The Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change (the Framework, released in December 2016) recognizes that while governments are directly responsible for a relatively small share of Canada’s emissions (about 0.6%), there is an opportunity for them to lead by example. A number of provinces are already demonstrating leadership, including through carbon neutral policies. For example, British Columbia’s (BC) public sector has successfully achieved carbon neutrality each year since 2010. Over the past 6 years, schools, post-secondary institutions, government offices, Crown corporations, and hospitals have reduced a total of 4.3 million tonnes of emissions through improvements to their operations and investments of $51.4 million in offset projects. BC was the first, and continues to be the only, carbon neutral jurisdiction in North America. Municipalities are also recognized as essential partners in emission reduction efforts – how cities develop and operate have an important impact on energy use, and therefore GHG emissions.
The Framework sets out an approach to government leadership, which includes (1) setting ambitious targets; (2) cutting emissions from government buildings and fleets; and (3) scaling up clean procurement.
To play its part, the federal government has announced that it will reduce its own greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 40% by 2030. In support of this goal, the Honourable Scott Brison, President of the Treasury Board, announced the creation of the Centre for Greening Government (the Centre) at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat in November 2016. The Centre will track the Government of Canada’s emissions centrally and coordinate efforts across government departments in order to ensure that the government’s objectives are met. Progress on emission reductions will be achieved by strategic investments in infrastructure and vehicle fleets, green procurement, and support for clean technology. Already, the federal government announced $2.1 billion in Budget 2016 towards repairs and retrofits to a wide range of government buildings, and to the greening of government operations.
The Centre’s work is rooted in the following Government of Canada commitments:
- December 2015 Paris COP 21 Conference
- Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change
- Federal Sustainable Development Strategy
The Centre engages in the following government-wide activities:
- analyzing and reporting;
- providing policy and operational support;
- setting requirements for federal organizations to deliver results and achieve performance goals; and
- establishing communities of practice to identify best practices and lessons learned in greening actions from federal partners and provincial, territorial and other jurisdictions.
The federal government has indicated that it will immediately begin by aligning the way it measures GHG emissions with international standards to provide an accurate picture to measure the government’s progress.
The Centre is also working in close partnership with Environment and Climate Change Canada to further to goals of the 2016-2019 Federal Sustainable Development Strategy (FSDS), which was tabled in Parliament in October 2016. The Centre is the lead for Goal 2 of the FSDS: Low-carbon government.