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In Canada, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue to remain high despite the federal government's commitment to reduce GHG emissions. Environmental policy across Canadian provinces has largely lacked consistency with some provinces implementing targeted policy such as carbon taxes while others have strongly resisted the federal government's attempts to encourage such policy. This study examines the impact of environmental policy on GHG gas emissions across Canadian provinces with policy uniquely measured by public and business sector spending on environmental protection as well as notable province-specific policies. An extended STIRPAT model is specified with the inclusion of proxies for environmental policy using panel data from Canada's ten provinces from 1995 to 2019. The cointegration and the error correction modelling approaches are employed to estimate the non-stationary panel data. A pooled mean group estimation is applied to provide short run and long run coefficients. The findings indicate that although per capita GDP is the main driver of GHG emissions in Canada, environmental policy has a significant mitigating effect, as shown by the negative association between emissions and private and public sector spending on environmental protection in the long run. Furthermore, provinces with targeted policies, such as Ontario's coal phase-out and British Columbia's carbon tax, experienced significant emissions reductions. The theoretical implication is the successful addition of policy variables to the STIRPAT model, providing the model a new application for future research. [Display omitted] • Assess the impact of environmental protection policies on per capita greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. • Utilize public and private expenditures on environmental protection, along with provincial policies. • Extend the STIRPAT model to incorporate environmental protection policies in an empirical model. • Demonstrate a significant negative relationship between environmental protection policies and GHG emissions. • Offer insights with implications for global environmental sustainability efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On-site carbon capturing, storage, and utilization (CCSU) has proven its' potential to reduce CO 2 emissions from large-scale fossil fuel combustion systems. However, the integration of CCSU in community-scale on-site energy generation applications such as district energy systems has not been comprehensively explored in literature. This study aims to propose a life cycle thinking-based framework to compare and prioritize emission reduction strategies that include CCSU and renewable energy technologies to develop zero-emission community energy systems. The framework incorporates multi-criteria decision-making approaches to rank and prioritize community energy emission mitigation strategies. A scenario-based method was employed in assessing the performance of CCSU technologies along with other compatible alternative energy choices. The framework was demonstrated for all the provinces in Canada. Results show that CCSU is more favorable for regions with high dependence on fossil fuel-based energy sources. CCSU could reach the commercial scale if the cost of emission avoided drops below the cost of CO 2 emissions.. The findings of this study are geared towards providing practical decision-support tools for stakeholders who hold responsible for policy and investment decisions in community energy. The developed framework is a generalized technique that provides the flexibility to be employed in any location across the globe. • Emission planning based on techno-economic and environmental performance. • Prospect of CCSU rises if cost of emission reduction drops below cost of emissions. • Cost of infrastructure takes up more than 70% of overall CCSU project costs. • Energy mix, carbon tax, and infrastructure impact emission planning decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]