The Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has written to his deputy prime minister and environment and climate change minister, instructing them to move towards mandating climate reporting in line with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) framework.
The reporting regulations would apply to state and federal agencies, financial institutions and pension funds. Under the latest proposals from the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA), public companies would be required to make climate-related disclosures informed by the TCFD from 2024.
Canada, which is pledged to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, is to introduce tax credits for capital investments in carbon capture, utilization and storage and is committed to eliminating fossil fuel subsidies. It has set targets of a zero electricity system by 2035 for half of car and van sales to be zero emission vehicles by 2030. The country issued a record C$5bn in green bonds last year.
In his mandate letters of 16 December 2021, Trudeau said: "As minister, I expect you to seek opportunities within your portfolio to support our whole-of-government effort to reduce emissions, create clean jobs and address the climate-related challenges communities are already facing."
Last April, during a leaders’ summit held on Earth Day, US president Joe Biden introduced climate change-related considerations into the US’s banking and insurance industries and federal and state regulation and funding. In the same month, Biden and Trudeau released a roadmap for US-Canada partnership, pledging to work together to tackle climate change and promote environmental justice.
Both the UK and France claim to be the first G7 country to have made it mandatory for their largest businesses to adopt TCFD reporting; however, Japan has the largest group of TCFD supporting companies in the world. Mandatory TCFD reporting begins in the UK and Japan in April. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has said it will require mandatory climate risk reporting by companies by the end of this year. New Zealand was the first G20 country to implement mandatory TCFD reporting.
The TCFD was set up by the G20’s Financial Stability Board (FSB) in 2015 and made its first recommendations in 2017. The four pillars of TCFD reporting are governance, strategy, risk management and targets.