Question Period Note: International Cooperation

International Cooperation

• Fighting climate change, addressing global environmental issues and ensuring a green economic recovery to the COVID-19 pandemic require international cooperation. Together with our international partners, we are building global ambition and sharing best practices in our transition to a low-carbon, resilient and sustainable economy.
• Aligned with our Paris Agreement commitments, we announced a new, more ambitious greenhouse gas target of 40-45% below 2005 levels by 2030. We also announced a doubling of our international climate finance to $5.3 billion over the next 5 years and continue to push for global coal phase-out through the Canada-UK co-led Powering Past Coal Alliance.
• Canada also champions global solutions to other pressing environmental issues, advocating for countries to adopt a sustainable approach to the management of plastics through the Oceans Plastic Charter, and to adopt the goal to protect 30% of land and sea areas by 2030.
• We work to advance our climate and environmental goals through multilateral agreements, and in our bilateral engagement across the globe, to minimize the impact of global pollution and biodiversity loss.
• The free trade agreements we negotiate and implement with our global partners also include provisions to respect the highest climate and environmental standards.

• Climate change and biodiversity loss do not respect borders. Not only do they represent existential threats in their own right, but they are also catalysts for instability, conflict, starvation, and pandemics. Canada intends to build on its ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions domestically with equally ambitious financial commitments to support developing countries to combat climate change and biodiversity loss.
• At COP21 in December 2015, the international community adopted the Paris Agreement, which committed all countries to take action on climate change. Its goal is to limit global warming to well below 2°C, preferably to 1.5°C, compared to pre-industrial levels. To achieve this long-term temperature goal, the Paris Agreement requires Parties to increase their ambition every five years. In 2021, Canada submitted an updated goal of reducing emissions by 40-45% below 2005 levels by 2030.
• Climate finance is a key part of international climate change dynamics. In 2009, developed countries committed to collectively mobilize US$100 billion per year by 2020 from public and private sources. Under the Paris Agreement, developing countries committed to take ambitious climate change action with confidence that they will continue to receive financial and technical support for implementation. As such, in 2015 Parties agreed to a continuation of the goal through to 2025. Canada has delivered on its 2015 commitment of $2.65 billion over 5 years, and announced at the 2021 G7 Leaders Summit that it would double its commitment over the next five years, to $5.3 billion.
• Canada co-leads the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA) with the United Kingdom. With over 135 members, the PPCA is the world’s leading initiative seeking to accelerate clean growth and climate protection through the rapid phase-out of unabated coal power.
• Canada launched the Ocean Plastics Charter during its G7 Presidency in 2018, and over 100 partners have since adopted it, including 27 governments. The Charter takes a lifecycle approach across the plastics value chain and lays out ambitious objectives in the aim of ensuring that plastics are designed for reuse and recycling, that the environment is protected, and that valuable plastics remain in the economy.
• The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is the main international instrument to address global biodiversity loss. It arose from a growing recognition that the diversity of nature is a global asset of great value to present and future generations. Canada was the first industrialized country to ratify the Convention in 1992 and we are the host of the CBD Secretariat, located in Montreal. Negotiations are ongoing to define the post-2020 global biodiversity framework under the CBD. Canada advocates for a simple, clear framework that focuses on the most important direct drivers of global biodiversity loss; addresses the Convention’s objectives; and considers the important role of women, youth and Indigenous peoples as partners in the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.
• Canada participates in several multilateral environmental agreements, such as the Montreal Protocol. It was signed by nations in Montreal in 1987 to confront the depletion of the atmosphere’s ozone layer, which it subsequently succeeded in halting. The Montreal Protocol remains one of the most successful global environmental agreements of all time. On January 1, 2019, the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which mandates a global phase-down of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), came into force and will become more stringent in the years ahead. Canada continues to work with all countries to implement the Kigali Amendment.
• Environment and Climate Change Canada is responsible for implementing environmental provisions in free trade agreements and environmental cooperation agreements. These instruments include cooperation on: strengthening institutional and legal frameworks; promoting best practices; strengthening public participation; and, addressing the issues of climate change, protection and conservation of biodiversity, and sustainable use of natural resources.

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