By Vishal Gulati
Katowice (Poland), Dec 11 (IANS): Canada will continue to lead critical climate negotiations, the country's Minister of Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna has said while urging the world to do its part to find solutions to fight climate change at home and abroad.
"Canada will continue to lead in these critical negotiations. We all need to do our part to find solutions to fight climate change at home and abroad," McKenna told reporters here on Monday on the sidelines of the two-week long 24th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP24) that will end on December 14.
"By working together, we can do right by our planet, unlock the huge economic opportunity of clean growth and ensure a healthy and prosperous future for our kids and grandkids," she said.
The minister began her first day at the COP24 on Monday.
Canada was instrumental in negotiating the Paris climate agreement in 2015 and continues to promote global climate action at COP24, an official statement by the minister's office said, adding that the country was working diligently at the negotiating table to finalize the set of rules that will put the Paris deal into action.
The Paris agreement rulebook will outline how countries will commit to fighting climate change and how each country will report on its progress. The rules will enable countries to identify areas requiring increased ambition.
Quoting a recent report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the statement said that developed countries, including Canada, were on track to meeting climate finance commitments and that climate finance continued to increase.
Canada is proud to be providing $2.65 billion over five years to advance international climate change objectives and is playing a leading role in identifying solutions and addressing obstacles in the final push towards consensus on the Paris agreement rulebook, the statement added.
The rulebook will govern national pledges to keep the rise in global temperature to under 1.5 degrees Celsius and ensuring adequate finances to developing nations.
Climate experts told IANS that the priority outcome at the COP24 will be the finalisation of the Paris rulebook, a Bible for transparent implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement -- the first global treaty to reduce emissions by all rich and poor nations.