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The Hon. Catherine McKenna

Former Minister of the Environment and Climate Change

Catherine McKenna
On Companies Doing the Right Thing around Climate Change
McKenna Thumb 1
There Are Many Risks to Climate Change, but Also Opportunities
The
McKenna Thumb 1
Catherine McKenna
On Companies Doing the Right Thing around Climate Change
McKenna Thumb 1
There Are Many Risks to Climate Change, but Also Opportunities

As the former Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, The Honourable Catherine McKenna has spearheaded ground-breaking environmental initiatives across Canada. She was a lead negotiator of the Paris Agreement, has successfully defended landmark legislation to establish a carbon price, and led the efforts to phase out coal, reduce plastics, and double the amount of nature protected in Canada. McKenna is dedicated to drastically reducing global emissions by 2030 to ensure a sustainable planet for future generations.

Today, McKenna is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Climate and Nature Solutions, an organization that works with governments, not-for profits, academia, and the private sector to scale practical climate and nature-based solutions. She also founded Women Leading in Climate and is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Columbia Climate School and a Visiting Professor in Practice at the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics.

McKenna also chairs the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Expert Group on Net-Zero Commitments of Non-State Entities. In 2022, the task force released its “Integrity Matters” report, which outlined criteria for net-zero commitments of business, financial institutions, cities, and regions. McKenna is also an advisor to the Climate Data Steering Committee for the Macron/Bloomberg Net Zero Data Public Utility, Singapore’s International Advisory Panel for Carbon Credits, the Taskforce on Net Zero Policy, the LSE Just Transition Finance Lab, and the University of Ottawa’s Information Integrity Lab.

In addition to serving as the Minister of the Environment and Climate Change (2015-2019), McKenna was also the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities from 2019 to 2021. In this role, she made historic investments in public transit and sustainable infrastructure, including leveraging private sector investment through the Canada Infrastructure Bank. She also led the development of Canada’s first National Infrastructure Assessment to drive net-zero emissions by 2050. Internationally, McKenna helped establish the Powering Past Coal, the Ministerial on Climate Action, and the Nature Champions Summit. She was also the co-chair of the World Bank’s Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition.

McKenna earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto, a master’s degree from the London School of Economics, and a law degree from McGill University. Before entering politics, she practiced corporate, trade, and anti-trust law at leading firms in Canada and Indonesia and served as a lead negotiator with the United Nations peacekeeping mission to East Timor. She also co-founded the charitable organization Level Justice.

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  • Catherine delivered an outstanding keynote speech at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario’s 2023 Annual Conference. Catherine’s presentation blended the human stories of climate change events with the tools communities can use to respond. The keynote was current, engaging, and inspirational – our audience of municipal leaders thoroughly enjoyed Catherine’s presentation!

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