Canada's NDP

Skip to main content

December 3rd, 2018

COP24: Liberals Must Act Now to Tackle Climate Change

OTTAWA – On Monday, New Democrats stressed the need for immediate action to tackle climate change by presenting their priorities for the COP24 meetings happening this week in Poland. Trudeau’s Liberal government cannot go to COP24 to simply defend how they will miss their reduction targets; they must instead take the opportunity to significantly increase their action to address the most pressing crisis facing Canadians.

“The report tabled a few weeks ago by the IPCC is unequivocal: if no changes are made, humanity will lose its fight against climate change. Prime Minister Trudeau has made moving speeches for three years, but because of his government’s inaction, we already know the country will not be able to achieve the goals it has set by signing the Paris agreement on climate change,” said NDP Environment and Climate Change Critic Alexandre Boulerice. “With its highly inadequate approach, the Liberal government is contributing to humanity's climate disaster. COP24 is the perfect time for Trudeau’s government to urgently increase its action to tackle climate change.”

In order for the Trudeau government to increase their action on climate change, the NDP will be presenting the following motion for unanimous consent to the House of Commons:

That the House asks the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change to bring forward the following priorities and commitments at the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: i) a climate action strategy that prioritizes reconciliation with indigenous peoples; ii) investments in a transition that leaves no workers behind; iii) robust rules for implementing the Paris Agreement that will allow Canada to increase the ambition of its GHG reduction targets in response to the IPCC report; iv) transparency and accountability mechanisms to address climate change; and v) integrating human health into Canada's climate commitments.

“We are already seeing the impacts of climate change in Canada: longer heat waves, climate refugees, species extinctions, crop losses, floods, forest fires, heat islands, disruption of our ecosystems and other extreme weather events. It's simple, this is our most important fight,” added NDP Deputy Environment and Climate Change Critic Linda Duncan. “Just last week we saw a media report categorizing Canada with China and Russia on the list of biggest polluters. This is wrong and shows Trudeau’s lack of urgent action on this file. New Democrats will continue to push this government for urgent action because we know we need to defend our environment and fight climate change now.”