Advocates decry feds’ competing agendas

ENERGY VS. CLIMATE

OTTAWA • The Liberal government’s dual pursuits of expanded foreign markets for Canadian fossil fuels and global action on climate change are getting some unfavourable notice at an international climate summit in Morocco.

The newly elected Trudeau government made a big splash at last December’s United Nations-sponsored COP21 in Paris by helping push aggressive global ambition in the battle against a warming planet.

But while negotiating a national plan with the provinces and territories to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the Liberals have also approved a major liquefied natural gas project in British Columbia this fall and signalled their openness to new oil pipeline proposals.

Environmental advocates attending this year’s COP22 in Marrakech, Morocco, issued a release Wednesday calling out Canada’s competing policy priorities.

“It is a serious concern when we see the international community not honouring their commitments and we are concerned Canada is still pursuing their fossil fuel projects,” Benson Ireri of Christian Aid Africa said in the release. “Developed countries have a moral obligation to honour the Paris Agreement.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to meet his provincial and territorial counterparts in early December to finalize a pan-Canadian plan for cutting emissions 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. Trudeau has already laid down a marker with the imposition of an escalating $10 per tonne floor price on carbon emissions starting in 2018 and topping out at $50 in 2022.

MOSA’AB ELSHAMY / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Activists stage a protest against man-made emissions of carbon dioxide and other global-warming gases at the COP22 conference in Marrakech, Morocco. Environmental advocates attending this year’s event have issued a release denouncing Canada’s competing...