What will President Biden’s bold climate goals mean for climate action in Canada?

Hours after he was sworn into office, U.S. President Joe Biden settled into his desk at the Oval Office with a pile of executive orders waiting for his signature. 

Within that pile was the cancellation of a U.S. government permit to build the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have run crude oil from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin in Alberta to Steele City, Nebraska. Indigenous activists and environmentalists on both sides of the border have called for its cancellation for years, pointing to not only the massive ecological impact of the fuel it carries, but also the potential destruction of local biodiversity, and the high sexual assault rates experienced by Indigenous women and girls who live near pipeline construction sites. 

Without a doubt, Biden’s climate policy is one of the most ambitious environmental proposals of any U.S. president. His promise to invest trillions of dollars into a green economic initiative that also steeply curtails emissions, addresses global warming, and creates green jobs for millions of American workers is akin in scope — if not language — to a Green New Deal. For many climate NGOs, corporate social responsibility teams, non-profits, activists, and carbon market experts north of the border, Biden’s administration offers an example to Canada of a government that is willing to pursue bold climate action. 

What exactly is President Biden’s plan?

When former president Donald Trump first came to power, he quickly made it clear that the U.S. government shouldn’t take the threat of climate change seriously. His administration wiped references to climate change from government websites, rolled back nearly 100 separate environmental regulations, and appointed a former coal lobbyist to run the Environmental Protection Agency. “Let’s be clear — the Trump administration couldn’t have been less interested in the environment or climate change,” says Alan Andrews, national climate director for Ecojustice. 

Within hours of taking the oath of office, Biden was already signing a stack of executive orders at the White House to undo that legacy. One of his first was to formally rejoin the Paris Agreement (and cancel the Keystone XL pipeline’s building permit). But the rest of his environmental platform is a massive, though bold, undertaking. He promises to invest trillions of dollars over the next decade as part of what his plan calls a clean energy revolution. Biden hopes to convince Congress to pass targets for emissions reductions due at the end of his first term in office, along with historic investments in climate research and quick deployment of clean energy technology across the country, “especially in communities most impacted by climate change.” 

Too often, the effects of climate change and pollution are disproportionately borne by the lowest-income communities: from brackish drinking water to toxic soil.

Biden’s plan also addresses the matter of environmental justice. Too often, the effects of climate change and pollution are disproportionately borne by the lowest-income communities: from brackish drinking water to toxic soil. “The Biden plan will ensure that communities across the country from Flint, Michigan to Harlan, Kentucky to the New Hampshire Seacoast have access to clean, safe drinking water,” reads part of Biden’s platform. “And he’ll make sure the development of solutions is an inclusive, community-driven process.” 

Why does this matter to Canada? 

The Keystone XL decision is fairly obvious — while the pipeline itself was supposed to run through the U.S. states of Nebraska, South Dakota, and Montana, it is owned by TC Energy, a Calgary-based oil and gas company. Cancelling Keystone has a direct impact on Canada’s climate commitments. But Canada shares more than just a network of oil pipelines and trade agreements with the U.S. Both countries have the largest non-militarized border in the world, share one official language, and have a long history of social and political cooperation. If the U.S. changes its climate policy, sector experts say Canada will be forced to follow suit. 

Canada’s policies on auto emissions and methane pollution are supposed to be based on the strongest existing policies in the U.S., according to the terms of Canada’s Climate Emissions Fund. “When we have a strong U.S. ally on our side, it makes it much easier to advance harmonized policies and legislation that can really drive down emissions much faster,” says Teika Newton, the domestic policy manager at Climate Action Network Canada. 

Trump actively tried to prevent California, the state with the strongest emissions standards, from enacting them. With Biden in the White House, a sea change in climate policy could affect the sorts of regulations Canada’s government sets inside its own borders. “When you have one of the highest emitters in the world say that they want to take climate seriously, then that directly impacts how Canada will position itself,” says Eddy Perez, international policy manager at Climate Action Network Canada. “It would actually require Canada to revisit some of its assumptions on climate policy.” 

What are those assumptions?

Despite Trudeau’s rhetoric about how seriously Canada takes the threat of climate change, our country has a very close relationship with its fossil fuel sector. “Some people in this country have this notion of Canadian exceptionalism, where we are the more progressive country. We’re better on climate change,” says Farrah Khan, deputy director of Greenpeace Canada. All of the climate organizations Future of Good interviewed for this special report disagreed with that assertion. 

Perez pointed to the ongoing subsidies of Canada’s fossil fuel industry by the Canadian government, the fact nearly all of Canada’s major banks sponsor fossil fuel projects, and direct investment (both federally and from the government of Alberta) in pipelines. Last March, Alberta announced a $1.5 billion investment in Keystone XL, with billions more in loan guarantees for the project. 

Another assumption is that environmental racism is an American problem. Biden’s commitment to help Flint, Michigan establish a safe drinking water supply would offer an example to the Canadian government in dealing with dozens of boil water advisories in First Nations communities, many of which have lasted for years. There is also the ongoing carcinogenic legacy of ‘Chemical Valley’ in Sarnia, Ont., where local cancer rates are many times higher than they should be thanks to decades of industrial pollution. 

These issues are not new. However, a Biden administration that is able to tackle similar challenges south of the border might just push the Canadian government into acting faster if only to maintain the notion that our country takes climate and environmental justice seriously. 

Now that Trump is out, what sorts of projects are Canadian climate organizations working on?

Canadian climate NGOs are in constant communication with their counterparts in the U.S.. Joseph Pallant, director of climate innovation at Ecotrust Canada, says there’s more of a divide on the basis of bioregion than nationality. Plenty of Canadians in climate NGOs on the West Coast, where he is based, travelled to U.S. conferences to work with other organizations on everything from cap-and-trade programs to conservation projects. After all, air pollution doesn’t stop at the Canada-U.S. border. Nor do many pipelines. 

Indigenous Climate Action is pushing for both governments to go beyond Keystone XL and halt two more U.S. pipelines under construction — the Dakota Access Pipeline and Line 3 — which form part of an continental system carrying fossil fuels from Canada and the northern U.S. to Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast. “Now that the cancellation of KXL is imminent, the others must follow,” reads ICA’s statement. 

Ecotrust Canada also believes natural climate solutions are a way for Canadian and U.S. climate organizations to work together on projects. Natural solutions often include things like restoring wetland and replanting forests to act as giant carbon sinks that offset emissions. Pallant says a full third of all GHG emissions produced by humans from the Industrial Revolution to today are thanks to land degradation. Canada just announced a $4 billion investment into land management and reforestation that could include natural climate solutions. 

Pallant was on a call with the federal government about it just last week and says that Indigenous communities and the U.S. government could be well-suited to managing them. This kind of approach would allow Indigenous peoples the chance to practice the sustainability measures needed to keep their land safe and bring in a U.S. government that, for the last four years, has let climate fall by the wayside. “I know that people are really looking forward to the opportunity of connecting more closely,” he says. 

Is there still work to do?

For many Americans, the constant barrage of outrageous decisions by the Trump administration also made it difficult for climate organizations to maintain their momentum. Savannah Barratt, an organizer with Climate Justice Victoria, says that in the initial days of Trump’s presidency, climate justice organizations were able to channel the fear and anxiety about his administration in an initial burst. But it didn’t last. Exhaustion, grief, and fear took their toll. “With this new administration, I think we’re going to try and apply a new wave of energy and a new wave of hope — and have that bolster our efforts,” Barratt says. 

While the work of policy or legal-oriented NGOs like Environmental Defence or Ecojustice won’t change significantly with the new administration, climate justice organizing has taken a real shift thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Mass protests like the ones in Vancouver after Trudeau’s government approved the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion simply aren’t safe anymore. Instead, Barratt and her fellow organizers are doing more art-based protest, dropping banners from bridges, or bringing people together in brainstorming sessions to get a sense of what climate policy should look like. 

While the Biden administration and Trudeau’s government may have a lot of work to do, climate activists believe that taking action will require more than just voting out leaders who don’t propose ambitious policies. It also means fighting and organizing and protesting during the spaces in between elections. “It’s going out there and being engaged in their community,” Khan says. 

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