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The G7 Halifax Ministerial Meeting Raises a Record Amount of Funding
John Kirton, Director, G7 Research Group
September 20, 2018
The G7 environment, oceans and energy ministerial meeting (EMM) in Halifax has just finished its second day with the Honourable Catherine McKenna now joined by her colleagues and co-hosts the Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans, and the Canadian Coast Guard, and the Honourable Amarjeet Sohi Minister of Natural Resources.
Already Halifax has been the best G7 EMM ever in many ways. It has mobilized $187 million in new money from its Canadian host to advance the G7 priorities on preventing plastic pollution, strengthening ocean heath and renewable energy. This is far more money mobilized than any G7 EMM has raised before.
Halifax also inspired several other countries to join the G7 Oceans Plastics Charter, which Canada pioneered at the G7 Charlevoix Summit and which the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and the European Union joined there. Added at Halifax were Jamaica, Kenya, the Marshall Islands and Norway, all of which participated in the G7 Halifax meetings as outreach guests.
Also joining the Plastics Charter were many major private sector firms, including Loblaws, Walmart, Nestlé Canada, IKEA, Dow Chemicals, the Coca-Cola Company, BASF Canada and A&W Canada.
Minister McKenna announced a zero plastic waste strategy for the Canadian government, which would also use the formidable power of government procurement to spread its benefits to the private sector throughout Canada and beyond.
John Kirton is director of the G7 Research Group, and co-director of the G20 Research Group, the Global Health Diplomacy Program and the BRICS Research Group, all based at Trinity College at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. He is also a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at China's Renmin University. A professor of political science, he teaches global governance and international relations and Canadian foreign policy. He has served as a member of Canada's National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, and has advised the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, estabished to implement the North American Free Trade Agreement. He as also advised Environment and Climate Change Canada. His most recent books include Accountability for Effectiveness in Global Governance, co-edited with Marina Larionova (Routledge 2018), China's G20 Leadership (Routledge, 2016), G20 Governance for a Globalized World (Ashgate, 2012) and (with Ella Kokotsis), The Global Governance of Climate Change: G7, G20 and UN Leadership (Ashgate, 2015), as well as The G8-G20 Relationship in Global Governance, co-edited with Marina Larionova (Ashgate, 2015), and Moving Health Sovereignty in Africa: Disease, Govenance, Climate Change, co-edted with Andrew F. Cooper, Franklyn Lisk and Hany Besada (Ashgate, 2014). Kirton is also co-editor with Madeline Koch of several publications on the G7/8, the G20 and the BRICS, including G7 Canada: The 2018 Charlevoix Summit, published by GT Media and the Global Governance Project.
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