Britain’s new envoy to Ottawa says Canada still has credibility at home to be a authoritative partner in the fight against climate change despite the spike in greenhouse gas emissions over the past few years.
This, Gushko said, did not happen from a UK perspective.
Net zero is the term which means that no new emissions are being added to the atmosphere, with nature or technology absorbing all emissions generated.
Canada this year committed to cutting net emissions to 40 percent to 45 percent below 2005 levels by 2050 and increasing its emissions emissions reduction targets from 30 percent to 45 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
Britain’s military and security cooperation with Canada also remains strong in other areas, including cooperation with NATO on counter-balancing Russia in Eastern Europe and a recently inked deal to deepen cooperation in the Arctic, Goschko said.
Gushko said it would be critical that China, the world’s biggest emitter, played a role at COP26 but that Trudeau’s government was still waiting to determine whether President Xi Jinping would join the world’s 120 leaders in attending.
This manifested itself by helping Canada to fight the Chinese incarceration of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, which resulted in its end in September after almost three years.
“I can’t think of a time when we came to Canada and said,”We want to do something about it,” we wanted to do something about this,”and the answer was no,” Gushko said.
