A deal was reached Saturday in Kigali, Rwanda, limiting the use of powerful, factory-made greenhouse gases in an effort to fight climate change. Canada played its part in the deal as one of the nearly 200 nations that came together to finalize the plan.
Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna spoke with Global News about the importance of the deal as well as the Liberal’s plan to bring the provinces together in instituting a national carbon pricing plan.
“This is an historic deal,” McKenna said. “It’s like taking 200 million cars off the road every year or closing 300 coal fired plants.”
The gasses at the center of the deal are called HFCs, hydroflorancarbons, commonly used in refrigerators and air conditioners. McKenna said HFCs are thousands of times worse for the environment than carbon dioxide and limiting its use will have a massive impact on the environment.
“It will avoid, by the end of the century, a half a degree increase in temperature.”
“It’s a very practical measure, where just by taking out a chemical we use in everyday appliances will have a huge impact in tackling climate change,” McKenna said.
But how will the initiative to limit HFCs impact Canadians? McKenna said the impact should be minimal.
“The average Canadian won’t see an impact right away.”
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The balance between the fight against climate change and its impact on Canadian consumers is something the Liberal government has been dealing with as of late.
Three provincial environment ministers recently walked out of climate change talks in Montreal at the beginning of the month after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to impose a carbon price in provinces that won’t do it themselves.
McKenna said the federal government is still working on bringing everyone together.
“We’ve had discussions with all the provinces and territories. We’re continuing discussions,” McKenna said.
McKenna took direct aim at Saskatchewan, one of the provinces that walked out of the climate talks along with Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, as needing to look at working out their own system of dealing with carbon prices if they are unhappy with the new policy.
“I know (Saskatchewan) Premier Brad Wall has expressed concerns about the agriculture sector. They can figure out how to address emissions from the agriculture sector or how to exclude them,” McKenna said.
“We certainly hope that Saskatchewan comes up with a system that makes sense for Saskatchewan.”
Coming together as a country to implement a national carbon price plan along with the limiting of HFCs is something McKenna said is crucial to hitting Canada’s climate goals made at the Paris climate conference last year.
“We’re tackling the biggest challenge of our generation,” McKenna said. “Were seeing floods across the country, we’re seeing forest fires, we’re seeing droughts and in the north we know the impacts and devastation.”
“So, we have to take action, and we’re doing it in a thoughtful way. I’m very confident that we’ll come together with a serious climate plan that Canadians can be very proud of.”
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