Canadian Environment Minister Catherine McKenna blasted U.S. coal policy while promising that Canada would keep exporting it in a Sunday interview with CTV News.
Calling coal “the most polluting fossil fuel we have,” McKenna reiterated her calls to ban coal-fired energy while promising to keep delivering it to American markets.
“We’re not banning exports of coal, but we know we need to move to a cleaner future,” McKenna told CTV, adding that the Trump administration has “got it wrong” in promoting coal production.
“You just have to look at images from India, from China, you can see those cities are literally being choked by coal. Those are people dying.”
At last week’s COP23 UN environmental conference in Bonn, Germany McKenna sponsored a motion to ban coal-fired energy production by 2030. Even as the U.S. delegation to the summit was providing a pro-coal presentation to unappreciative delegates, McKenna was tweeting about the evils of coal production — even though coal is extensively used throughout Canada to produce electrical power and tens of thousands of jobs depend upon it.
McKenna was asked how she views the recent arrival of U.S. Ambassador to Canada Kelly Knight Craft, who owns substantial coal resources through her marriage and who refuses to dismiss arguments against man-made climate change as “denial.”
Though saying she could work with Craft, McKenna returned to deriding coal. “We know [climate change is] man-made, we know coal is a huge factor. Coal is the most polluting fossil fuel we have, we need to move past coal,” McKenna said.