Emissions targets stemming from Paris won’t be internationally binding; McKenna
Posted Nov 27, 2015 02:42:58 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA – Canada’s environment minister says she’s hoping a durable, legally binding agreement will be reached at next week’s climate summit in Paris.
But Catherine McKenna says any eventual targets set by countries involved in the negotiations likely won’t be legally enforceable internationally because the United States isn’t prepared to accept that as a condition for reaching a deal.
And McKenna says no one expects Canada to announce its own national targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Paris.
The minister also acknowledges that Ottawa currently doesn’t have the ability to force provinces and territories to live up to their climate change commitments, but wants a mechanism in place by the time ministers come up with a national target months from now.
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair says that, without firm CO2 reduction targets being set, the Paris summit will be a failure.
Mulcair says the Liberal government should be going into the summit with something more ambitious than climate change targets put forward by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
