Fickling and Schott's book delves into climate change policies within each NAFTA country, with a special focus on carbon related greenhouse gases (GHG). The authors structure their analysis by first offering a comparative analysis of national and subnational policies in separate chapters for each country. The final chapter offers recommendations for truly trinational effort on climate change in North America. The authors ultimately suggest three challenges for climate policy: (1) address regional impacts; (2) address competitiveness concerns over production, employment, trade, and investment; (3) address energy and transportation infrastructure to be more energy efficient and reduce emissions.
The chapter on the United States asserts that the US has the leading role in any possible climate change policy because size matters both in terms of past, present, and future emissions relative to the other two North American countries. However, the national policy is in disarray and a prisoner's dilemma at the state level prevents any from committing without any assurance of larger action. They describe state initiatives and regional differences in energy generation amidst ever-growing GHG emissions from an economy still based on fossil fuels.
For Canada, the independence of provinces and diversity in economic activity geographically has resulted in growth of GHG emissions. The authors emphasize the attitude of Canada to wait for the US to act rather than act by itself. At the subnational level, however, British Columbia is one region in North America to have a comprehensive carbon tax. Furthermore, the various provinces are at different stages of planning cap and trade programs. The renewable portfolio standard has taken the form of a commitment to end coal fired generation by 2014 in Ontario and with some variation in other provinces. Ontario is also helping promote renewable energy sources through a feed in tariff for kilowatt hours (kwh) generated through various renewable energy sources.
The authors describe three possible scenarios: (1) US acts alone, (2) Canada acts alone, and (3) US and Canada act together. The third scenario could take the form of a cross border allowance trading system that would help Canada reduce GHG emissions at a feasible cost. Without such a system, Canada would pay more to reduce the same amount of GHG as the United States. The fact that Canada is the major exporter of oil to the US and that GHG are increasing with Canada's oil sands mining indicates a true binational need to coordinate climate change effort.
With 92% of the Mexican economy's energy deriving from heavily subsidized fossil fuels, a major effort is required to modify business as usual. Examples of recent initiatives include Mexico's 2009 Special Climate Change Program that focuses on management of landfill gas, forest management, and renewable energy. Furthermore, the 2011 amendment to the General Law of Ecological Balance and Environmental Protection suggests funding for renewable energy to meet a goal of deriving a quarter of energy from renewable sources. However, despite World Bank, Inter American Development Bank, and Global Environment Facility (GEF) financing, Mexico's goals for climate change would need significantly more funding to achieve significant improvements by 2030. The effort to increase transmission and electricity grid systems across the Mexico − US border would be a concrete step towards linking energy goals through efforts such as the Bilateral Framework on Clean Energy and Climate Change.
In a strong final chapter, the authors build on their country-specific analysis to advance goals to remedy what is missing − a truly trinational effort on climate change. Lamenting that any climate change abatement efforts on the global scale will continue to be slow, the authors emphasize that a North America effort is vital and recommend more involvement by NAFTA institutions. They place considerable emphasis on renewable energy and technology to reduce carbon and fossil fuels.
One strength of this book is that it can appeal to a diverse audience, ranging from those who are already aware of NAFTA's basic components to those without expertise in climate change issues. It is written in a straightforward and easy to read manner. Furthermore, the analysis underscores the need to recognize the importance of more concerted action at a trilateral scale and more systematic consideration of the consequences of more disaggregated actions on the growth of GHG emissions. It also provides welcome support for more aggressive use of renewable energy. Additional strengths include the emphasis on difficulty and costs for each country attempting policy change and the variety of subnational level actions that policymakers have attempted. The book further draws attention to the need for balancing local, national and trinational goals and enhancing cooperative decision-making.
The authors emphasize three critical themes: managing the regional variation in each country, maintaining competitiveness, and aligning energy and transport infrastructure to improve energy efficiency. The expansion of opportunities for renewable energy and low carbon fuels requires significant investment in time, resources, and commitment across different levels of government. The authors spend the necessary effort to suggest the competitiveness issue does matter for avoiding trade barriers in any efforts to address climate change by any and all NAFTA countries. Discussion of subsidized ethanol production in Canada and the US is helpful to illustrate the competitiveness point. Furthermore, recommending another role for the Commission for Environmental Cooperation to be a data clearinghouse makes sense. The NAFTA trilateral organization has years of experience and can definitely serve this role to help in climate change data organization.
On the other hand, while the authors demonstrate their knowledge of a wide range of carbon related issues in the three NAFTA countries, their focus on carbon detracts from the trinational actions on other GHG from sources such as diesel emissions in transportation. With the emphasis on carbon emissions, the authors leave an impression that these are the only GHG that matter for NAFTA countries to address climate change. This tends to obscure an awkward but important part of the climate change debate by deemphasizing other emissions in which significant benefits from reductions of those other emissions can and have been made in NAFTA countries. For example, changes to diesel emissions have significantly reduced amounts of atmospheric carbon (Shah, Reference Shah, Cocker, Miller and Norbeck2004). There is clear evidence that changes to other policies have led to lower nitrous oxides emissions, another component of greenhouse gases (Fernandez, Reference Fernandez2010; Fernandez and Das, Reference Fernandez and Das2011). These policies include technology standards for diesel engines in 2004 and 2007, diesel fuel standards, and the trinational Free and Secure Trade (FAST) policy. NAFTA trade is transported in truck fleets such as those in the US and Canada that have implemented the diesel engine and fuel standards. And, the FAST policy that applies at border crossings between all three NAFTA countries is another concrete way in which the transportation emissions reductions have happened in a NAFTA context.
As for remaining policy challenges, the trilateral and bilateral institutions set up under NAFTA are clearly indispensable for such investment. It is important both to track what they have done already, in addition to identifying what they can feasibly accomplish. The authors recognize the latter rather than the former, even though the institutional track record can serve as a vital guide. The final chapter emphasizes the North American energy dialogue that has been underway for a decade without acknowledging the NAFTA institutions' policies and actions that have already begun on this front. For example, six renewable energy projects (wind, solar, biofuel) have been underway due to Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC) and North American Development Bank (NADBank) efforts. Again, the fact that carbon might not appear in the name of the policies or actions may be at the root of this omission. One trilateral institution, the Commission on Environmental Cooperation, has sponsored trinational energy and carbon trading conferences. The authors do highlight where transboundary connections across energy and transportation are relevant for the discussion and the solutions.
Notwithstanding the book's consensus on the imperative to address climate change and carbon emissions in NAFTA countries, there still remains much discussion surrounding actions. As such, the book can serve as a useful input in the ongoing policy debate. One key take-away is simply to standardize the definition of renewable energy. Throughout the book, there were shifts in descriptions of which energy sources qualify as renewable in or between all the countries. Any forward movement on climate change policy must clearly begin with a standard definition throughout North America.
