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The Climate Change and Health Adaptation Program (CCHAP) is a program within the First Nations Inuit Health Branch of Indigenous Services Canada (which was previously under the responsibility of Health Canada). The CCHAP supports Inuit and First Nation communities in mitigating and adapting to the health impacts of climate change. The impacts of climate change on Indigenous health can be observed in multiple areas including, but not limited to, food security, cultural medicines, mental health and landbased practices. This program seeks to address the needs of climate change and health in First Nation and Inuit communities to support resiliency and adaptation to a changing climate both now and in the future through its emphasis on youth and capacity building. The commentary is based on the Program's eleven years of experience working with and for Indigenous communities and provides an overview of the CCHAP model and the work it has and continues to support. This paper demonstrates three examples of community-based projects to mitigate and adapt to the health impacts of climate change to demonstrate climate change resiliency within Indigenous communities., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions from large industries the Canadian government proposed using a tradable emissions performance standard approach, where the intensity of emissions, rather than the absolute level, is regulated. Unlike a cap and trade system, an emissions performance standard does not guarantee a certain overall level of emission reductions, a fact that has led to significant criticism. However, because of the dynamics of performance standards, they may reduce concerns over reductions in international competitiveness in cases where a country has climate policies that are more aggressive than those of some of its trade partners. Likewise, a performance standard may mesh more efficiently with existing taxes and therefore cause less overall economic impact than an absolute cap and trade system. This paper considers the theoretical arguments for and against such a performance standard system and evaluates it in comparison to a cap and trade system using a dynamic general equilibrium model applied to Canada.

An introduction is presented in which the author discusses topics presented in several articles of this issue related to climate strategies from a European and Canadian perspective based on the 2011 United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Durban, South Africa.