Ambitious Canadian coal plan vulnerable to provincial ‘slippage,’ critics say
Canada’s drive to shut down all of its coal-fired power plants by 2030 could be undermined by provincial side-deals like the one currently being negotiated with Nova Scotia, critics say.
“A 2030 date, overall for Canada, is achievable and ambitious — it strikes that sweet spot,” Erin Flanagan, federal program director at the Pembina Institute, said Tuesday.
“We don’t want to see any policy slippage during the negotiations … We want to make sure that each of the provinces is held to the same standard and they are doing everything they can to facilitate that coal-to-clean process.”
Flanagan, in Bonn, Germany, for the 2017 United Nations climate change talks, said federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna is winning kudos for her high-profile bid to lobby other countries and states to commit to a 2030 deadline.