Trudeau hopes for climate progress at G-20
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Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had a one-day visit to the Netherlands on Friday ahead of the G20 summit in Rome and COP26 global climate meeting in Glasgow.
Trudeau paid his respects at the Canadian War Cemetery in Bergen op Zoom, in south-western Netherlands before he met Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte in The Hague.
Canada and the Netherlands are counting on the weekend summit in Rome between world leaders to already make significant progress toward clinching an acceptable deal at the COP26 global climate meeting starting immediately afterward.
At the moment, all plans from nations around the world combined would still fall far short of the headline goal set in Paris six years ago: to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since preindustrial times.
The world has already warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since then.
Trudeau said he is working with allies to ensure the $100 billion (U.S.) climate financing pledge is met, with a focus also on the needs of the global south.
"Like the Netherlands, Canada has stepped up. We’ve actually doubled our climate financing pledge and we are working with like-minded allies, including Germany and others, to ensure that the world does hit its $100 billion pledge very rapidly and indeed goes beyond that, because we know that if there is not the investments made in cleaner energy and in new technologies in the global south, we don’t hit our targets," Trudeau said at a news conference.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Friday estimated plans combined would still amount to a rise of 2.7 C.
However he said he was positive, as he feels there is no choice but to act, and that the situation represents "a big opportunity" for the Netherlands to create "jobs, new economic prosperity at the same time, building a clean country."
He said the Rome meeting of the G20 leaders over the weekend, which will blend almost seamlessly into the COP26 meeting starting Sunday, would allow leaders extra time for an extra boost.