Canada could be a key influencer at this year’s international climate talks, said Steven Guillemot, Canada’s environment and climate change minister. But he played down concerns that the election of a Canadian president could derail the talks.
In an interview ahead of the talks, he said, “Our window is closing fast to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. So we all need to move in that direction.”
Observers expect the Azerbaijan talks to be contentious. Countries are moving toward new approaches to climate finance and are working on new national climate plans.
Catherine Abreu, a leading Canadian climate policy expert, said there is reason to be skeptical about the outcome of the talks. After 30 years of negotiations, global carbon emissions are higher than ever before. About 80 percent of global energy comes from fossil fuels, and recent conferences have seen a record number of oil lobbyists. Yet this discussion is still a very important area.
Abru, director of the International Climate Politics Hub, said the agreements reached in this framework are the foundation of all global climate policy.
The 29th Conference of the Parties was held in Azerbaijan from November 11 to 22. They signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Most of the world’s most impactful climate agreements came from these negotiations. The Kyoto Protocol was adopted at COP3 in Japan in 1997. This protocol set targets for greenhouse gas emissions. Almost two decades later, in Paris, the world agreed to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees, or 1.5 degrees Celsius. Canada also hosted the conference in Montreal two decades ago.
