Canada's Climate Targets Will Be Set After Climate Summit

Canada’s greenhouse-gas reduction targets won’t be unveiled at the climate-change summit that starts Nov. 30, but will be determined in the coming months in co-ordination with the provinces, Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said Friday.

Her comments about how Canada will pursue its climate-change strategy came the same day the Liberal government released its mandate letters for ministers, including marching orders for McKenna on implementing key platform promises related to the environment and climate change.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will travel to the United Nations COP21 climate-change conference at the end of the month, and has invited premiers and federal opposition leaders to join him.

Trudeau announced this week he’ll meet with Canada’s premiers during a first ministers’ meeting Nov. 23, a week before the conference, to discuss Canada’s climate-change strategy. The prime minister’s cabinet and premiers will also receive a “climate briefing” the same day by top climate scientists.

McKenna said Friday that countries gathering at the Paris summit will look to agree to a post-2020 international framework for reducing greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.

However, the federal government’s national emissions-reduction targets and plan for achieving them won’t be set until months later when the federal, provincial and territorial governments sit down to hammer out a pan-Canadian approach, she said.

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