Arriving at COP27, which is taking place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, the Federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault, played the card of virtue by showing his determination to advance the cause of ” losses and damages”, this claim of developing countries which claim a mechanism of compensation for the damage resulting from climate change.
The thorny subject of compensation paid by the richest countries, the main culprits of global warming, was added at the last minute to the agenda of the conference with the support of Canada.
This will be the third pillar of global climate finance, with the other two already in place, at least in part: adaptation mechanisms, including measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), and mechanisms for mitigating the effects of global warming. These “losses and damages” continue to increase as the impacts of climate change increase. Disasters — floods, droughts, hurricanes, fires — are on the increase, as are their financial consequences, which already amount to several tens of billions of dollars per year at the very least. For example, the record floods that have affected a third of Pakistan this year have resulted in losses estimated at more than 30 billion and the drought threatens famine in the Horn of Africa. The Alliance of Small Island States is demanding compensation for its members threatened by rising waters, which can lose up to 2% of their gross domestic product in a single day due to a climatic event, according to the Prime Minister of ‘Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne.
“The world has become a land of suffering,” said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the host of COP27, emphatically at the opening of the summit. The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, did not go with a dead hand: “Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish. It is either a climate solidarity pact or a collective suicide pact. »
The current commitments of the 200 or so States that signed the Paris Agreement in 2015 do not make it possible to achieve the objective of limiting to 1.5°C, or at most 2°C, global warming by compared to the pre-industrial era by the end of the century. With the latest “national contributions”, we are heading more towards an increase of 2.4°C, and even 2.8°C, if we stick to current practices. A predicted disaster.
According to a report commissioned by the COP and published on Tuesday, the countries of the South will need more than 2000 billion per year by 2030 to finance their climate actions, which includes adaptation and emission reduction measures, mitigation and the cost of disaster-related damage.
For its part, Canada joined Germany in presenting an update on funding for adaptation measures. Developed countries have pledged to pay 100 billion per year from 2020 to finance these measures. This aid has so far only reached 83 billion per year, an inflated figure, however, support the affected countries.
Even if the Trudeau government likes to drape itself in virtue when it comes to the fight against climate change, Canada, an oil country that still subsidizes its hydrocarbon industry, is not living up to its claims. According to a report released Tuesday by the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, Canada is “in a complex position.” It implements “ambitious policies”, including a carbon tax (and the carbon exchange for Quebec), but its GHG emissions have not decreased significantly, unlike those of other G7 countries, we observe.
However, as we learn The duty, the Trudeau government, led by Minister Guilbeault, has found nothing better than to invite the oil sands industry to COP27. This is how he invited six oil companies to the Canada pavilion to praise their efforts to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 while exploiting one of the most polluting oils on the planet. Unfortunately, this is no joke.
What Canada is saying to the world is that it will continue to sell oil from the tar sands beyond 2050, an oil produced to be consumed, and which thus contributes to global GHG emissions. After that, we wonder why Canada, in the fight against climate change, is sorely lacking in credibility on the international scene.