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A Landmark Decision in Canadian Charter-based Climate Litigation: Mathur v Ontario, 2024 ONCA 762

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On October 31, 2024

In Climate Change, Constitutional

By: Martin Olszynski, Jennifer Koshan, Nigel Bankes, and Jonnette Watson Hamilton

Case commented on: Mathur v Ontario, 2024 ONCA 762 (CanLII)

PDF Version: A Landmark Decision in Canadian Charter-based Climate Litigation: Mathur v Ontario, 2024 ONCA 762

The Ontario Court of Appeal recently released its decision in Mathur v Ontario, 2024 ONCA 762 (CanLII). ABlawg readers will know that this is one of three Charter-based climate lawsuits currently making their way through Canadian courts. The other two are La Rose v Canada, 2023 FCA 241 (CanLII), which involves a challenge to the federal government’s climate policies, and Dykstra et al v Saskatchewan Power Corporation, which involves a challenge to the Saskatchewan government’s and SaskPower’s decisions to expand gas-fired electricity generation (see our previous post on La Rose here). In this post, we contrast the trial and appellate reasons in Mathur (and where relevant, in La Rose FCA) and offer our commentary on several key issues in this litigation.

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Preliminary Reflections on COP26 and the Glasgow Climate Pact, Part 2

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On November 17, 2021

In Climate Change, Environmental

By: David V. Wright

PDF Version: Preliminary Reflections on COP26 and the Glasgow Climate Pact, Part 2

Matter Commented On: COP26 (Twenty-sixth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) and the Glasgow Climate Pact (Decision -/CMA.3)

Developments in UNFCCC & Paris Agreement Implementation

This post is Part 2 of two posts presenting preliminary reflections soon after the conclusion of COP26 in Glasgow. In this part, I present and briefly discuss notable developments (or lack of) within the formal negotiations process with respect to the implementation of the Paris Agreement and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC).

A key objective for this particular conference was to finalize the rulebook for implementation of the Paris Agreement (see this helpful background document on the Paris Agreement and rulebook). This did indeed happen, and most would agree that this constitutes a success even if there is discontent with some of the final features. It is a particularly significant step forward as there was a risk that Parties would not reach an agreement on the rulebook entirely, resulting in further delay in implementation (on top of losing a year due to a pandemic-induced postponement last year) and loss of confidence in the basic structure and approach of the Paris Agreement. The following discusses several of the notable developments on the rulebook front, as well as several other (but not all) matters.

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Preliminary Reflections on COP26 and the Glasgow Climate Pact, Part 1

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On November 16, 2021

In Climate Change, Energy, Environmental

By: David V. Wright

PDF Version: Preliminary Reflections on COP26 and the Glasgow Climate Pact, Part 1

Matter Commented On: COP26 (Twenty-sixth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) and the Glasgow Climate Pact (Decision -/CMA.3)

This is the first of two posts that discuss several notable developments from COP26, some of which took place within the formal negotiations process (e.g. market mechanism rules, financial assistance), and some of which took place in parallel (e.g. Global Methane Pledge, US-China bilateral announcement). This post is focused on the latter parallel developments, which primarily emerged in the first week of the conference. My next post will focus on the former, which largely materialized in the second week.

Overall, the stakes were particularly high at this COP because the parties needed to reach an agreement on final elements of the rulebook containing details of how the Paris Agreement would be implemented, many parts of which will be the most important and consequential as implementation unfolds in years to come. Additionally, a number of long-standing issues remain unresolved, including with respect to long-term financial assistance for the most vulnerable countries to reduce emissions and respond to the impacts of climate change. Overall, COP26 was a key juncture for ensuring that party commitments would add up to keeping within reach the overarching goal of keeping global mean temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees. It was these high stakes that led some to characterize this COP as “now or never” and a “last-chance saloon” scenario.

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Alberta’s Plan for Climate Resilience is Government Propaganda

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On September 8, 2021

In Climate Change, Energy

By: Drew Yewchuk

PDF Version: Alberta’s Plan for Climate Resilience is Government Propaganda

Matter Commented On: The Canadian Energy Centre’s Request for Proposal for a Creative and Production Agency

After the 2019 Alberta election, the new government replaced the previous Carbon Competitiveness Incentive Regulation, Alta Reg 255/2017 with the new Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction Regulation, Alta Reg 133/2019 (TIER).  Both were regulations under the Emissions Management and Climate Resilience Act, SA 2003, c E-7.8. For the story of the development of TIER, refer to this post from Nigel Bankes.

TIER changed the name of the Climate Change and Emissions Management Fund to the Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction Fund (TIER Fund). The fund accumulates money from emitters who fail to meet their emission targets. The fund can only be used for the purposes in section 10 (3)-(4.2) of the Act:

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Supreme Court of Canada Re-writes the National Concern Test and Upholds Federal Greenhouse Gas Legislation: Part III (Commentary)

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On April 30, 2021

In Climate Change, Environmental, Supreme Court of Canada

By: Nigel Bankes, Andrew Leach & Martin Olszynski

PDF Version: Supreme Court of Canada Re-writes the National Concern Test and Upholds Federal Greenhouse Gas Legislation: Part III (Commentary)

Case Commented On: References re Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, 2021 SCC 11 (CanLII)

This is the third in a series of posts regarding the Supreme Court of Canada’s much-anticipated reference opinion regarding the constitutionality of the federal government’s greenhouse gas (GHG) pricing regime: Reference re Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, 2021 SCC 11 (CanLII) (GGPPA Reference) (Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, SC 2018, c 12, s 186 (GGPPA)). The first post summarized the legislation and the majority opinion written by Chief Justice Richard Wagner. The second post summarized the dissenting opinions of Justices Suzanne Côté, Russell Brown and Malcolm Rowe. In this post, we provide commentary on four aspects of the Reference: the breadth of the matter and the characterization of the GGPPA, the constitutional implications of minimum national standards as defined in this case, the role of provincial inability and extraprovincial effects, and finally the role of domestic courts in adjudicating a global problem like climate change

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