Canada and the EU sign up to a ‘Green Alliance’ to slow global warming

Meeting at an EU-Canada summit in St John’s, Newfoundland on Friday EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the alliance will “help us reach our net zero goal.”

The EU has signed up to Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau’s Global Carbon Pricing Challenge which seeks to increase carbon pricing to 60% of global emissions by 2030.

Carbon pricing is essentially a tax that carbon emitters pay to offset the damage they are doing by heating up the atmosphere.

The world is attempting to keep the global rise in temperatures to less than 1.5C and the EU and Canada says they’re aiming to become climate-neutral by 2050.

“On green issues, we’ve been aligned for so long with the European Union in knowing that the economy and the environment don’t just have to go together, they do go together,” Trudeau said.

The EU and Canada also agreed to accelerate the global phase-out of fossil fuels and end the construction of new coal-fired power. 

And they will attempt to decarbonise the transport sector across all modes of transport, with a focus on road transport, aviation and shipping. 

The EU-Canada Green Alliance is only the third agreement of its kind, following the EU-Norway Green Alliance signed in April 2023 and the EU-Japan Green Alliance signed in May 2021.