé pour les prérogatives provinciales. Faute de quoi, l'avenir s'annonce très difficile.
What are the features of a good regulatory review process? In this paper we identify criteria for ‘good process’ drawn from a combined reading of the environmental justice and process literature. We ...then apply these criteria to a case study, assessing four versions of Canadian regulatory review: CEAA 1992, CEAA 2012, the 2017 Expert Panel report, and IAA 2019. We aim to make two contributions. First, we propose a set of ‘good process’ criteria that we hope can be widely applied, reflecting on complementarities and tensions that arise from combining two bodies of scholarship. Second, we identify areas where Canadian review processes have improved over time and those where significant work remains to be done. This work seeks to make a constructive intervention at a time when energy and industrial projects around the world face strong challenges in the legal, political and public domains.
•‘Good process’ criteria are drawn from process and environmental justice literature.•Four versions of Canadian impact assessment are assessed against the criteria.•Canada's 2019 Impact Assessment Act improves on CEAA 1992 and 2012.•Deliberation was an area of weakness across all four versions.
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