Climate Change Policy in Canada and Germany: A Comparative Analysis

Climate change is an important issue. This paper will look at the climate change policy of Canada and Germany. In particular borrowing from Hessing et al.'s analysis of resource and environment policy by way of looking at the dynamics of policy networks, I will compare the climate change policy of Canada and Germany. Policy network analysis looks at the intersections of state and societal actors, and helps us to understand why we might see significant policy change and progression on the one hand or no change and only incremental progress on the other. Canada has gained a reputation for being a laggard when it comes to its national climate policy, whereas Germany has been praised for its more progressive approach and ambitious commitments to climate change policy. Using a framework inspired by Dr. Mark Winfield, in combination with policy network analysis, this paper will analyze Canada and Germany’s climate policy through an analysis of their institutional frameworks, political economic context, societal forces, and the ideas and discourses around the matter. The aim of this paper is to provide an analysis of the key problem areas for Canada’s climate change policy, through a comparison of Germany’s more progressive action on climate policy. In chapter one I will introduce the importance of climate change policy. In chapter two I provide an explanation of the significance of climate change and the science behind it. In chapter three I look at climate policy in Canada through an intuitional, political economic, societal and ideational framework in the context of policy networks and argue that jurisdictional ambiguity and the strong relationships between the state and economic interests have placed a significant barrier on moving forward on climate change. In chapter four, I apply this same framework to the German context and argue that the close ties between non-economic actors such as environmental groups and state officials, along with the overall general agreement within the climate policy community that action on climate change is required, has helped to foster a progressive climate change policy in the country. In chapter five I tie my arguments for each country together to highlight the key differences in the interactions of institutions, economic interests, societal actors, and the general ideas about climate change