The UK’s Foreign Secretary William Hague and Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird met in London ahead of the London Conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade, and refreshed the UK-Canada Joint Declaration. We reported on the original Joint Declaration and Joint Innovation Statement in previous posts, and have been working hard over the past couple of years to deliver on the science/research goals.
The renew and refresh of this bilateral document covered a wide range of topics, but specific to science and innovation are:
We will continue to jointly promote the benefits of marine renewable energy and will strive to encourage two-way trade and investment in that sector. In the field of civil nuclear power generation, we will continue feasibility studies related to the disposal of UK plutonium and agree to assess the development of power generation based on alternative nuclear fuels. As world leaders in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, we will build on our close collaboration through a refresh of our 2008 bilateral joint statement on CCS in the coming year. Our energy companies lead on unconventional energy production and regulation, and our governments will continue to share information on regulatory processes and technical developments related to the exploration and development of unconventional resources such as shale gas, LNG and tight oil. We will continue to cooperate to promote global energy security through relevant international fora such as the International Energy Agency and through energy dialogues such as the Canada-Europe Energy Roundtable, including the application of advanced applications to mitigate environmental impacts and climate change.
We built on the work begun at the G-8 Muskoka Summit, producing the second comprehensive G-8 accountability report; the Canada-UK Colloquium of November 2013 also re-visited the Muskoka G-8 Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Initiative. We look forward to its report on ways in which we can work together to address the new realities in Global Health.
SIN Canada will be working on all of these priorities in 2014-2015! As always, more information as things happen.