While Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault was in Beijing this week to discuss ways China and Canada can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, one of China’s major state-run media organizations wrote an editorial headlined “Western concerns about China’s coal power growth unnecessary.”
Global Times, which operates under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, the People’s Daily, said while “China’s decision to build more new coal-fired power plants has raised questions in the West as to whether the country will meet its 2030 carbon pledge … the concern is unnecessary as China’s pursuit of carbon goals is on par with its focus on economic development.”
Does Guilbeault agree with this? After all, he took time out from his meetings as the executive vice-chair of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development, to give an interview to The Canadian Press, in which he slammed Suncor CEO Rich Kruger for “disengaging from climate change and sustainability” in favour of “short-term profit” in the oilsands.
The former Greenpeace activist said this convinces him even more about the need for the Liberal government to bring in regulations capping emissions in Canada’s oil and gas sector.
For the rest of this column: https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-china-says-its-coal-emissions-are-no-big-deal-over-to-you-steven-guilbeault