NDP Platform: Tackle climate change

4.1 Adopting the Climate Change Accountability Act

• We will re-introduce legislation to ensure that Canada meets the long-term target of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions to a level 80 per cent below that of 1990 by the year 2050, and will establish interim targets for the period 2015-2045;
• We will put a price on carbon through a cap-and-trade system, which will establish hard emissions limits for Canada’s biggest polluters to ensure companies pay their environmental bills and to create an incentive for emissions reductions;
• We will work closely with the Obama administration in Washington to ensure a coordinated response to climate change, and we will seek at every opportunity to advance an integrated continental cap-and-trade system that ensures a level economic playing field for North American businesses;
• We will establish effective programs to help Canadian communities deal with the unfolding impacts of a warming planet, as well as live up to our international obligations to assist developing countries in mitigating and adapting to climate change.

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4.2 Ensuring Canada Becomes a World Leader in Renewable Energy

• We will redirect revenues raised through the auctioning of emissions permits equitably across Canada into investments in green technologies, business and household energy conservation, public transit, support to renewable energy development, and transitioning workers to the green economy;
• We will meet Canada’s G-20 commitment to cut subsidies to non-renewable energy and end the federal bias towards non-renewable energy production;
• We will reallocate these subsidies to encourage cleaner energy production. Key priorities include:
  • Working with the provinces and territories, we will reinstate federal financial incentives for clean power, including solar, wind, water, tidal, biomass, and other renewable sources for electricity production and from industrial co-generation, with a focus on supporting community-owned renewable energy facilities;
  • Incentives to spur innovative “made in Canada” green technology solutions, including support for research, development and commercialization;
  • A revolving fund to provide ongoing federal support for home energy efficiency retrofits, to curb energy consumption, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create local jobs while providing Canadians with permanent savings on their home energy bills;
  • Managing transitional costs and re-engineering of energy-dependent industries to help them adapt to a low carbon world, including the development of a Green Jobs Fund to support workers though the transition to a clean energy economy;
  • Support for low-income and energy-dependent individuals to ensure that rising energy costs do not exacerbate growing inequality;
  • Training programs for green energy engineers, technicians, construction workers, and maintenance and audit professions.
• We will develop cumulative impact assessments and environmental regulations to protect fishery and trans-boundary waters, and science-based monitoring and enforcement for the oil sand sector;
• We will develop, in consultation and cooperation with provincial, territorial and Aboriginal governments, unions, energy providers, environmental organizations, and other stakeholders a comprehensive strategy for our country’s long-term energy security in a lower carbon future. Our energy policies will put Canadians first;
• Recognizing that oil and gas will continue to play a prominent role in our energy mix in the medium term, we will discourage bulk exports of our unprocessed resources and encourage value-added, responsible upgrading, refining and petrochemical manufacturing here in Canada to maximize the economic benefits and jobs for Canadians.

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4.3 Establishing Green Bonds to Fund Research and Development

• We will create a Green Bond Fund to allow Canadians to invest in a sustainable future by supporting solutions like green energy research and development and its commercialization and community-scale renewable projects.

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4.4 Strengthening Public Transit for Liveable Cities

• We will enact a National Public Transit Strategy in order to maintain and expand public transit across the country, with a clear mechanism for sustainable, predictable and long-term funding;
• We will immediately allocate another cent of the existing gas tax to public transit funding for municipalities;
• We will encourage transit use by providing a tax exemption for employee workplace-based transit passes.

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