Canada’s National Climate Plan
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Canada’s National Climate Plan
Introduction
The changes in the climate and climatic conditions have been progressive in the world’s history, with their impacts increasingly becoming severe. According to Gauthier (2014), climate change involves the differences in the distribution of weather patterns over a given period of time. Also, it refers to changes in average weather conditions and variations over an extended period (Gauthier et al, 2014). Climate change has been therefore a subject of great concern since it has now affected the lives of people in the world. These climatic changes are caused by harmful activities carried out by people thus bringing environmental degradation (Lindquist & Eichbaum 2016). Because of the adverse effects that climate change has brought, there is a great need for the nations to take into considerations how these effects can be controlled so that we can maintain an environment that can support life. It is for this reason that the Canadian government could not allow the issues of climate change continue since the cost was too high. To curb this condition, the Liberal government of Canada under Justin Trudeau came up with a national climatic plan (Beck et al 2015). This regular program will ensure that Canada has economic activities for their environment and create clean jobs for tomorrow. Therefore, this paper discusses Canada’s national climate plan and its components towards the mitigation of climate change in Canada, and by extension globally.
The Canada’s national climate change plan is aimed to undo that which had been done in the past under bad leadership so that the country will have a better environment for its citizen. An environment that is beautiful, prosperous and sustainable than the way it is now (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014). The liberal government, therefore, believed that real change would come if clean jobs will be created, to grow the economy and protecting the environment.

Carbon Taxing
Climate change is a real issue now all over the world and even in Canada, and the effects of global warming are being felt all over the country. In seeking to address this issue, global emissions to the air need to reduce drastically, and everything possible should be done to bring this reduction to reality. Therefore addressing climate change is one of the key legislative and economic problems that the government of Canada is now facing with the concern to preserve the environment for the future generations (Gauthier et al, 2014). The best and most efficient solution to the current high greenhouse gas emission is putting the price on carbon. Pricing the carbon is a very useful method for the reduction of this gas emission into the atmosphere, and it is much favorable economically (Lindquist & Eichbaum 2016). A carbon tax gives an optimal approach to carbon pricing, and it’s the best approach to address the climate change.
In opting to practice carbon pricing, the Canadian government has benefited greatly since they have been able to look at the experience of the neighboring nations and even internationally. Carbon taxing has a big capacity in ensuring that there is a significant reduction in the greenhouse gasses that are emitted to the air (O’Riordan, 2014). For the Canadian government, it is much easier to implement a carbon tax and thus giving the government an easy way to handle the effects of climate change. The tax should be applied to all sectors of an economy, and through this method, the products, services, and activities will start reflecting on the environment, whether directly or indirectly (Beck et al 2015). The taxing is much better because in a way the society has paid for the effects of this emission dearly through climate change which has caused a lot of sicknesses and severe health conditions among the citizens.
A tax on carbon across the nation is an assurance that all sectors in Canada will respond to price signal accordingly and thus no single individual will be advantaged over the other. A direct positive effect of the carbon tax is that certain products that are intensive in greenhouse gasses emission will immediately become less competitive because of its high prices (Rivers, 2014). The companies will then opt for other alternatives which are less harmful in relation to carbon emission. The products with less carbon will gain market share and will create business and employment opportunities as well. In Canada, all the emission of greenhouse gasses resulting from combustion of fossil fuels that are either bought or sold and landfill is always subjected to the carbon tax (Rivers, 2014). Therefore the most efficient and environment-friendly way of reducing emissions is through carbon taxing.
The Government of Canada, therefore, has a responsibility to establish national carbon tax which will be responsible for pricing carbon. Nationwide carbon tax represents the interactive and simple way of reducing emissions and ensures that there is no conflict with the neighboring nations on the issues of gas discharge to the air (Beck et al 2015). Once this carbon tax has been implemented, the government will realize an increase in revenue which is much substantial in the country’s economy. If this income is utilized well, the country will improve economically. The government will have another option of channeling this revenue to many areas. One of this areas is to use this money to boost and overcome weak policy response in the line of gas emission. Also, it can be used to overcome weak pricing signal since the government is making revenues which have not been budgeted for (Lindquist & Eichbaum 2016). Therefore for the nation to reduce gas emission faster, they can allocate this income to major projects that can significantly contribute to reducing the emissions for example on the renewable energy sources.
It is, therefore, evident that carbon taxing is of much importance to any nation that is serious in ensuring that they maintain a clean and healthy environment (Beck et al 2015). Due to high revenue realized by the government, is had greatly aided Canada in investing much in renewable energy and the energy efficiency. Policies and regulations are much relevant and required for the success of ensuring that all the people adhere to the laid down rules. By making sure that everyone is aware of the effects of this emissions, it will help people to be stewards of the environment at all times. When all this is implemented, the country will manage to control diseases that are caused by an unhealthy environment (Lindquist & Eichbaum 2016). The nation will have productive citizens.
Proposed climatic change framework aims at guiding the federal and provincial efforts to meeting ambitious plans from the Paris conference is discussed below.

Creating Clean Jobs
There’s need for countries to invest on clean technology and ensure that all companies with the support of government also invest on clean technology. The two entities aims at finding solution-based actions to the environmental issues by incorporating creation of job and economic development with environmental performance. Despite the growth of the global market in embracing new technology, Canada had a drop in the share of this technology jobs during the time of Stephen Harper (O’Neill et al 2015). Mr. Harper failed to realize that the creation and use of this new technologies would result in real class jobs, improve health, and promote reduction of pollution and green-house gases emitants. Canada, therefore, has come up with many companies with the new technology so that they can overcome the environmental challenges (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014). The firms established are leading in innovation and productivity. The federal government in Canada under Justin Trudeau thus is having a significant role in ensuring that there is reduction in greenhouse gas emission, support research-plans, science and creating the healthy environment for new clean-technology to grow, working inclusively with all stakeholders and supporting all the initiatives that will help the country reach this goal.

Taking Decisive Action on Climatic Changes
The Premier, Justin Trudeau attended United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in the year 2015 with his premiers. This was a meeting aimed at working on the framework of how to curb climate change. His main target was creation of national emissions reduction with help from the economic and science-based analyses (O’Neill et al 2015). For this to be achieved, he had to recognize the economic cost, the terrible impact that an increase in global temperature would cause and the necessity for Canada to actively do its part in preventing the global warming from occurring. There was a need, therefore, to ensure that there are adequate necessary tools to design new policies in the various Provinces and territories in Canada which include carbon pricing (Crossman et al. 2013). The government played a prominent role in ensuring they provide federal funding to help in achieving this goal.
Since there are diverse economies in each territory, it would require that each jurisdiction will have actions that are appropriate for their regions. The government phased out the subsidies for the fossil-fuel industries was one step on the reduction of gas emission into the atmosphere (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014). Another step taken was to give permission the use of the Canada’s Exploration Expenses and tax deductions only in cases of failed explorations and the savings directed to investing in better technologies. Also, Canada can work with the large energy producer companies like the United States so as to have policies that will help ensure that there is reduction in the emission as well. The government as well incorporated climatic resilience as the key pillar in federal-government infrastructure program and analysis of climatic impact. It will allow preparation of comprehensively perfect action-plan that allow Canada to predict, set preparations for and respond to emergencies related to weather in a better way (Wang et al 2015). The government also ensured there was proper training and the required resource to establishing the Armed-Forces in Canada as leaders to responding to weather-related emergencies.

Investment in Clean Technology
The primary objective for investing in clean technologies is to ensure that Canada will have energy security, energy conservation and coming up with new clean, renewable energy. The government is working with the provinces and territories that are already developing Canadian energy strategy. The government decided to invest $200 million yearly so as to create specific strategies that, will support innovativeness and clean technologies in sectors such as fisheries, mining, forestry, energy and agriculture (Wang et al 2015). This plan is developed in conjunction with private sector and organizations dealing with research with the objective of having innovative plans that can be used in the areas of natural resources, commercialization and export.
The prime minister as well ensured that other clean technology producers will be supported. $100 million was set apart yearly for organizations that embraced the new technology and have been of great help since they are successful in developing clean technology in Canada. The government also ensured that venture capital for new and clean technology will be provided (Altizer et al 2013). The country will also work with provincial territories and institutions of higher learning to put in place support for the new emerging clean technologies. It includes supporting research and training so that Canadians will have proper skills for the industry so that it will accelerate the innovation and entrepreneurship in Canada (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014). Stronger air quality standards is another line where the government has tried to invest by giving incentive to promote investments that lead to clean air, healthy societies and high quality life for all citizens.

Creating Decent Jobs and Investment
Under the prime minister, Canada has been aiming to be the best worldwide competitive tax jurisdiction mostly for investing in research and development, manufacturing new and clean technology. To create clean technology, there is a necessity for enhancing scientific research and experiment tax-credit together with measures on tax (Wang et al 2015). The first step towards this is to add electricity storage technology and electrical-powered car charging power stations to the plan of investment that requires accelerated capital-cost allowances to be funded by the government. Due to this, Canada has been able to achieve quite a lot by investing in electricity and transforming transportation sector by power as the source of energy.
Canada Green Investment Bond was established by the government under Justin Trudeau so as to supporting large communities’ scales renewable energy initiatives in the country (Altizer et al 2013). Bond will improve the ability of the government to provide more affordable loan guarantees for the investor to invest in clean energy projects and this has provided Canada with an excellent opportunity to invest in clean technologies (Wang et al 2015). Many investors have a conducive environment for them to invest in this areas because the government has given a lot of subsidies and bonds. The focus of this investments is to reduce the cost of commercially viable projects and ensure fuel consumption as a source of energy is reduced.
Arguably, the government in Canada forms the largest single employer and consumer of goods and services. Increase in usage of clean technology energies will help greatly in creating domestic demands for clean technology organizations and support the entrepreneurs in Canada (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014). It will as well ensure that there is an improvement in energy efficiencies standards of consumers and commercialized products and that they are up-to-date (Wang et al 2015). Also in providing more support for clean technology, companies are in a position to export products successfully through training trade agents and championing trade missions focused on the new and clean technology. The system also allow the companies to access useful trainings, data availability and technical help on the foreign market opportunities in a coordinated manner.

Protecting the Environment While Growing the Economy
Canada for many years have been enjoying the most beautiful environment from water sources which are fresh, to mountains and oceans. The favorable environment gave economic benefits from the abundance of resources together with a real ecosystem that aided in purifying the air and absorbing flood waters (Altizer et al 2013). And because of the nature’s beauty and economic benefits, the country must be very careful in protecting what is available now in Canada. It is a big responsibility for this current generation to leave a cleaner and healthier environment for the generations to come. Everyone ought to be a good steward of the environment so that the ecosystem will remain richer and productive (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014). The reason why the government takes keen interests in the conservation of the environment is that it is a chief contributor to the economy in Canada. Through the national parks in Canada, the country earns $5 billion yearly, and people close 65000 have been employed through it.
However amidst this great privileges that the country enjoyed in the time past, the environment at some point had been exposed to a lot of danger by the previous government. It has only managed to conserve 1.4% of the marine and coastal lands despite having a target of 10 percent (Wang et al 2015). Also, the freshwater lake is facing a high risk since the conservatives who were responsible did cut their funding. There has been no focus on the ecological integrity rather the government has been in the interest of intensified development. As a plan under the federal government of Justin Trudeau, ecological integrity has been a priority so that the resources can continue still benefiting the nation (O’Neill et al 2015). The government has thus made renewed commitments by ensuring that the national parks are accessed by all the classes of people including the low-income earners and providing better and more appropriate visitor’s services.
Restoration of Credible Environmental Assessments
Canadian’s environment assessment process is being substantially paralyzed because of the increase in lack of trust from the public. This tells that the government had failed in putting good measures in protecting the environment and also in getting their resources to the market (Altizer et al 2013). There is thus need for a transparent and efficient process which has reasonable regulations, organized beginning, end points and reliable decisions by the responsible stakeholders. The government did launch a public review of the country’s environmental assessment process and came up with new ways of how to improve the evaluation so as to change the general picture of how these estimates are credible (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014). The methods include;
• The robust oversight was restored through the environmental assessments since it had been gutted by the conservative government so as to curb the problem of process duplication.
• Ensured that the decisions at all points based on scientific facts, and evidences that serves the interest of the public.
• creating ways the citizens in Canada can air out their views and experts participation in meaningfully in the process of assessment.
• Developing project propositions to enable selection of the best technology available to reduce the impacts on the environments.
Therefore, the Canadian government modernized the rebuilding trust in the national energy bodies which comprised of experts in the field of environment sciences, society developments and traditional knowledge (Wang et al 2015). The board selected worked well together towards having a system where federal environmental assessment which will perform the analyzation of effects and green-house emissions resulting from projects under study. The analysis done gave the government alternative solutions and enabling them to protect the endangered species that are still found in Canada. Through this, the credibility of environmental assessment has been restored.

Preserving and Promoting National Parks
The Canadian government sort in protecting and promoting the national parks within the country, the first step they took is suspension of admission fees for national parks. The suspension of admission fees gave a chance to everyone to make a visit to the national park and therefore promoting the use of this resource well (Wang et al 2015). They also expanded all learns to camp programs. There has been a rapid development of roadmap in ensuring that Canada meets the global commitments to protect 17% of the land in inland-waters. The government thus set aside $50 million yearly to invest in development of the country’s park system, management and also expansion of national wildlife geography (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014). Also, open source commitment by the government was to ensure federal government avails environmental research freely to its people. One way also that they took to ensure parks are protected was to restrict development inside the parks. It came up also with gateway commitment outside parks to make sure that eco-tourism industries grows and thus creating job opportunities.

Protecting Freshwaters and Oceans
The government is committed in ensuring that there is an increase in the country’s marine protected from the previous percentage of 1.3% to 5% in the year 2017 to 10 percent by the year 2020. The government is committed to smarter co-management of oceans through collaboration with federal government and territories that are ready to partner and other stakeholders in this field (O’Neill et al 2015). Other plans include making use of marine resources and also involving communities in the coastal regions to have a say in the management of the resources around them. Protection of water bodies is a key factor in ensuring that there is enough water within country which will prevent many diseases among people. The Canadian government is also working with other neighboring government in protecting the freshwater through education and investing in infrastructure in the best way so as to achieve the best results. It will as well boost the sanitation in the country which will ensure a country has healthy people.

Conclusion
The environment is a vital factor for the wellbeing for any living creatures. It is this very reason that there is a need to ensure that we are staying in an environment that is clean and conducive to support life (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2014). Many people now are sick to death due to diseases that has been gotten simply because of neglecting the environment which are results of climatic changes thus making the environment wild for survival. The government of Canada realized this, and they acted so that they can control the rate at which the climate was changing. The best thing they decided to do so as to control the emission of greenhouse gasses was carbon taxing. The reason for choosing carbon taxing is because of its simplicity to implement, effectiveness and transparency (O’Neill et al 2015). The government can raise extra revenue through carbon taxing. The revenue raised is then used to invest in alternatives that help in reducing greenhouse gas emission, therefore, boosting in restoring the environment condition. To implement well the government came up with a national carbon tax which ensured that everybody paid taxes for the emissions into the air.
Also under the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came up with the plan so as to curb the climatic changes (Altizer et al 2013). The method includes creating clean jobs which are also divided into three areas; first, is taking action on climate change which focuses on what has been changing comparing the previous situation and the current situation which shows that the conditions are becoming worse daily. Secondly, is investing in clean technologies which give the best alternative for the use of carbon. Thirdly, is to create decent jobs and investment so that people will embrace technology which is environment-friendly (Crossman et al. 2013).
Also, this research focuses on the way Canada planned to protect its environment while growing the economy. Under this sphere, the government worked so hard to restore the credibility to the environmental assessment which the public had lost sight of due to poor governance (O’Neill et al 2015). Also, prime minister worked to preserve and promote the national parks that are in his country. Finally, it gives how Mr. Justine laid down the plan on how to protect freshwater sources and oceans in his county (Altizer et al 2013). Therefore the liberal government under Justin Trudeau has done a lot and much more to be achieved. With proper plan, objectives will be attained well. It is a great responsibility of everyone to protect and keep the environment around them. Finally, by using what is available well and creating new technologies, lives will be enriched, and the economy will grow significantly, and there will be no adverse climatic changes happening. The country will have much to gain nothing to lose.

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