How can we build a pipeline and meet our climate targets?

Elizabeth May

Mr. Speaker, the warnings of climate scientists are becoming increasingly urgent and worrying.

The most recent, days ago, was that the world was watching the weakening of the Gulf Stream ocean currents, with potentially catastrophic impacts. The scientists are warning that we must reduce greenhouse gases far more rapidly than our current commitments. If we fail to do so, if we blow through our carbon budget, we will pay dearly. This is a budget we cannot afford to ignore. It is incompatible with completing Kinder Morgan.

Could the government show us the numbers of how we build a pipeline and meet our climate targets?

Jonathan Wilkinson – Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change

Mr. Speaker, this government agrees that climate change is an extremely important issue. We have been working very actively to implement the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change.

The latest national inventory report from the United Nations shows that carbon pollution declined between 2015 and 2016. In fact, Canada’s third biennial report, which was published in 2017, shows that Canada’s emissions are projected to be 232 megatonnes lower than was projected just last year.

The Trans Mountain emissions, both upstream and direct, are incorporated into the pan-Canadian framework. When these policies and programs are fully implemented in Canada, we are very confident we will meet the targets under the Paris agreement and set even more ambitious targets as we move forward.