Evaluating Canadian climate policy

Successful and significant reductions of GHG emissions is contingent on having effective, ambitious, and comprehensive climate policies. Policy evaluation is a crucial step in the policy cycle, providing feedback on climate policies and allowing opportunity for improvements. This paper describes a new methodology for evaluating climate policy and applies it to Canadian climate policy. The evaluation framework was developed based on international best practices in climate policy and climate policy evaluation. It assesses Canada's climate leadership performance across 20 climate policy criteria and indicators (16 general and four sector-specific). The case study application shows that the proposed evaluation methodology is feasible to apply and effective in identifying the strengths and weaknesses in climate policy. Canada was rated overall at 65.2% green (strong climate leadership), 30.4% yellow (some climate leadership), and 4.3% red (no climate leadership). Highlights of Canada's climate leadership included decreasing emissions trends and an application of a suite of recent climate policies that largely meet best practices criteria. The evaluation identified Canada's priorities for action to address gaps in its climate policy including implementing policies in development and planning to meet net-zero emissions in 2050.