ABSTRACT
For two decades, Canadian governments have set ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, only little progress in terms of emission reduction – even against the “business as usual” scenario – has been made. The main reason for this is the lack of effective policy measures that would contribute to GHG emission mitigation (Jaccard et al. 2008). Against this background, the Harper government proposed an emissions trading scheme (ETS) for GHGs in April 2007 and published an updated proposal in March 2008. Therefore, it is perceivable that – sooner or later – an ETS covering Canadian GHG emissions will be in place. History has shown that it is much easier to install an ETS in comparison to a carbon tax – the development of European climate policy is a good example here. Moreover, with the existing European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS), a blueprint for a Canadian ETS is available, and in the framework of a global approach towards climate policy, a Canadian scheme could link up to the European system, leading to economic efficiency gains (Alexeeva-Talebi and Anger 2007; Anger 2008). As such, Canada could try to learn from the establishment of the European scheme in order to avoid the mistakes that have been made in the EU ETS' early stages.
