REPORT

INTRODUCTION

The Canadian Section of ParlAmericas attended the 2nd Gathering of the Parliamentary Network on Climate Change held in Panama City, Panama from August 3 to 4, 2017. The Canadian parliamentary delegation was composed of Senator Tobias C. Enverga Jr. and Mr. Dan Ruimy, Member of Parliament. The theme for the 2017 gathering was Renewable Energies and the meetings focused on three subjects: Legislative Ecology of Climate Change; Interrogating New Renewable Energy Projects; and Renewable Energy and the Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Nexus.

INAUGURATION

The Gathering opened with welcoming remarks by Mr. Rolando González, Member of the National Assembly (Cuba) and Secretary of Commissions of Parlatino, thanking all the parliamentarians for their attendance to the vital gathering on climate change. Mr. Javier Ortega, Member of the National Assembly (Panama) and President of the Parliamentary Network on Climate Change of ParlAmericas, also greeted the delegates. Mr. Elías Castillo, Member of the National Assembly (Panama) and President of Parlatino, added in his own acknowledgements and gratitude to the attendees. Senator Marcela Guerra (Mexico), President of ParlAmericas, welcomed delegates and introduced the keynote speaker Dr. Gisela Alonso, former President of the Cuban Agency of Environment (Cuba) and United Nations Member of the High-Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

KEY NOTE ADDRESS

Dr. Alonso began her presentation by addressing the global issue of climate change and how it has been gaining significant worldwide attention. The major theme Dr. Alonso touched on was how countries can change their consumption patterns and work towards sustainability. She talked about the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). UNEP has become the leading scientific body on climate change and has prepared numerous special reports on the major risks and concerns caused by climate change, primarily extreme weather events. Dr. Alonso continued by highlighting the importance of the historic Paris Agreement and how for the first time, it emphasized the concept of adaptation; meaning that developed countries should enhance their technology, capacity-building support, and financing in order to better help themselves as well as other smaller or developing countries.

A core component of Dr. Alonso’s address was encouraging the delegates to truly invest their countries into Agenda 2030 (as introduced in the Paris Agreement) and new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). She spoke about how these were necessary to transform the way people think about the current model to combat climate change, which each country is then able to learn the new methods and in turn, revamp their environmental legislation. Furthermore, she talked specifically about worldwide levels of poverty and vulnerability, and the necessity to give priority to women, children and youth. Referencing Latin America, Dr. Alonso finished her address emphasizing the point that the region has the highest levels of income inequality in the world.

PANEL SESSIONS

Session 1 – Legislative Ecology of Climate Change: A Systems Perspective for Parliamentary Action

The first panel discussed sectorial national legislation and the relationship between the different parts of climate change. During the session, the panel looked at methods of creating synergy among various laws, which could help further adaption commitments and mitigation. This was done through calling on parliamentarians’ personal experiences and encouraging them to make climate change part of all future legislation.

Mr. Orlando Reyes, Researcher in the Climate Change Unit at the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) dedicated his presentation to public policy decisions regarding climate change. He stated that Latin America and the Caribbean produced 8.4 per cent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2013; he also stated that there needs to be climate change policies that have integrated the Intended National Determined Contributions (INDC) to national social, economic, environmental and legal policies in order to begin reducing GHGs. Furthermore, Mr. Reyes proposed a facilitator space for countries to allow legislation for INDCs leading to a regulatory framework that will target pollutant emissions.

Environmental lawyer and former climate change negotiator for Barbados to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Mr. Derrick Oderson (Barbados) focused on the legal implications of the Paris Agreement, as well as how to integrate renewable energy. First off, he spoke about the achievements that climate laws have brought about over the last 5 years. For a positive example, 75 per cent of global emissions are now part of emission reduction targets that are economy-wide, including how the amount of climate laws had doubled in 2014. To continue this trend, Mr. Oderson added that in order to implement the Paris Agreement on a national level, with enforced legislation, he believes there needs to be parliamentary approval of policies amended by the INDCs. This would lead to the strengthening of socio-economic development plans on a long-term basis and contributing to securer climate change laws.

Mr. Elliot Sucari, from the Department of Sustainable Development (Latin America) at the Organization of the American States, discussed the four main pillars on climate change. The pillars are democracy, human rights, security and development. These pillars represent guidelines that Mr. Sucari suggested should be followed, in order to have all states meeting sustainable development goals. This could be reached through appropriate governmental responses to the environment; if parliamentarians promoted the use of proper roles and responsibilities in legislature. This way the political process could better integrate laws, which have been recommended by the Paris Agreement and Agenda 2030. In regards to the Americans, he added that they had been working on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly an Inter-American Program for Sustainable Development (PIDS). PIDS would support disaster risk management, sustainable ecosystems and integrated water resources management, including renewable energy and capacity strengthening.

Session 2 – Interrogating New Renewable Energy Projects

In the second session experts turned the discussion to exploring what challenges countries faced when integrating a more sustainable system, through technologies and the renewable generation of energy. This also includes properly distributing clean energy through various social actors and ensuring that it goes to vulnerable groups. Experts on this panel directly looked at clarifying what the benefits, impacts, indicators and dimensions would be for new renewable energy projects.

Mr. Byron Chiliquinga, Manager of the Canada Cooperation Program at the Latin American Energy Organization (OLADE) (Latin America and Caribbean), discussed the region’s corporate social responsibility to its rural areas and the sustainable development projects currently underway. Guatemala has updated facilities like a cardamom drying facility, micro hydroelectric, including a revolving fund for families to start their own projects. Guyana and Bolivia were similarly recognized for starting new local energy systems. What needed to be focused on now was ensuring that rural areas were also recipients of enforced climate change policies that promoted renewable energy and provided assistance to remote communities. He added that there needed to be a special regulatory framework in place, to not just help these rural areas, but to ensure that the urgency of climate change affects and finding sustainable solutions is passed on to future generations.

Senior Evaluation Specialist, Independent Evaluation Office and Global Environment Fund, Mr. Neeraj Negi, spoke about his experience with the Global Environment Facility (GEF), an organization that has funded $4.7 billion into 1300 climate change projects. In Chile, GEF has invested millions of dollars into promoting capacity building and solar technologies, such as heating and energy. This helped reduce CO2 emissions and was beneficial to the people who resided in these areas. Mr. Negi then turned to businesses in Argentina, where the GEF is trying to implement biofuel technologies, which would assist renewable energy as part of a National Strategy for waste management. He found that the biggest factor of these programs was creating incentives for the peoples or businesses, including access to information, why these changes were important, and making budgets and achievements clear. He finished by explaining why it was necessary for parliamentarians to be aware of this, how to follow input and output indicators for supervision and oversight, while also making the results of public expenditure amounts clear.

Energy and gender was the theme of the presentation by Ms. Itza Castañeda’s, Gender and Sustainable Development Special Adviser at the Global Gender Office of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. She started by firmly declaring her commitment to ensuring that climate change legislation would first recognize, any possible gender implications. Next, she told delegates of her intention to oversee INDC’s legislative efforts and actions during the intervals amid the Conferences of the Parties until the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Ms. Castañeda also spoke about the level of poverty in Mexico in relation to energy, as 27.5 per cent of total households are in energy poverty. A home in energy poverty is one that is not able to reach its energy needs, restricting access to necessary economic goods and comforts. In remote areas of Mexico, lack of proper energy is even worse for women. She found that while Mexico’s NDCs have begun to implement gender equality measures, many National Policies regarding energy, do not. To begin this integration, Ms. Castañeda recommended that the private sector has to have a Social Impact Assessment (SIA) on gender, and have external members whose job is to find solutions to gender inequalities, such as in schools and clinics. Furthermore, she wanted the technical, institutional and legal barriers to be revamped in order to move towards equality between genders and proper integration.

Session 3 – Renewable Energy and the Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Nexus

The final session was focused on finding the best ways to reduce GHG emissions, either through social actors or changing current methods of elimination. In doing so, there could be a better review of climate change impacts, as well as discovering new ways for renewable energy to be generated through technologies. The panel experts primarily discussed how technologies needed to share their nexus and synergies by using hard examples, including what practices and methods could be undertaken when facing climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Mr. Gustavo Mañez, Regional Climate Change Coordinator (Latin America and Caribbean) at the United Nations Environment Programme and regional Gateway for Technology, talked about Latin America’s electric mobility opportunities. In 2050, the amount of vehicles on the roads is expected to triple, leading to higher levels of CO2 emission. Mr. Mañez found that global industry leaders had discovered that electrified, connected and automatized vehicles were most likely going to be the future, as they are not only more energy efficient, but longer-lasting. Currently, most of the sales of electric vehicles are in China, USA, Holland, Norway, UK, Japan and Germany. To push this, he suggested making incentives for other countries to market these alternatives instead. For example, Latin America has introduced fiscal and non-fiscal encouragements with the goal of endorsing electric vehicles. He also added that public transport has an extremely high contribution to CO2 emissions, despite the lack of travel efficiency: an example of this is local buses. When comparing the travel distance of a compressed natural gas (CNG) bus to an electric bus on 5 lt. of diesel, he found that the regular bus would travel an average of 8.6 km while the electric would manage 33.3 km. In lieu of this, Mr. Mañez created a roadmap that would lead to the acceleration of electric mobility. He suggested that to promote energy efficiency, countries would need to eliminate market distortions, create incentives, and develop infrastructure. He added that this would help reduce fuel consumption and emissions, encourage the adoption of electric mobility, and create new platforms.

Adaptation and mitigation was also a central theme of session three. Executive Director of Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano and Latin American Climate Platform (Latin America) Marianela Curi was the final panelist and spoke on integrated, sustainable development. Using two examples, she talked about Coca Codo Sinclair Ecuador, the largest Ecuadorian hydroelectric plant that adapted climate change policy measures not to reduce productiveness, but to lessen harmful effects. For instance, the current plants plan is to lower CO2 emissions each year by a planned 3.5 million tonnes. Another example was the Latin American Climate Platform, which supplies areas with programs and organizations committed to the fight against climate change in order to connect and to create a dialogue. Ms. Curi explained that these situations represented a mix of adaptation and mitigation, but not just within companies or programs but also on the level of parliamentarians. She added that their needed to be a multi-sectional dialogue in governance in order to draft effective legislation that would conserve ecosystems, protect vulnerable populations, strengthen political networks, generate awareness of climate change, and call on capable parties to lend a helping hand.

Closing Session and Final Remarks

The Parliamentary Network on Climate Change Renewable Energies closed their second gathering in Panama City recognizing that climate change is the biggest issue the world is currently facing, and that it can threaten anything from security to people. The Canadian delegates shared their efforts regarding renewable energy integration, ensuring that they were committed to creating legislature that would actively help climate change policies adapt and mitigate. This is based on the promises made to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate change and the goals adopted during the Paris Conference of the Parties (COP21). Furthermore, they saw the necessity in adopting SDGs in line with the Paris Agreement in order to assist small and developing countries in reaching and advancing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In finality, all the delegates formally asked that a framework or roadmap be formally drafted by the Parliamentary Network on Climate Change in order to have an adaptation and mitigation of climate change to officially move forward.

The Executive Committee of ParlAmericas PNCC finalized the second gathering in Panama with elections for the four vice-presidents. The results were as follows; for North America it was Member of Parliament Dan Ruimy (Canada); for Central America Member of Congress Sofía Hernández (Guatemala); for South America Speaker of the National Assembly Jennifer Simons (Suriname), and Member of the National Assembly Ana Belén Marín (Ecuador) as an alternative vice-president; lastly, the Caribbean elected President of the Senate Andy Daniel (Saint Lucia).

CONCLUSION

The Canadian Section of ParlAmericas is thankful for having been a part of the international conference. The discussions on climate change were extremely productive and gave Canadians the opportunity to play an active role in the conversation about climate change as well as learning what legislative actions parliamentarians can undertake to lower the emissions of greenhouse gases. The delegates of Canada would like to express their gratitude to the International Secretariat of ParlAmericas and the Latin American and Caribbean Parliament Headquarters for putting their time and effort in hosting such a lucrative gathering. The delegates would also like to acknowledge the Canadian Embassy in Panama City for its encouragement of the vital inter-parliamentary conference and for recognizing the significance of the event.

Respectfully submitted,

Hon. Robert Nault, P.C., M.P.

Chair

Canadian Section of ParlAmericas