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Canada’s environment minister says he’s “cautiously optimistic” that he and his German counterpart will be able to persuade enough countries to fund a $100bn (£1.5bn) climate change pledge ahead of soon-to-take UN climate talks in Scotland next month.
Speaking to The West Block’s Mercedes Stephenson, Jonathan Wilkinson said the dedicated fund to help developing countries tackle climate change was a ‘critical piece’ in the architecture of the Paris agreement.
Wilkinson claimed the money was agreed to by both Canada and Germany in the run-up to the UN Climate Change Conference 2021, otherwise known as COP26, after funds for the programme slowed.
“We have been spending a lot of time over the last couple of months doing that, and certainly the last couple of days were meeting with a lot of countries to twist their arms about being more ambitious with respect to climate finance,” said Wilkinson (who at that point spent days in Milan preparing the final agenda for the UN climate talks in 2021).
S leader in efforts to bring $100 billion climate fund
“a lot of progress”Jonathan Wilkinson
On Friday, Wilkinson said both Canada and Germany have made ‘great strides’ in the same nations’ efforts and that he had spent the past two days in Milan as part of a string of bilateral meetings with some of the most powerful and wealthy countries in the world.
Canada has pledged to double its funding to $1 billion annually over the next five years, and Germany has pledged to invest at least $7 billion by 2025.
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