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Momentum Builds as the G7 Halifax Environment Ministers Meeting
John Kirton, Director, G7 Research Group
September 19, 2018
As the second half of the G7 Halifax environment ministers meeting started, it was on course to be a clear success.
Catherine McKenna, Canada's Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, opened the afternoon session by noting the "great" sessions ministers had had in the morning and at lunch. Her relaxed, buoyant confidence confirmed the feeling that things were going very well.
In setting the agenda for the first afternoon session on adaptation and conserving nature, McKenna noted the importance of biodiversity and its critical impact on human health. She listed the many things Canada had recently done to build biodiversity and resilience at home, and the major money it had mobilized to this end. She then looked outward, pointing to the vulnerability of small island developing states including those in the Caribbean that were still recovering from last year's hurricane season, even as new ones threatened to come. She again appropriately noted the need to mobilize money, in the form of innovative climate finance.
In keeping with her opening remarks in the morning, McKenna set forth an ambitious agenda for the afternoon's sessions and added her hope that they would be lively. And she ended by highlighting the role of women, not just as victims of climate change but as empowered individuals with solutions whose voice must be heard.
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