Date: December 20, 2018
From: John Greenwold, Director, Climate Change Policy Division
To: Administrative Services Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada
Subject: Travel Requirements for the Coming Year
Thank you for your rapid processing of my expense claims for my official travel from Ottawa to Katowice, Poland, to attend the 24th Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 24). The arrangements were perfect, the hotel very comfortable and the restaurants most enjoyable.
The purpose of this memorandum is to advise you of the travel arrangements that I will require over the coming year.
As you will have noted from the Minister’s statements, COP 24 was a great success. In fact, the Parties agreed to follow up that success with 16 more conferences over the next year in preparation for COP 25. As part of my responsibilities, I will attend all of these conferences. These include:
The World Summit on “Leaving No One Behind” in Geneva, Switzerland, February 7-8, 2019
The World Symposium on Climate Change and Tourism in Bariloche, Argentina, February 13-15, 2019
Africa Climate Week in Accra, Ghana, March 18-22, 2017
Second UN High-Level Conference on South-North Cooperation in Buenos Aires, Argentina, March 20-22, 2019
49th Session of the IPCC in Kyoto, Japan, May 14-18, 2019
2019 Refinement to the 2006 Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, location TBA, May 2019
UNFCCC Intercessional in Bonn, Germany, June 17-27, 2019
IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land, location TBA, August 16, 2019
IPCC Special Report on Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, location TBA, September 20, 2019
UN 2019 Climate Summit, New York, September 13, 2019
UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, New York, September 24-25, 2019
UN High-Level Dialogue on Financing for Development, New York, September 26, 2019
International Renewable Energy Conference, Seoul, Korea, October 23-26, 2019
31st Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol, Montreal November 4-8, 2019
Pre-COP, San Jose Costa Rica, October 2019
COP 25 (location TBA, but probably London, England) November 11-22, 2019
I estimate that 260,000 travel kilometres will be associated with these meetings, all of which will accrue to my Air Canada travel account, with the exception of those associated with the trip to Ghana in March, which I will delegate to my Assistant Director, Sheila Treehug. I will apply for travel advances on an as-needed basis.
As always, thank you for your cooperation.
Sincerely,
C. Leader
PS. Climate change is a MORAL issue. Please make it your priority.
I just want all this nonsense to stop. How can any sane person really think all these world conferences will accomplish anything! It’s like all the meetings to stop poverty – just feed the poor and stop all the meetings, mailings, feel good lunches and expense accounts of the few at the top!
Conference calls….have any of these elite climate changers heard of those? No carbon credits required to assuage their moral global trotting “guilt” charged to tax payers. Tax payers like my family who can’t afford one vacation out of country that requires a fight, a comfortable hotel and most enjoyable restaurants. Shame on our government spending our tax dollars so irresponsibly.
Please arrange to rent bicycles for my assistant and I to ride to vancouver and rental for a sailboat for us to go to the conferences. For the conferences that are land locked, please arrange bicycles for us at those ports as well. We have to do our part in minimizing carbon emissions. Thanks.