On Wednesday, the US Securities and Exchange Commission proposed a regulation to establish standardized requirements for funds marketed as featuring environmental, social, and governance (ESG) characteristics.

In the ruling, which determined the law to be unconstitutional, the Alberta Court of Appeal acknowledged the seriousness of climate change - as well as its evident concern about the law’s potential negative impact on Western Canada’s oil industry.

With the writ dropped for Ontario’s 2022 election on June 2, voters must decide what the next four years of provincial environmental policy will look like. To assist, we’ve outlined some of the key features and differences between the four major parties’ climate and environment plans, and provided a short analysis to illustrate what’s good, what’s bad, and what’s missing in each party’s proposal.

The new plan is to “coast”, in the words of Greenpeace Canada, largely on initiatives either begun by the previous provincial Liberal government (i.e., coal-fired power generation phase-out) or mandated by the current federal Liberal government (i.e., carbon pricing).

The recent 271 page report describes, sector by sector, how Canada’s emissions are being generated, and what policies the federal government - budgeting $9.1 billion in new climate-related spending - is planning or implementing to decarbonize Canada’s economy, with a near term goal of 40-45% emissions reduction (as compared to 2005 levels) by 2030.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a landmark climate-related disclosure rule on Monday that would require publicly-traded companies to detail climate-related risks to their operations and provide standardized emission metrics.

On Tuesday, the Council of the European Union supported a “general approach” to advance a proposed EU carbon border adjustment mechanism to a vote in the European Parliament. The Council’s vote backs the proposed regulation’s framework, but leaves some details to further deliberation.

Representatives from 175 UN member states, gathered in Nairobi for an Environmental Assembly meeting last week, voted unanimously in favour of creating a legally binding global treaty to reduce plastic waste.

The Output-Based Pricing System Proceeds Fund will support clean energy and industrial decarbonization projects in provinces where revenues were generated.

Although Ontario’s grid is exceedingly clean by North American standards, deriving 94% of its electricity from non-emitting sources like wind, hydro, and nuclear, a clean energy credit registry could help businesses meet quantifiable emission reduction goals and boost ESG credentials by allowing certified clean energy purchases from the grid.