Honourable senators, I rise today to provide a brief report on my recent participation in COP 30, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil, situated in the lush — highly important to the people who live there and to our planet — Amazonia region.

At the official opening of COP 30, Brazilian President Lula da Silva said, “I hope that the serenity of the forest may inspire . . . all of us . . . to see what must be done.”

COP 30 was touted as the “COP of Truth,” the “Indigenous COP” and the “COP of implementation.”

Also attending were Senator Galvez, MP Patrick Bonin and ministers Dabrusin and Guilbeault.

COP 30 marked 10 years since the landmark Paris Agreement on climate, which covers climate change mitigation, adaptation and finance. Nations agreed to keep the global temperature down — to bend the curve on the rapidly rising warming trend and to limit it to below 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. The way to achieve this is for greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced, as soon as and by as much as possible.

Each country puts forward its specific commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions towards the global targets set in that agreement. Even with some progress made, 2024 was the hottest year on record, with a rise of more than 1.5 degrees in global average temperature.

At COP 30, I attended multilateral negotiations; hosted a panel on the Canadian Youth Climate Assembly; took in events on Indigenous Climate Leadership, the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change, Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems, accelerating climate finance for adaptation, the Youth Assembly on agriculture and energy transition; attended Canadian delegation briefings; participated in some of the Peoples’ Summit; and networked feverishly.

The growing momentum from much of the world, including the EU, China and much of the Global South, is towards a clean-energy-fuelled future; that was evident. But agreement on a Brazil-promoted road map to phase out fossil fuels was elusive, even though an agreement had been reached at COP 28 in Dubai, calling for countries to shift energy systems away from fossil fuels in a just and orderly fashion.

Colleagues, multilateralism was alive at COP, even if dangerously slow. There was action on the Global Climate Finance Accelerator, adaptation finance, technology implementation, just transition, investment targets for clean energy grids, and gender and climate change, among others.

Colleagues, the thing that gives me hope is the growing global human collective of talent, commitment and perseverance dedicated to urgently finding and implementing effective climate solutions, thus ensuring our future.

Wela’lioq.