Media advisory: Climate Action Network Canada to participate in Bonn Climate Change Conference and Paris finance summit

Unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe Territories [OTTAWA], 5 June 2023:

Climate Action Network Canada (CAN-Rac)’s Executive Director, Caroline Brouillette, and Senior International Climate Policy Analyst, Pratishtha Singh, will be in Europe this month to participate in two major global events on the road to COP28: the Bonn Climate Change Conference and the Paris Summit for a New Global Financing Pact.

In the wake of a weak G7 outcome that riddled fossil fuel phase-out commitments with loopholes, and as communities across Canada are reeling from devastating wildfires, these two summits must build momentum for a coordinated, justice-based response to the climate crisis – one that ends fossil fuel expansion while scaling up renewable energy.

The UNFCCC Bonn Climate Change Conference (also known as SB58), which begins today and will continue until June 15, will be a key moment of stocktaking and accountability and will set the agenda for COP28 in Dubai this December.

The United Arab Emirates has come under fire for its appointment of Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, as COP28 President – a stark example of the power the fossil fuel industry wields over climate decision-making. More than 100 U.S. and E.U. lawmakers have demanded his removal.

“Time is running out for the UAE Presidency to show their vision for what COP28 will achieve. So far, Sultan Al Jaber seems to be singing from the same book as some Canadian ministers and fossil fuel companies – selling a fairy tale that emissions can be decoupled from fossil fuels. Bonn offers an opportunity to course-correct,” said Caroline Brouillette, Executive Director of CAN-Rac. “Let’s be clear: there is no road to a climate-safe future that doesn’t involve a managed phase-out of oil, gas, and coal, while investing massively in a just transition and building out sustainable renewable energy.”

The Bonn conference will also advance technical work in several areas, including discussions on loss and damage, following the agreement in Sharm el-Sheikh to establish a loss and damage finance facility, and the Global Stocktake, the assessment of progress since the Paris Agreement that will wrap up at COP28. As well, it should make progress towards defining the New Collective Quantified Goal, a target to scale up climate finance post-2025.

Shortly afterwards, India, as current G20 president, and France will be co-hosting the Paris Summit for a New Global Financing Pact from June 22-23, to respond to the escalating debt crisis in the Global South, which is compounded by the climate crisis. The summit will address the question of much-needed reform of Multilateral Development Banks and other global financial institutions.

“It’s past time for rich nations, who have polluted without restraint for decades and wreaked havoc with their exploitative, colonial practices, to pay their fair share to fix the global crises they have created,” said Pratishtha Singh, Senior International Climate Policy Analyst with CAN-Rac. “In Paris, Canada must be a loud voice for real, substantial change: cancelling debt, reforming Multilateral Development Banks, taxing the ultra-rich and big polluters, and shifting financial flows to align with a fair and livable future.”

However, the success of the Paris finance summit is threatened by its exclusion of the people in the Global South most marginalized by the current financial order. France’s President Emmanuel Macron must act quickly to democratize the summit, inviting in Global South civil society leaders and blocking out corporate interests.

CAN-Rac will be following developments closely and will be available for media throughout both summits.

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