On his second day at the Summit of the Americas, PM Justin Trudeau and the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, announced they would sign a joint climate change memorandum.

“Today, California and Canada are elevating our joint commitment to combatting climate change, signalling our resolve to work together to advance and lead the way to a more sustainable and technologically advanced future…. Today, we take our climate change partnership to the next level,” lieutenant-governor Eleni Kounalakis said. She added there would be a new “Memorandum of cooperation on climate change between Canada and the state of California,” — which is being referred to as a Memorandum of Understanding.

She then beckoned Gavin Newsom onto the stage, who went on about his appreciation of Trudeau and jokingly said Trudeau would get California into the G7.

Funnily enough, as Trudeau was beckoned onto the stage by Newsom, a woman far in the background could be heard screaming something unintelligible. However, while unclear what was shouted, Trudeau began his speech visibly shaken, perhaps fearing another embarrassing protest.

“Today, as we launch our partnership to continue and deepen the work that we’ve been doing [sic] Canada and California on climate and nature, we’re building a team of almost 80 million people,” Trudeau said.

“This new partnership will see us work together on everything from protecting nature, driving investment and clean tech, [and] keeping single-use plastic out of our oceans. We’re also committed that Canada and California will bring together experts at UN climate week to drive progress on wildfires and forest resilience,” he continued.

“The bottom line is, we’re delivering what matters to people: clean air and people, good jobs, and a strong future that leaves no one behind.”

On his first day, climate change was also top of the agenda for Trudeau. Indeed, nearly as soon as he hopped off his private jet in California, he met with Barbados PM Mia Mottley to discuss it as well as “democracy.”

During a discussion at a photo op before the official meeting, Justin Trudeau announced that Canada and Barbados would co-chair the UN Secretary-General Special Advocates Group on Sustainable Development Goals.

“We know that those sustainable development goals face a significant setback because of COVID-19 and the COVID pandemic, but at the same time, they’ve become more important than ever before in terms of moving forward and supporting people,” proclaimed Trudeau.

This is highly ironic, as while Trudeau talks about climate change and sustainable development, he’s been jetting all over the world at taxpayers’ expense. At the same time, Canadians are stranded in airports, which are overwhelmed due to still-prevalent COVID requirements.

Mottley subsequently thanked Trudeau for coming, saying that Barbados has had a long-standing relationship both with Canada and the Trudeau family, specifically with Justin’s father Pierre, whom she remembers fondly.

However, things quickly took a much more serious turn, with Mottley saying that she wants to see is a new “world order that reflects equity and reflects opportunity of possibility for the least among us, for the most vulnerable among us.”

“That we fight these common battles now is something of great importance to us because we recognize, as a small island [as a developing state], even though within [a] multilateral system we have one vote, what we don’t have, regrettably, is a world order that reflects equity and reflects opportunity and possibility for the least among us, for the most vulnerable among us,” Mottley said.

“And therefore, for most, they don’t realize that this is a triple crisis that we face in the last few years: the common thread of the existential crisis of climate change… the crisis is the pandemic… and now we add to that, regrettably, the food and fuel crises that have literally started with the supply chain disruption in the pandemic but [were] exacerbated significantly with the war in Ukraine.”

She then said that this could lead to a debt and financial crisis before quoting Bob Marley.

The two plan to continue talks throughout the week.

Before Trudeau arrived in California, he participated in talks with US Defence Minister Anita Anand and promised to upgrade NORAD, reaffirming his $250 million pledge over five years to support NORAD modernization.

However, neither Trudeau nor Anand would speak about how the money would be spent or what a timeline for spending would look like.