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In this paper, we explore how the power wielded by regional incumbents has impacted subnational innovation agendas. Our findings suggest that the design of mission-oriented innovation policies should be more attentive to regional innovation policies and their relationship to how innovation may serve to bolster incumbents and not undermine them. We use a case-study of innovation in fossil fuels. Recently, innovation policy literature has explored innovation policy and global climate as a major topic. On the one hand, carbon lock-in has been used to explain why there has been such difficulty in reducing carbon emissions, in many cases, despite an increasing emphasis of mission-innovation policies. On the other hand, mission-innovation policies are believed to be a key to the development of disruptive innovations that could break this carbon intensive path dependency. Although the two literatures explore the same problem, there could be more integration. While carbon lock-in is being considered in the mission-innovation literature, it nevertheless has been largely overlooked at the mission-setting stage. On the other hand, the lock-in literature has tended to overlook the findings of mission-oriented innovation literature in offering solutions, which suggests that there is a more productive role for mission-oriented innovations in breaking free of previous constraints to serve in the low-carbon energy transition. To make our case, we argue it is important to distinguish among the various impacts disruptive innovations have on the market shares of incumbents'. We propose the following three schema: new market, market rewarding and market destroying. By variegating the potential impact of innovations, we suggest that mission-oriented innovation polices may be designed to only support certain types of innovations that do not directly undermine the market share of incumbents. Using a detailed case study of the Province of Alberta, Canada, we then explore the role of the province's mission-oriented policy in the development of technology to produce the Canadian oil sands. The case study illustrates how incumbents influenced the establishment and direction of the mission's goal. Shifts in incumbency opposition toward the province's mission-oriented innovation policy coincided with the changing impact of the innovation from being market destroying to market rewarding. We suggest that future research should be more attentive to the role of incumbents in influencing mission-oriented innovation policy and the importance of their influence at the mission-setting stage. Furthermore, we suggest that to meet the grand challenge of addressing climate change through mission-oriented innovation policies, these policies must be designed to break free of these institutional constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada's federal carbon tax currently applies in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. Farmers in these provinces lack consistency on the tax, which is differentially applied to agricultural fuels. They must navigate between distinct sets of rules depending on the type of fuels they're using and what those fuels are used for. Some fuels are eligible to be fully exempt from the carbon tax; others may be allowed a partial exemption, and still others may force farmers to face the full amount of the carbon tax. The most significant agricultural fuel sources facing the full amount of the carbon tax are natural gas and propane used for grain and oilseed drying and for the heating of barns and other farm buildings. The burden of these tax payments on farmers is unclear. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada reports carbon tax cost estimates for grain and oilseed drying that range from an average of $210 per farm in Alberta to $774 per farm in Saskatchewan. Individual farmers, in contrast, have reported carbon tax costs of up to $10,000. Agriculture's sector-level emissions and trade flows are comparable to those of many industries in Canada that meet the criteria for being labelled an emissionsintensive and trade-exposed (EITE) industry. EITE industries are typically eligible to receive carbon pricing support on all priced emissions as part of either the federal government's output-based pricing system (OBPS) or similar provincial government programs. Agriculture is typically excluded from these programs because of the thousands of small producers in the sector, most of whom remain below the minimum emissions thresholds required for participation. As a result of this exclusion, agricultural subsectors have generally not been evaluated to see whether they meet EITE criteria. With all federal parties in favour of additional carbon pricing support for farmers, it is likely that support will soon be expanded to additional fuel uses. Future support to the agriculture industry is best offered via a mechanism that maintains the full incentive of the carbon tax. Two options that satisfy this objective are either a lump sum rebate to farmers or an output-based rebate system specific to agriculture. With both options it is important that any rebate amount is divorced from emissions and fuel use, A third option, which does not maintain the incentive of the carbon tax, is to expand farm-fuel exemptions. All of these options come with advantages and disadvantages, which would need to be carefully weighed. It would also be informative to complete an EITE assessment for agriculture that is based on all of the sector's combustion emissions being subject to the carbon tax. This would help to inform the potential impact of the carbon tax on agricultural production costs, farm profitability and the global competitiveness of Canada's farmers. Such an assessment would provide important insights on how to best support Canada's agricultural competitiveness without undermining its overall emissions reduction plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]