Canada, US Re-commit to Joint Climate Change Fight
Senior environmental officials of the Canadian and US governments recommitted April 1 to working together to fight climate change while growing their respective economies.
Jonathan Wilkinson, Canada’s minister of environment and climate change, and Michael Regan, administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said they would support the Roadmap for a Renewed US-Canada Partnership, recently announced by Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and US president Joe Biden.
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“Building on our long-standing environmental agreements on air quality, waste management, and water quality, we will work together to accelerate policy actions based on science and evidence that support a healthy and just world for all,” they said.
Ahead of Biden’s planned virtual Leaders’ Summit on Climate April 22-23, Wilkinson and Regan said they would target three key areas: reducing methane emissions from oil and gas operations, and potentially other sectors; reducing emissions from the transportation sector, and; exploring opportunities to “green” the electricity sector.
“As founding members of the Global Methane Initiative (GMI) and two of the world’s largest oil and gas methane emitters, we recognize that further emission reductions are both feasible and essential to making rapid progress in fighting climate change,” the joint statement said. “Through the GMI re-chartering, the US, with Canada as the current steering committee chair, will work together to increase domestic requirements for methane reduction and to raise global ambition for methane mitigation.”
Both also committed to working with other state and provincial governments on stringent short- and long-term vehicle standards to increase fuel efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from all vehicle classes. And they committed to bilateral collaboration to increase the production and use of clean electricity, including cross-border transmission.
“We are committed to the health of our environment, the strength of our economy, and the well-being of our shared North American communities,” the joint statement concluded. “We know that the global climate is changing, and we join together to reach for the innovations of tomorrow, building back our economies in a way that promotes employment, sustainability, and equity.”