(Montreal) The Minister of the Environment, Steven Guilbeault, returned to the organization of COP15 last winter in Montreal and to the reluctance that certain members of the Trudeau government had regarding the organization of such a summit with China, during an event organized by the Council on International Relations of Montreal (CORIM).
When Montreal became the default option to host COP15 due to China’s withdrawal and because the headquarters of the Convention on Biological Diversity is located in the metropolis, few people in the Trudeau government were thrilled with the idea, according to the Minister of the Environment.
“Nobody wanted us to do COP15, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was too risky, because we had to work closely with China, a country with which our relations have been complicated lately, to say the least,” said indicated Minister Steven Guilbeault on Friday afternoon.
“We had five months to organize a conference that normally takes two years to organize and the Privy Council did not agree, the Prime Minister’s Office did not agree” and “the officials almost asked me what I had smoked that day, even if it has been made legal in Canada”, explained the Minister, provoking the laughter of the guests who came to listen to his speech at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel.
He explained that “two people” had believed in him: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly.
“The Prime Minister said ‘we’re doing it because we have a responsibility and we can’t let this drag on any longer’. »
Steven Guilbeault was invited by CORIM to discuss in particular “the importance of strengthening environmental multilateralism” and “cooperation and the creation of partnerships”.
In addition to China, which chaired the COP15 on biodiversity, the Minister explained that one of the partners who helped Canada the most in the organization of the event was the team of Boris Johnson, the former Prime Minister British.
“One of the governments with which I have collaborated the most, with which I have an incredible connection, since I became Minister of the Environment, is a populist right-wing government,” mentioned Mr. Guilbeault.
He explained that he had “regular contact” with a few British ministers and that London had even “lent staff in Canada to organize COP15.
“They are on the right, but we are able to find common ground,” added the minister, emphasizing the importance of dialogue to create good partnerships.
Sobriety and decline
The host of the event, Leïla Copti, president of the public relations firm COPTICOM, asked him to comment on “L’appel de Montréal”, a document that the Minister signed on the sidelines of COP15 and which asks world leaders to rethink the economy and end the underlying causes of biodiversity decline.
“Montreal’s appeal urges us to realize that we can no longer aim for infinite economic growth on a planet with finite resources,” Leila Copti reminded her former Greenpeace colleague Steven Guilbeault, asking if the time is right. come to think about “post-growth, not to say decline”.
“We try that our action, political and economic, be guided as much as possible by science”, replied Steven Guilbeault, stating his desire that practices such as the circular economy be increasingly integrated by the markets.
“Obviously, on a planet whose resources are finite, we cannot think that we will always be able to add up. There is an old magazine a little on the left that said that economists must also learn to subtract,” mentioned the minister, jokingly apologizing to the economists present in the room.
“I find it difficult to see how a government could legislate sobriety, but we can encourage it and put mechanisms in place and we can also move more and more towards a circular economy in order to limit the extraction of natural resources and promote the reuse of what is already circulating in the economy,” he said.
He gave the example of critical minerals used in the manufacture of electric vehicles that could be reused at the end of a vehicle’s life cycle.
“It would be a crime, really a crime, once these cars are no longer in use, to send these minerals to a landfill site”, added Steven Guilbeault, explaining “that more and more , we are heading towards that”.
Financing of the fossil industry
Mme Copti recalled that the federal government had declared a “state of climate emergency”, but that the “environmental situation continues to deteriorate” and that the federal government is still financing fossil energy projects.
“Capping emissions from the oil and gas sector is still at the consultation stage, it takes a long time to move on to concrete steps,” she pointed out, pointing out that the Environment Commissioner and sustainable development, Jerry V. DeMarco recently stated that “the history of Canada is a lot of good words but not enough actions, it’s a series of failures for 30 years now in concerns the fight against climate change and the protection of biodiversity”.
In response to his criticisms, Minister Guilbeault replied that the adoption of laws and regulations is not going as quickly as he would like: “Every day, I ask my colleagues and civil servants how we manage to faster ? “.
He also defended himself by explaining that Canada has invested nearly 120 billion in the electrification of public transport and clean technologies and that other tens of billions are planned.
“We are half of what Americans are going to invest, but we are ten times smaller,” he said, referring to the Inflation Reduction Act announced by President Joe Biden, which provides 300 billion US dollars. and which includes major measures to reduce greenhouse gases.
Regarding Canada’s commitments at COP15, the Minister indicated that a bill “on the implementation of our biodiversity objectives” should be presented to Parliament in the fall.