Liberals to stick with Harper’s emissions target, new environment minister says
Hunter Tootoo, minister of fisheries, oceans, and the Canadian Coast Guard speaks with Catherine McKenna, minister of the environment and climate change after being sworn in. McKenna says the national target set by the Conservatives for cutting greenhouse gas emissions should be considered a floor for future action. (Justin Tang/Canadian Press)
Canada will not go to the Paris climate change talks with a new target, or a concrete framework to reduce carbon emissions, according to Catherine McKenna, the minister for the environment and climate change.
But newly released ministerial mandate letters indicate the environment is still one of the new Liberal government’s top priorities.
“People are looking at what Canada is going to commit to,” McKenna said in an interview with Chris Hall on CBC Radio’s The House. “But we’re not negotiating targets at this meeting, what we’ve said is that in 90 days after this meeting, we’re going to work with the provinces and territories to come up with our target but also what our plan is to get there.”
The Conservatives announced in May that Canada’s contribution to this year’s Paris talks would be a 30 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions below 2005 levels by the year 2030.
Canada, however, is currently not on track to meet its existing 2020 cuts agree to under the 2009 Copenhagen accord, and the Harper government did not provide any policies to meet the more ambitious 2030 goal.
“You can’t just come up with targets out of thin air,” McKenna said.
“The Conservative target is a floor not a ceiling, but you have to do the hard work to figure out — how do we change our economy and move to a low carbon economy?”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
