Recovery
Project: National and international legal and regulatory framework for carbon management
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The Idea
Canada is a major carbon trading nation and the country’s economic prosperity depends, in the short term, on carbon producers being able to access international markets. The introduction of innovative carbon management approaches is an essential part of this strategy.
Investors in carbon management technologies need a clear rule book to manage some of the risks associated with long term investment decisions. Canada’s carbon industry needs to have a clear understanding of the trade risks should the industry fail to adjust to a carbon constrained world. And exporters of carbon efficient technologies will need to understand the carbon credits that might be associated with the introduction of those technologies in other countries under the various Kyoto flexibility mechanisms and their successors.
Applications
This research will add an important Canadian component to a study of different property, regulatory and liability issues, cover the accommodation and treatment of other carbon management measures and emphasize the international environment of the legal and regulatory framework within the UNFCCCKyoto and the investment and trade context, as well as linkages between national and regional frameworks.
Identifying domestic and international legal instruments and institutions that best incentivize carbon management technologies will be important for creating a favourable economic environment for the development of carbon capture and other low-carbon technologies.
In addition to favourable economic conditions, developing expensive carbon capture technologies requires minimizing legal uncertainty. This project will define the legal environment for carbon pricing and carbon capture technologies and extend to international law and institutions that affect the terms of trade of carbon-intensive products.
Research Grant
$360,000/3 years; Awarded in 2010
National/global benefits
Canada is a major carbon trading nation and the country’s economic prosperity depends, in the short term, on carbon producers being able to access international markets. The introduction of innovative carbon management approaches is an essential part of this strategy.
Investors in carbon management technologies need a clear rule book to manage some of the risks associated with long term investment decisions. Canada’s carbon industry needs to have a clear understanding of the trade risks should the industry fail to adjust to a carbon constrained world. And exporters of carbon efficient technologies will need to understand the carbon credits that might be associated with the introduction of those technologies in other countries under the various Kyoto flexibility mechanisms and their successors.
This research will add an important Canadian component to a study of different property, regulatory and liability issues, cover the accommodation and treatment of other carbon management measures and emphasize the international environment of the legal and regulatory framework within the UNFCCCKyoto and the investment and trade context, as well as linkages between national and regional frameworks.
Lead Project Investigator
- Nigel Bankes, University of Calgary, Law
Project Investigators
- Meinhard Doelle, Dalhousie, Law
- Shi-Ling Hsu, Florida State University, College of Law
- Shaun Fluker, University of Calgary, Law
Graduate Students
- Pulton, University of Calgary
- Kalkbrenner, University of Calgary
- Radu, University of Calgary
- Ducharme, University of Calgary
- Janmohamed, University of Calgary
Goal
Industry requires a clear legal and regulatory framework before adopting carbon management technologies at a commercial scale. This project will contribute to the development of an international and domestic legal and regulatory framework that can accommodate the creation of new carbon-efficient recovery and processing technologies.
Activities
The researchers will analyze relevant work, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Kyoto-related documents, provincial, federal and international legal instruments and the relevant legal instruments for other jurisdictions, including the European Union, Australia and the US.
Through interviews at key international meetings and two international workshops, the researchers will contextualize the Kyoto and post-Kyoto rule system. The first international workshop focused on investment and trade related issues; a second will focus on experiences in western Canada with the implementation of carbon management policies and regulation. Both include other researchers, industry, government and non-governmental organizations.
The researchers will:
- Examine at the national level the property, regulatory and liability issues associated with new carbon efficient technologies and management measures.
- Examine how new technologies and carbon management measures can be integrated with, and credited within, cap and trade and offset regimes at both the national and international levels.
- Examine the relationship between carbon management measures and international trade and investment law.
Milestones
The research has resulted in the publication of numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters. These cover a variety of topics including an examination of measures in Alberta, the regulatory framework for in situ gasification, the treatment of carbon efficient technologies within project-based Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM) or Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA):
Nigel Bankes, “Alberta’s new Carbon Capture and Storage Legislation” (2011) 1(2) Greenhouse Gases: Science and Technology 134.
Nigel Bankes, “The legal and regulatory issues associated with carbon capture and storage in Arctic states” (2012) 6 Climate Change Law Review 21 – 32.
Meinhard Doelle and Emily Lukaweski, “Carbon Capture and Storage in the CDM: Finding its place among climate mitigation options?” (2012) 3 Climate Law 49.
Meinhard Doelle, “Compliance and Enforcement in the Climate Change Regime” in Climate Change and the Law, Erkki Hollo, Kati Kulovesi and Michael Mehling (eds.) (Berlin: Springer, 2012).
Meinhard Doelle (co-editor), Promoting Compliance in an Evolving Climate Change Regime, (Cambridge University Press, 2012), (co-author of the introduction and the concluding chapter).
Meinhard Doelle, “Experience with the Kyoto Compliance System” in Brunnee, Doelle & Rajamani, Promoting Compliance in an Evolving Climate Change Regime, (Cambridge University Press, 2012).
Workshop 1: A workshop on trade and investment law issues associated with carbon management policies was convened at the Faculty of Law, University of British Columbia, in July 2012. The principal outcome of the discussions was the publication:
Nigel Bankes, Anatole Boute, Steve Charnovitz, Shi-Ling Hsu, Sarah McCalla, Nicholas Rivers and Elizabeth Whitsitt, “International Trade and Investment Law and Carbon Management Technologies” (2013), 53 Natural Resources Journal 285 – 324.
Workshop 2: A second workshop of industry, government,and academic researchers will be convened to examine experiences with carbon management regulation in western Canada.
For additional information
Nigel Bankes
University of Calgary, Law
Calgary, AB, Canada
E: ndbankes@ucalgary.ca
T: 403 220-7252