Finance
BC finance minister will retire following provincial election in fall
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British Columbia’s finance minister has announced she won’t be running again in the next provincial election after serving in the legislature for nearly two decades.
Katrine Conroy said it will be hard to leave the people she’s worked with over the years, but at 66, it’s time to step back to spend time with her family.
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Conroy has held several portfolios under the New Democrat government and said it’s too hard to settle on a “greatest accomplishment,” but she’s especially proud of her work to waive post-secondary tuition fees for former youth in care.
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She has also served as forests minister, and she thanked Premier David Eby and his predecessor, John Horgan, during the announcement on Friday, saying they “had the courage to appoint this rural woman to cabinet.”
Conroy was first elected in 2005 to represent West Kootenay-Boundary, then re-elected in 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2020.
She said one of her sons had reminded her that a Conroy had been on ballots in the region since 1986. That’s when her late husband Ed Conroy first ran as a school board trustee before he too served as an MLA between 1992 and 2001.
“That’s 38 years of our family supporting both of us in public service to our communities,” Conroy said at an announcement in Castlegar in the southern Interior, her voice faltering with emotion.
“I have been here as an elected official since (2005) and vicariously through my husband when he was an MLA for 10 years.”
In addition to finance, Conroy currently serves as minister responsible for the Columbia Basin Trust, Columbia Power Corporation and the Columbia River Treaty.
She said her work will continue until someone is elected to replace her.
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While the NDP were in opposition before the 2017 election, Conroy was the critic for seniors and Interior economic development, among other roles.
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Finance
World Bank drops climate finance target amid US pressure
The World Bank is ditching its commitment to steer 45 percent of its spending toward projects with climate benefits, after facing pressure from the Trump administration.
The move, announced Monday following a meeting of the bank’s board of directors last week, marks a victory in President Donald Trump’s effort to purge climate policies from U.S. foreign policy. His administration has described the target as “distortionary” and “nonsensical.”
The bank preserved its broader Climate Change Action Plan — of which the 45 percent target was a key metric — just days before it was set to expire at the end of June. In addition to directing money toward climate projects, the plan provides technical support for helping countries reduce their greenhouse gas pollution and adapt to rising temperatures.
“We will retire the 45% climate co-benefits target,” the World Bank Group said in a statement, noting that it had “done significant work in answering client demand and needs.”
The bank’s work on climate “is and will remain firmly client driven, supporting them in delivering on their own ambitions as set out in their national plans and NDCs,” the statement added, referring to the nationally determined contributions countries submit under the Paris Agreement.
The decision to drop the climate finance target follows months of pressure from the Trump administration. People with knowledge of the negotiations said the U.S. was firm that the target must go despite other countries indicating their support for the bank’s climate goal. The U.S. has sway over the bank’s decisions as its largest shareholder.
Beyond the finance target, the Climate Change Action Plan also provides diagnostic reports on countries’ climate and development goals and aims to align lending with the Paris Agreement, which calls for preventing temperature rise from surpassing 2 degrees Celsius since the Industrial Revolution.
The bank said it would honor a board request to undertake an independent evaluation of the climate plan to determine if it’s helping countries grapple with rising temperatures. The decision effectively extends the plan beyond its expiration at the end of June.
The climate target was supported by many of the bank’s shareholders. It’s also been a prominent signal of the bank’s support for climate action at a time when the impacts of rising temperatures are accelerating.
“This is way, way away from where we should be for a responsible financial architecture,” said one official from a developed country who was directly involved in the negotiations and was granted anonymity to describe internal discussions.
The bank will continue to track and report on the amount of money going to projects with climate co-benefits. It exceeded its own target last year by directing 48 percent of its financing to climate-related projects.
Other climate targets embedded in agreements that govern different arms of the bank will remain, including one for the International Development Association, the bank’s fund for the poorest countries.
Multilateral development banks play a key role in global climate negotiations, where wealthy countries have committed to helping provide $300 billion a year for poorer countries by 2035. That no longer includes the United States, which has left the Paris Agreement and will exit the underlying United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change early next year.
“Targets send enormous signals about an institution’s direction of travel,” said Clemence Landers, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. “At the same time, it’s a sign of the times and the World Bank is doing its level best to not rankle its largest shareholder.”
She believes the bank will continue financing renewable energy projects in countries that want them, despite having dropped its climate target.
“I wouldn’t be shocked if the bank continued to have an extremely robust clean pipeline with or without this target,” said Landers.
The bank says retiring the 45 percent target is part of its shift from a focus on “inputs to outcomes.” It will continue to monitor and report net greenhouse gas emissions across its projects and countries’ ability to withstand climate risks.
“We will continue to report to the Board on progress, including on climate co-benefits, and to contribute to our related joint MDB efforts,” the statement said, referring to its role as a multilateral development bank. “We will explore and discuss ways to better structure our engagement on adaptation, nature and pollution.”
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