Anthony Cox, Acting Director, OECD Environment Directorate
A brighter future for climate? The sun rises over Toronto’s skyline. ©Mark Blinch/Reuters
“National governments must take the lead and do so with a recognition that they are part of a global effort.” Speaking last week at the Munk School of Global Affairs in Toronto, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría urged countries not to retreat behind their national borders in dealing with climate change. A purely inward-looking approach to climate change is clearly inadequate as we see signs that short-term national self-interest is increasingly seeping into the global debate on climate action. This is especially a risk as a number of countries continue to try and escape from low growth traps. Effective climate action needs ambition and action at both national and global levels.
We are now in the middle of the UN COP23 climate conference in Bonn which aims for “Further, Faster Ambition Together”. Two years after the historic Paris Climate Agreement at COP21, there are encouraging signs of progress, but there is a huge amount left to do. We have known for some time that the commitments to Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) beyond 2020 made under the Paris Agreement would be insufficient in limiting temperature increase to below 2 degrees Celsius, and that more ambition and action would be needed. The Paris Agreement gives us an international legal instrument that measures up to the scale and urgency of the climate challenge, with mechanisms that can increase the ambition of action over time. The negotiators in Bonn are looking to refine and clarify the “rulebook” on how to achieve this.
Each country must do its part by implementing their existing climate change plans using the range of policy levers available to address climate change. But the politics of activating them are daunting right now as they compete with the pull of some countries to retreat behind national borders. And yet, strong climate action should not be seen as a threat to growth. Rather it is the foundation for our future economic well-being and prosperity. This point is backed by a growing body of evidence, as the OECD’s 2017 report, Investing in Climate, Investing in Growth clearly shows. Thinking of climate policy as an integral part of the policy landscape, alongside fiscal policy and structural reforms, is the only way forward.
A number of countries are leading the way and showing it can be done. Take Canada as a prime example. It is a major OECD country with its fair share of challenges in overcoming carbon entanglement and remedying the problems of limited progress during the last decade of climate policy. But Prime Minister Trudeau’s election in October 2015 and his progressive climate agenda has led to a political sea-change that underpinned the success of COP21. In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Environment Minister Catherine McKenna demonstrated not only Canada’s strong commitment to tackling climate change, but also a keen awareness of the transitional challenges that Canada faces.
The OECD will be launching its Environmental Performance Review of Canada in a few weeks’ time. The Review highlights the progress that Canada has made on its climate agenda. At the top is the carbon pricing mechanisms that four provinces have already implemented, as well as the new Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change, which includes a proposal for country-wide carbon pricing by 2018.
There is no cause for complacency. Climate action needs to accelerate around the world. Without the vision, ambition and resolve demonstrated by countries such as Canada, more countries may pull up their national drawbridges, which would do nothing for climate change and, on the contrary, jeopardise human, fiscal, financial and environmental security. We have no choice but to work together towards the far more positive future of a sustainable, prosperous and inclusive world that still lies within our grasp.
References and links
To read the OECD Secretary-General’s lecture on Climate Action, see: http://www.oecd.org/environment/munk-school-climate-action-time-for-implementation-canada-2017.htm.
For more information on the report Investing in Climate, Investing in Growth, see: http://www.oecd.org/environment/cc/g20-climate.
For more information on OECD climate change work see: http://www.oecd.org/environment/action-on-climate-change.
