Climate plan may take ‘months’

Ontario minister lowers expectations of meeting

Thestar.com
Feb. 10, 2016
By Bruce Cheadle

Ontario’s environment minister says no one expects that a highly anticipated meeting next month between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the premiers will conclude a new climate plan for the country.

“You’re seeing the federal government trying to build a pan-Canadian framework,” Glen Murray, Ontario’s minister for environment and climate change, told The Canadian Press in a recent interview.

“That’s going to take many months - that’s not going to happen in a week or two.”

Trudeau’s promise to convene a first ministers meeting to work out a climate plan within 90 days of December’s Paris climate conference set high expectations.

“Central to this would be the creation of national emissions-reduction targets,” said the Liberal election platform.

But Murray said a meeting two weeks ago of the provincial and territorial environment ministers and their federal counterpart, Catherine McKenna, directed officials to spend the next six months establishing a common framework of key elements that all parties agree upon, as well as a list of issues that still need to be resolved.

Those unresolved issues, he said, include matters such as trade and capital outflows resulting from climate-change policies and how common carbon pricing can be approached, given the various models already established by provinces including British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba.

“I don’t think the pan-Canadian framework will be ready by March. I don’t think anyone imagined that,” said Murray.

“The previous government in 10 years couldn’t produce a paragraph, never mind a framework, so there’s a lot of work going on.”

The Prime Minister’s Office’s has confirmed Trudeau will attend a clean-tech business conference in Vancouver March 2-4, setting the stage for the first ministers to meet in the city that week.

McKenna told the Federation of Canadian Municipalities in a speech Wednesday that next month’s meeting will “build the foundation of a pan-Canadian plan.”

The Liberal government attracted a lot of criticism for going to the Paris climate summit with national carbon-reduction targets set by the previous Conservative government. Depending on who you ask, the 2030 target of cutting emissions by 30 per cent below 2005 levels is either wildly ambitious or woefully inadequate.

McKenna has said the Conservative target is a “floor.” But she has also conceded the country is currently not anywhere close to being on track to meet the existing national emissions target.

Meanwhile, the federal government is promising new funding for environmental projects with municipal grants and loans to 20 cities and towns across the country.

McKenna said the $31.5 million in federal money will help communities improve local standards for air, water and soil quality.

Among the projects McKenna cited for funding were a net-zero-emissions library being built in Varennes, Que., and a Halifax project to install solar hot-water systems in local homes.

The funding will be used to pay for capital projects and also to support planning, field tests and studies related to future green projects.

McKenna says cities have direct control over 40 per cent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions while being on the front lines of climate risks posed by global warming.