REGIONAL EFFORTS: STATE, PROVINCE, AND REGIONAL APPROACHES TO CLIMATE CHANGE.

• Position: Proceedings of the 43rd Canada-United States Law Institute Annual Conference: Can the United States and Canada Cooperate on Climate Change? - Discussion

Moderator: Mark Fisher

Speaker: Terrance J. Fitzpatrick

Speaker: Associate Professor Chi Charmody

Speaker: Marc DeBlois

MR. PETRAS: If you would take your seats, please. All right. It is now time to start our final panel of the afternoon. This panel is going to look at regional efforts on climate change. We are going to take it from the federal to the state to business now down to the provincial and state level. We have an outstanding panel, and our moderator today is Mark Fisher. Mark is the Chief Executive Officer and Council of the Great Lakes Region.

Mark became that in 2014, the year that that institution was formed. And by the way, the Canada-United States Law Institute was a founding member of the Council of the Great Lakes Region. So it is doubly nice to have Mark here.

The other thing that you should also note is that Council of the Great Lakes Region is going to have its Great Lakes Economic Forum here in Cleveland May 6th through 8th. So make sure you put that on your calendar, the Great Lakes Economic Forum.

It starts with a reception at the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame on May 6th and goes through until May 8th. Mark is a well-recognized and seasoned strategist, policy analyst, and adviser.

He has advised the prime minister of Canada, provincial premiers and ministers and parliamentarians and the executives of major profit and nonprofit corporations.

Mark is leading the charge of the Great Lakes Council because he has a particular interest in developing economically the Great Lakes. So without further ado, Mark?

MR. FISHER: That's great. Thanks for the introduction, but what he forgot to mention is that Stephen is the new chair of our board, and we are very excited to have him as our chair. And I also reinforce our long standing relationship with the Canada-United States Law Institute.

You know, back in 2013, we had the founding conference for the Council of the Great Lakes Region, which many of you probably participated in, and you know out of that, we are also happy to have you know very, very long standing and strong partnerships with Governor Blanchard, who is an honorary patron, but also Jim Peterson who is an honorary patron, so very, very strong ties to CUSLI and very much appreciative of that. You know, as Stephen has mentioned, this panel is going to focus on regional efforts, so the states, provinces and regional approaches to climate change. I think we can probably put cities into the mix, and I think from a Great Lakes standpoint, just to give you a bit of context and my interest in this area, I don't think there has been a more important time to be having this discussion.

I think when we look at the Great Lakes eight U.S. states, New York, Minnesota and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, you know, if you put that jurisdiction together as one, it represents roughly a $6 trillion-dollar economy. You know, in country terms that would equate to the third largest economy in the world if it was a country behind United States and China only. You know, it is a region that has roughly 107 million people. Again, if you were to put that in country terms, you would represent the 12th largest country in the world by population.

So it is a significant region in both Canada and the United States. It is by far at the center of the North American economy in many different ways.

And for us as an organization, we are trying to bring all levels of government together with industry, academia, and the nonprofit sector to really think more strategically about that regional economy but also having together to protect the Great Lakes for future generations. You know we are here on World Water Day. Great Lakes represents 20 percent of the world's surface fresh water resources but we also forget often that only one percent of the Great Lakes are renewed on an annual basis by precipitation, runoff or groundwater.

So we have a lot of water in the Great Lakes, but it is also a finite and precious resource for us thinking of the intersection between the economy and the environment and thinking of climate change, it is just--it is so very critical for us.

So also on this panel, we have--I think we are going to cover a lot of different perspectives in terms of the regional approaches. You know, we have Terry Fitzpatrick who is President and CEO of the Energy Association of Pennsylvania.

We have Chi Carmody, who is associated with the University of Western Ontario Faculty of Law and CUSLI as well and Marc DeBlois, who is a Senior adviser with the Ministry of Environment and the fight against climate change, which is really interesting.

And I think when we look at the regional approaches, you know, we all know we have heard over the course of the day that the U.S. and Canadian economy is facing significant risks with regard to climate change and particularly rising temperatures.

Today and well into the future these risks as well as their associated impacts will certainly vary by country as well as by region, but there are a broad range of calming concerns, sea level rise and surges, heavy rain and floods, the rain impact on communities and infrastructure, extreme heat and the impact on human health, labor productivity, water availability and farming, public health, increased power generation and sharing needs for cooling and heating.

I think as the global and national debates regarding climate change evolve, states and provinces and particularly cities are moving forward on their own as we have heard today. I think the best examples of collaboration are the New England Governors and Eastern Premiers, the Western Climate Initiative, which was touched on earlier today, and the U.S. climate alliance and also C 40.

The Great Lakes Region surprisingly has a long, long history of environmental and economic collaboration, but the focus on climate change, as a policy issue, are certainly lacking. And I think the persons on this panel is to delve into the roles of the states, the provinces and cities in tackling this issue. So I think, first up, I want to stark with Marc and the New England Governors and Eastern Premiers and their climate change action plan, particularly, you know, what was the main driver for them to work together, what have they done, what's next?

It is by far probably the most mature example of cross border collaboration on climate change. So I would like to explore that first. So Marc, over to you for your presentation.

MR. DeBLOIS: Thank you. Before I start, English is my second language, so I may not have the pronunciation right all the time, and I remember Mr. Godfrey mentioned Sesame Street. So if you hear a specific language or pronunciation, it comes with less fault.

(Laughter.)

MR. DeBLOIS: So the title of the conference is: Can the United States and Canada cooperate on climate change, and should they and why? Well, from my experience at the ministry of the environment in the fight against climate change and as co-chair of the climate change steering committee of the coalition of the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers, I would be tempted to change the title almost to the case of cooperation on climate change between states and provinces. Why did they do it? How did it work? And what are the results?

The conference of the New England Governors and Eastern Premiers was created in 1973. And it is a cooperation forum. The premiers and governors meet each year to discuss issues of common interest and adopt resolution by consensus to guide the regional actions. So the basis really of the plan was resolution 259, which in 2000 stated "recognizing harmful consequences of global warming is a joint concern for which regional strategic action is required."

So the Premiers and the Governers, I think the fight was a strategy point to tackle climate change. To work on that, the committee of the environment headed by commissioners and the deputy ministers and the climate change steering committee was asked to deliver the report to the region, and soon after the 2000 conference, the negotiations started, and the plan was fairly quickly accepted at the 2001 annual conference.

The findings of the regional plan, well, were similar to some of the issues I think by the Great Lakes Commission, and I am sorry if the Council of the Great Lakes is not in there.

There are so many players I missed. Some.

MR. FISHER: Too many.

MR. DeBLOIS: Too many, but the findings can be similar or are similar to what the Commission, Great Lakes Commission and the conference of Great Lakes and Centralized governors and premiers are identified later on. I will come to that in a few minutes.

The NAGCP action plan was quick and had mission strength, but the negotiation and the discussion on climate and environmental issues between the governors and premiers were not a new subject because they had cycled acid rain as early as 1988 and mercury in 1990. So that's one of the big main reasons why we were or the governors and premiers were able to move ahead and have an action plan in 2001.

So the targets, because there are targets, they are regional, but the targets identified in 2001 included short term in which is past now, but 2010 midterm target, 2020 and long-term targets 2050. This was the first time that the governments from two countries decided to tackle climate change, and it was also the first time that the long view was adopted by the governors and premiers.

That leadership was recognized by the climate group in the UK organization in 2005 and again in 2013 with awards that were presented to the governors and premiers. So they were happy about it.

A 2030 marker or target was added by the governors and premiers in the 2015 annual conference to provide further guidance to the governments between 2020 and 2050. The reason for adopting these targets--and this is my view--but again, many of the colleagues, which I work in a limited area had this point of view, is that the governors and premiers...