Hello, an thank you for being here today at such a momentous occasion for the future of our planet.

As the representative of Canada, I am here to present some ideas that the G7 should consider in
order to slow down or eventually stop the problem that this world is facing with climate change and
its waters. What are those problems you may ask? As you may have known, this world’s main crisis
at the moment is coronavirus, and its as impacted our lives immensely, but on the topic of climate
change, this year carbon emissions have fallen dramatically due to lockdowns that have cut
transport and industry severely. In contrast, the waste that has been produced by the pandemic with
all the PPE that has been thrown away and eventually ending up in the oceans, affecting our marine
life and ecosystems. This not only affects marine life, but us too, as sea animals think that plastic is
food, and consume it, entering the food chain, and if consumed by us then we consume the plastic
too, eventually creating health problems.

A simple solution can be to reduce the amount of plastic that is used in products or increase prices
of plastic products to reduce the use of it and decrease the chance of it getting in our oceans.
However, the main idea proposed by Canada is to create marine protected areas around coastal
countries. Even if the idea sounds simple, this may be suitable for countries of our stature with the
economic development that we are privileged to have. At first, money can be invested to create
marine protected areas with marine scientists guiding us to work out areas that need to be
protected, and others that may be needed for fishing. These areas are then put in place and cleaned
if plastic is present, and will be protected for years to come. Canada aims to protect at least 30% of
its coast by 2025. However, in order to properly solve the problem with our oceans, we need to
impose marine protected areas to other countries. However, this is where economic input is needed
by other countries to support underdeveloped countries that are in debt and need to protect their
coasts. This can still be done by having government support, and the money that is needed.

With our government input and investments from TNC’s such as the Nature Conservancy can
restructure the debt. If investors put in 40 million dollars into the project, it can unlock as much as
1.6 billion for ocean conservation for the country in the future as things develop. By negociating
coastal nation commits to protect at least 30 percent of its ocean areas, and in exchange, TNC’s
bring investors, public funders and organizations to the table to restructure a portion of the nation's
debt, leading to lower interest rates and longer repayment period. A marine plan can be created,
and eventually, the areas can develop economically and also protect the coasts. The bleached corals
of coastal countries can be regenerated to create O2, and oceans can be cleaned. This not only helps
our planet long term, but also can economically develop in the future, but all with the help of
Canada, and other G7 countries. I hope you can consider this solution that Canada is proposing, and I
hope that you are on board with this idea.

Thank you for listening.