G20: Keep your fingers crossed…

It’s taking a lot of optimism to feel good about the recent okay-fine-if-we-have-to inclusion of climate change on the G20 agenda. We’ve been told that it still won’t be an official agenda item, but it will be inevitably discussed on the sidelines when the world’s leaders gather in Toronto later this month.

June 18, 2010
Posted by Zoë Caron

That said, Toronto Star columnist Peter Gorrie reminds us today that there is reason to hold on to hope yet: Canada has initiated some stellar international achievements in the past, and we have the potential to do it again with climate change policy.

It isn’t to late from Canada to go from climate laggard to climate leader. With eight days to go, Canada could still make it clear to its G20 counterparts that climate change will be addressed through addressing subsidy phaseout to oil, coal, and gas (something that’s already been committed to), through a financial transaction tax (funds that would flow partly to climate change), and through making leadership based commitments to long-term funding for climate change action.

The G20 cannot replace the UN, but there’s no reason why it can’t provide leadership and action to pull the UN forward with it.

(c) Alison Sheepway / WWF-Canada

(c) Alison Sheepway / WWF-Canada

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This entry was posted on Friday, June 18th, 2010 at 11:51 AM and is filed under Climate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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