Analyzing Canadian Climate Policy for Indigenous Climate Justice
Date
2025-04-16
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Abstract
The 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) is Canada’s most recent climate policy
framework, presenting itself as an effective strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,
protect the environment, and address social inequities. However, Canadian climate
policies have historically fallen short in incorporating Indigenous climate justice. Though
the ERP claims to align with reconciliation goals, it has not been comprehensively
evaluated for Indigenous climate justice to date. This thesis addresses this gap by
assessing whether the ERP improves over previous climate policies and how future
policies can further improve. Using a comprehensive policy analysis framework, this
study evaluates the ERP alongside earlier with respect to Indigenous climate justice. The
analysis reveals that while the ERP demonstrates substantial improvement over the
previous policies, significant shortcomings remain. Based on these findings, it is
recommended that future climate policies provide greater opportunity for Indigenous
input, express Indigenous climate justice more thoroughly, and properly incorporate
principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
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Keywords
Climate Justice, Climate Policy, Indigenous Climate Justice, Policy Analysis