The Canadian Senate has killed a climate change bill just weeks before a United Nations conference on global warming in Cancun, Mexico.

NDP Leader Jack Layton expressed outrage that the unelected Upper House was able to vote down a climate change bill, which proposed more stringent goals than those Prime Minister Stephen Harper called for. The bill passed on its third reading in the House of Commons in May 2010.

The NDP first introduced the bill in October 2006. This bill passed in the House of Commons that year, but the 2008 general election stopped it from achieving Royal Ascent. It was re-introduced in 2009.

The Climate Change Accountability Act calls for greenhouse gas emissions to be cut 25 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 and a long-term target of an 80 per cent reduction of 1990 levels by 2050. Harper has proposed a 17 percent cut from 2005 levels by 2020.

Harper’s proposal is in line with American targets.

Meanwhile, international leaders are set to gather in Cancun for COP16 to discuss climate change starting Nov. 29.

With files from the Canadian Press