COP28: Canada Daily Highlights – December 9, 2023

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Dec. 9, 2023 /CNW/ – 

Today, Minister Guilbeault took the podium to deliver Canada’s National Statement, highlighting the country’s position, commitments and aspirations for addressing the global climate crisis, and announced Canada’s commitment to introduce a federal nature accountability bill in 2024 to establish an accountability framework for the federal government in fulfilling its nature and biodiversity commitments under the Global Biodiversity Framework. Read more in the press release.The Minister participated in a ministerial meeting on Driving Integrated Implementation of National Climate and Biodiversity Frameworks for 2030 Action. The event, convened by the COP28 and CBD COP15 Presidencies in collaboration with the NDC Partnership, the NBSAP Accelerator Partnership and other partners, aimed to facilitate discussions among governments and supporting non-state actors on the challenges and opportunities for aligned implementation of national climate and biodiversity plans. Canada strongly advocates for the progressive alignment of national plans related to biodiversity and climate.The Minister attended an event to highlight the one-year anniversary of the biodiversity COP15, which also marked the first anniversary of the adoption of the Kunming-Montréal Global Biodiversity Framework. The event celebrated the achievements and successes of COP15. It also highlighted the importance of the Nature Champions Network and the critical need to address the link between climate change and biodiversity loss.The Minister joined a ministerial roundtable on pre-2030 ambition, focused on facilitating an open dialogue among participants, allowing them to explore different perspectives and address key policy issues essential to achieving a robust mitigation outcome at COP28.At a high-level event of the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership (FCLP), Canada announced that it would support the secretariat of the FCLP which is working to accelerate global progress to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030. Under this partnership, Canada is co-leading a Greening Construction with Sustainable Wood coalition with Kenya and France, which has announced a commitment to advance policies and approaches that support low-carbon construction and increase the use of wood from sustainably managed forests in the built environment. Read more in the media release.

“We do feel that in any kind of environmental response, we cannot do this without considering people first. The human rights approach is really central. And it is also our message here at COP28, in all of the texts that are being drafted now. And we don’t want to just see reference to human rights and Indigenous peoples’ rights in the preambular text, we want to see it in the operative paragraph, that it is being referenced and used as much as possible.”

– Victoria Qutuuq Buschman, Environment and Climate Advisor, Inuit Circumpolar Council, Greenland

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SOURCE Environment and Climate Change Canada