North American climate policy: Perspectives from the periphery

Join us for a conversation with two leading Canadian and Mexican scholars, Debora L. VanNijnatten and Marcela López-Vallejo, about the current dynamics of climate policy within Canada and Mexico as well as the most promising avenues for climate policy cooperation going forward, both bilaterally (with the United States) and continentally (Canada, the United States, and Mexico).

Introductory remarks will be delivered by Andrés Ávila, Executive Director of POLEA, a leading environmental advocacy organization in Mexico, who will discuss the current state of play in Mexico with regards to climate policy, and his organization's legislative strategy of pursuing policy action at the sub-national level.

From the speakers' bios

Debora L. VanNijnatten is Professor in the Department of Political Science and North American Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University. She is also on the faculty of the Balsillie School of International Affairs and a Research Fellow at the Laurier Center for the Study of Canada. Her research and publications have focused on transboundary environmental governance in North America, at the Canada-US, US-Mexico and continental scales. She has been an avid observer of Canadian and American climate policy, as well as Canada’s bilateral and international engagement on climate change mitigation. She is also studying shared surface and subsurface water management in the US-Mexico Rio Grande basin and the US-Canadian Great Lakes Basin. She is the co-author/editor of 5 books (including successive editions of Canadian Environmental Politics and Policy; Environmental Policy in North America: Approaches, Capacity and the Management of Transboundary Issues; and Climate Change Policy in North America: Designing Integration in a Regional System) and 50 articles and book chapters on various aspects of transboundary environmental cooperation.

Marcela López-Vallejo is a Full-Time Professor in the Center for North American Studies at Universidad de Guadalajara in Mexico. She has been an International Relations professor for twenty years teaching several courses in Mexican and foreign universities. She worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at the Ministry of Public Education in Mexico, as well as in the lobbying firm Burson-Marsteller. She belongs to the Mexican National Research System (Level 1) and is part of the Editorial Board of Latin American Policy. She has participated in fellowships at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies in the UK, the Université de Montréal, the Wilfried Laurier University, the Universidad del País Vasco in Spain, and at the Universidad de Buenos Aires in Argentina. She has several academic and policy-oriented publications on North American regionalism, transnational governance, environment, climate and energy policies, and sub-state diplomacy. Her two latest books on North American environmental politics address the role of sub-state actors in carbon markets and a general assessment of environmental policies in North America.

North American Colloquium

This event is part of the 2020-21 North American Colloquium (NAC), organized by the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy with generous support from the Meany Family Foundation, and co-sponsored by the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto and the Center for Research on North America at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. The objective of the NAC is to provide a forum that strengthens a wider North American conversation and more fruitful trilateral cooperation between Canada, Mexico and the U.S. Sign up for more information about this year's NAC here.

Faculty Expert

Barry Rabe

J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Professor of Public Policy

Rabe examines the political feasibility and durability of environmental and energy policy, with a particular emphasis on efforts to address climate change in the U.S. and other federal systems. His most recent books examine the politics of carbon pricing and the limitations of unilateral executive branch policy actions. Current research explores the politics of intensive but short-lived greenhouse gases, such as methane and HFCs. Recent policy engagement includes work with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Interior, the Department of Commerce, and the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.

• climate
• climate policy
• International Policy Center
• North American Colloquium Climate Series
• Debora L. VanNijnatten
• Marcela López-Vallejo
• energy and environment
• North American Colloquium