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Canadian Political Science Association2025 Annual Conference Programme
The Politics of Belonging: Conflict,
Community, Curriculum
Hosted at George Brown College, Toronto, CANADA
June 3 to June 5, 20252025 Annual Conference Programme
The Politics of Belonging: Conflict,
Community, Curriculum
Hosted at George Brown College
June 3 to June 5, 2025
Political Economy
G05 - Roundtable: Is Growth an Obstacle to Canada’s Climate Mitigation Efforts?
Date: Jun 3 | Time: 03:30pm to 05:00pm | Location:
Chair/Président/Présidente : Sarah Martin (Memorial University)
Ryan Katz-Rosene (University of Ottawa)Anders Hayden (Dalhousie University)
Julie MacArthur (Royal Roads University)
Lina Brand Correa (York University)
Abstract: Each year when Canada releases its National GHG Inventory Report, one of the very first points emphasized in the Executive Summary is that national emissions intensity (i.e., the amount of GHGs emitted per dollar of GDP) has steadily declined since the mid-1990s. Canada’s climate policy is largely set up around the idea of pursuing clean growth (it is in the very name of the policy framework - the Pan Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change). It stands to reason that if the trend of declining emissions intensity continues, Canada will at some point completely decouple the relationship between economic growth and GHG emissions. Nevertheless, in recent years a rise in growth-critical scholarship internationally has called into question whether clean growth is even possible in practice. Critics have noted that the pace of decoupling is far too slow to support meaningful climate change mitigation, and moreover that the pursuit of economic growth is tied in with an unsustainable expansion of materials extraction and energy use across the economy. And yet, both growth-critics and green growth proponents alike suggest that - in political terms - the public and society at large is unlikely to give up on growth-oriented policy anytime soon. This Roundtable will explore the growth-environment debate with a particular focus on Canada’s climate change mitigation efforts. Panelists will provide expert analyses on the broader question of whether growth works as an obstacle to Canada’s climate mitigation efforts, and the relevant policy outcomes of this relationship.