China, Saudi Arabia should pay up to help the planet cope with climate change: Guilbeault

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said Wednesday he wants China and Saudi Arabia to contribute money to international efforts to help poorer countries struggling with the worst effects of climate change.

Guilbeault will be heading to the annual United Nations climate summit, COP29, in Azerbaijan next week. There, countries are expected to negotiate a new international target to collect the trillions of dollars experts say are needed to mitigate the worst effects of a warming planet.

Guilbeault told CBC News setting a new target for the international climate finance goal will be one of his priorities when he arrives in Baku, along with pushing for the world's second-largest economy to contribute it.

"China will become, in fact, one of the biggest historic polluters in the coming years," Guilbeault said.

WATCH | Guilbeault wants China and others to ante up on climate change 

China, Saudi Arabia need to ante up to fight climate change: Guilbeault

24 days ago

Duration 1:29

Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault said Canada cannot address climate change ‘without making sure that others are chipping in as well.’ Guilbeault said countries like Saudi Arabia ‘should be part of a broader donor country base to help countries in the south.’

Guilbeault was criticized for travelling to China about a year ago to attend diplomatic meetings with an international group that advises Beijing on climate change — the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED). Critics called on him to cancel the trip over China's human rights abuses and alleged interference in Canadian politics.

China is a country of contradictions when it comes to climate change. It is the world's largest emitter but has become a global leader in the deployment of clean technology — solar panels, batteries, electric vehicles — both at home and abroad.

The world's top oil and gas producers are also in Guilbeault's sights as he heads to the COP summit.

"Countries like Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have a lot of money and contribute a lot to climate change," the minister said. "They should be part of a broader donor country base to help countries in the south."

Saudi Arabia ranks as the world's 11th largest global emitter, right ahead of Canada, according to one estimate. It's among 20 countries that, collectively, are responsible for more than 75 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations.

Wealthy Western countries, including Canada, backed the previous commitment at the COP15 conference in 2009 of assembling $100 billion US in climate financing each year. The European Union and the 23 countries at COP15 committed to delivering on the money commitment by 2020.

Rich countries failed to meet that goal for years, but preliminary data indicates that they have finally reached and exceeded the goal. The delay, however, caused some countries to lose faith in the international climate negotiations.

"This trust has been slowly but surely eroded," said Caroline Brouillette, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada. "It's also why countries from the global south are expecting Canada and the G7 to come to Baku ready to show us the money."

On a briefing call with reporters Wednesday, officials with Guilbeault's department would not say what the new international climate finance target should be, or how much Canada and other countries should contribute.

According to one estimate, $2.4 trillion US in climate finance is needed by 2030 for investments to meet the Paris Agreement targets and related development goals.

Guilbeault said he disagrees with those who argue that governments alone should pay that tab — he said institutions like the World Bank and some large corporations should also ante up.

"The amount of public dollars available around the world is limited, and there is a lot more money in the private sector," he said.

In 2021, Canada upped its international climate finance goal from $2.65 billion to $5.3 billion over 5 years. The money targets efforts to phase out coal and fund systems to warn communities in advance of catastrophic weather events.

COP climate summits are United Nations conferences hosted annually by different countries. They are global decision-making forums meant to implement the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, adopted in the early 1990s, and subsequent climate agreements.

At one of those conferences in 2015, countries signed the landmark Paris Agreement. That agreement states countries must keep the increase in the planet's temperature to well below 2 C and work to limit it to 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels.

Although countries have made some progress, the UN has said the world is still on track to surpass the limits outlined in the Paris Agreement, leading to more devastating flooding, heat waves and forest fires.