Climate Policy partnership will create comprehensive database

In an effort to combat climate change, Canada has pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. However, there is no one stop shop with complete, standardized, and up-to-date data and information on Canadian climate policies. This can hamper effective public policy analysis.

A Canadian project is looking to fill this gap with the Canadian Climate Policy Partnership and its Carbon Reduction Policy Tracker, a long-term partnered research initiative to measure policy stringency, coverage, and interactions in Canada. This research partnership is led by Dr. Jennifer Winter, PhD, from the University of Calgary, along with a network of 20 climate policy scholars and seven partners.

Government of Canada funding

On Aug. 29, 2023, the Government of Canada announced investment in a number of researchers across the country.  Among the funding, two UCalgary projects have received a Partnership Development Grant (PDG) — a grant that promotes projects focused on designing and testing new partnership strategies to develop best practices or models.

Winter's project and a project submitted by Dr. Michael Hart, PhD, which aims to establish an Elder-led framework of information governance, are the two innovative projects acknowledged and funded through the PDG. The focus of PDG grants is on collaborative partnerships.

UCalgary also received 19 Insight Grants in the faculties of Arts, Law, Nursing, Social Work, and the Haskayne School of Business, valued at over $2 million. This program builds knowledge and understanding about people, societies, and the world. See a full list of Insight grants at the bottom of this article.

“Our researchers are addressing complex societal issues, and starting something profoundly influential that extends beyond our university to the larger community,” says Dr. William Ghali, vice-president (research). “These SSHRC grants support our scholars in two key components of research — advancing and creating new knowledge, and building collaborative partnerships to mobilize our knowledge.

“These projects demonstrate the crucial role of academic institutions in tackling real-world problems.”

Climate change, like other public policy areas, is intricate and multi-faceted. Therefore, projects like the Canadian Climate Policy Partnership, which provide comprehensive data, are of high importance.

“Better public understanding translates into improved policy development,” says Winter, an associate professor in the Department of Economics and the School of Public Policy.

“Furthermore, policy-makers, researchers, and businesses often duplicate efforts in locating this information. Our project aims to simplify this process by offering comprehensive, understandable, and publicly available data, information, and analysis on Canada’s climate policies.”

Winter says the Canadian Climate Policy Partnership will provide publicly accessible and collated information on Canadian national and subnational climate policies and detailed analysis of the types, stringency, and design elements of climate policy implemented across jurisdictions in Canada.

Ultimately this partnered research project will improve policy transparency for businesses and households; catalyze new research on Canadian climate policy and emissions-reduction efforts; and build Canada’s research expertise.

UCalgary’s SSHRC Partnership Development Grant recipients

• Michael Hart, Office of Indigenous Engagement: “Elders' Declaration of Information Governance Project”
• Jennifer Winter, Faculty of Arts and School of Public Policy: “Canadian Climate Policy Partnership”

UCalgary’s SSHRC Insight grant recipients

• Dr. Gwendolyn Blue, PhD, Faculty of Arts: Responsible Governance of Gene Editing of Animals: Situating and Expanding Debates in a Canadian Context
• Dr. Joshua Bourdage, PhD, Faculty of Arts: Impression Management in the Workplace: A Dynamic Investigation Across Contexts
• Dr. Brandy Callahan, PhD, Faculty of Arts: Distracted, Hyperactive, and Thriving: Factors Supporting Cognitive and Affective Functioning in Adults with ADHD
• Dr. Linda Duffett-Leger, PhD, Faculty of Nursing: Development and Validation of Enabling Quality Interactions with Parents (EQUIP): An Automated Software that Codes Parent-Child Interaction Quality
• Dr. Rob Huebert,PhD, Faculty of Arts: The New Arctic Security Threat Environment (NASTE): Understanding Arctic Security in the Return of Great Power Politics
• Dr. Aamir Jamal, PhD, Faculty of Social Work: Transforming Masculinities: A Global Study on Muslim Men Participating in Gender Justice and Violence Against Women (VAW) Prevention
• Dr. Mohammad Keyhani, PhD, Haskayne School of Business: A Theory of Digital Portfolio Micropreneurship
• Dr. Aravind Magesan, PhD, Faculty of Arts: Economic Dynamics of Non-State Armed Groups
• Dr. Graham McCaffrey, PhD, Faculty of Nursing: Nursing and Humanities: An Evolving Relationship
• Dr. Lucija Muehlenbachs, PhD, Faculty of Arts: Inequities in Oil Production
• Dr. Elizabeth Paris, PhD, Faculty of Arts: Economic Surveillance and Artisanal Production at the Ancient Maya City of Tenam Puente, Mexico
• Dr. David Sigler, PhD, Faculty of Arts: The Erotics of Rule-Following in British Romanticism
• Dr. Timothy Stapleton, PhD, Faculty of Arts: Ways of War in Conquest Era Nigeria (c.1860-1930)
• Dr. Stephan Staubli Muehlenbachs, PhD, Faculty of Arts: The Value of Disability Insurance
• Dr. Piers Steel, PhD, Haskayne School of Business: The Effect of Rewards on Motivation, Effort and Performance
• Dr. Trevor Tombe, PhD, Faculty of Arts: Economic Volatility and Regional Integration in Canada
• Dr. Alexander Whalley, PhD, Faculty of Arts: Scientific Labour Markets and Innovation
• Dr. Harvey Amani Whitfield, PhD, Faculty of Arts: Biographies of Enslaved Black People in Colonial Canada
• David Wright, LLM, Faculty of Law: Building a Janus Perspective of Cost-Benefit Analysis in Impact Assessment