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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 169

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 20, 2023 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 169 - Mar/20/23
Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)
  • Mar/20/23 6:17:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to rise in the House on the lands of the Algonquin Anishinabe peoples. I am speaking today as a follow-up to a question that one might think was stale-dated, but it gives us an opportunity to pursue what was a remarkable success in Montreal at the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. It is nice to be able to recognize the success of anything in this stage of a planet on fire and biodiversity in free fall. I raised this matter at the end of November, before the conference occurred, when I was asking if the Prime Minister would be able to raise the profile of this event and encourage other world leaders to come; that question is definitely stale-dated. However, the results of what happened at COP15, which is titled the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework” after the city in China where this event was supposed to have happened, as well as the global goals for 2050, are worth taking the time to recognize right now. I am grateful that the parliamentary secretary is here for the adjournment discussion. What did we accomplish? I will say, which I have not had a chance to say in this place, that the hon. Minister of Environment did a great job in negotiating and keeping some diplomatic heavy lifting going. This was a convention discussion where the cards that were dealt on this were not good; they were pretty bad. COP15 was supposed to have happened in September 2020. There were all the delays because of COVID, but the geopolitical cards were not good either. At basically the last minute, in June 2022, Canada said to the People's Republic of China that clearly it did not have a place to host this right now. Montreal is the host city of the Secretariat for the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, so Canada offered to step up and invite everybody here. When I say “last minute”, six months may sound like a lot of time to people, but we know what it is like if we suddenly decide we are going to invite 30 friends for dinner at four o'clock in the afternoon, and they are due at seven o'clock. In UN terms, that is what we did. The dynamic here was very challenging in that the People's Republic of China remained the host in the context of being in charge. It was, in UN terms, the president of the COP. This meant that our Minister of Environment was a physical host in Montreal. Again, I give credit to the Minister of Environment; he actually put himself into an interesting position and worked in a very unusual diplomatic, successful partnership with the minister of environment for the People's Republic of China. What did we accomplish there? The goals are many and they are detailed. Today, I want to speak to today the 23 detailed targets. However, I am afraid that what we are going to see is the typical response out of Environment Canada: Here we go, our targets are 25% by 2025 and 30% by 2030. Then it becomes a job of drawing lines on a map. The targets are not about lines on the map, which might even do a disservice to the targets of slashing pesticide use, reducing food waste and recognizing mother earth and indigenous sovereignty. These goals require far more transformational changes than lines on a map, where if an area is outside that line, it will be decimated. We need to focus and plan.
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Context: House Hansard - 169 - Mar/20/23
Mr. Terry Duguid (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Lib.)
  • Mar/20/23 6:21:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my friend and hon. colleague for her compliments on the success of COP15, and I will certainly pass those on to the minister. This was a success for Canada and, indeed, the world. I think the hon. member will agree that the hard work begins now in implementing that framework. As was correctly noted, China retained the presidency of COP15, while Canada provided the host location. Canada stepped up as the host location, doing in five months what normally takes two years to do, and sent a strong signal that we understand the urgency of mobilizing the world on this issue. China, with the COP15 presidency, was responsible for working with the United Nations secretariat for the Convention on Biological Diversity to issue invitations to the high-level segment. This was a UN conference, as the hon. member referenced. It was Canada's conference, in terms of home field, and formally it was China that invited heads of state and governments to COP15 at its discretion. As a United Nations meeting, COP15 was open to all UN member states. All parties were formally invited to choose their representatives following an official notification from the CBD secretariat. As the hon. member will know, the Prime Minister delivered remarks at the opening ceremony of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties, COP15, and he highlighted the importance of protecting nature and biodiversity. He was engaged with key stakeholders. His participation on the ground sent a strong message that Canada is engaged and is leading by example in order to push for a clear, ambitious and transformative post-2020 global biodiversity framework. The high-level segment, which was always planned as a ministerial event, engaged ministers to help conclude negotiations and secure an ambitious outcome, and that is exactly what happened. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change served as the head of the Canadian delegation and had a very active role in the negotiations and at COP15 generally. In addition, several other cabinet ministers attended COP15 throughout the two weeks of negotiations, lending a strong message of Canadian political engagement and leadership. To wrap up, I will highlight that the Prime Minister was active at COP15 and that Canada's expectations for an ambitious outcome were indeed realized at this landmark event. We are confident there is now clear recognition that nature is as important as climate and that the two crises must be tackled together.
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