One Atlantic series: Bringing Climate to the Forefront with MEP Pascal Canfin and Congresswoman Kathy Castor

On February 19, 2021 the Meridian Corporate Council partnered with Corteva to host a virtual conversation with Congresswoman Kathy Castor (D-FL,14), Chair of the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis at the United States House of Representatives, and Member of the European Parliament Pascal Canfin, Chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, for a discussion on bilateral cooperation on climate issues. 

Pascal Canfin is a French MEP for the Liste Renaissance, part of the Renew Europe group. Canfin was elected to the European Parliament in 2009 and May 2019 and is the Chair of the Committee on the environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI). Cafin served as an MEP from June 2009 to May 2012 and again from May to July 2014. 

Rep. Kathy Castor (FL-14) is the chair of the U.S. House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, which unveiled its 500-plus-page Climate Crisis Action Plan in June 2020 to give Congress a roadmap for solving the climate crisis. In 2019, she was the lead sponsor of the Climate Action Now Act (H.R. 9), the first major climate bill to pass the House of Representatives in a decade. 

Throughout the webinar, Rep. Castor noted that the only way to ensure security for American workers and citizens is to form a green future that includes smart policies, strong legislative foundations, and partnerships across the public and private sector. Rep. Castor highlighted there will be 1 million jobs added to the auto industry through electric energy and 250,000 new jobs created to protect natural resources. MEP Canfin agreed with Rep. Castor and mentioned the EU’s Just Transition Fund which forms economic opportunities for coal dependent areas in Poland. Both speakers also emphasized the intersection between climate policy and the financial sector.  

Rep. Castor praised Janet Yellen’s commitment to appoint a climate—change czar, and MEP Canfin expressed that the EU is already streamlining its financial service sector by implementing a new regulatory framework that reassesses the national tax rates for climate and energy markets. MEP Canfin and Rep. Castor acknowledged that job loss is inventible during this green transition; however, they assured that the U.S. government and the EU Parliament are inventing a strategy for the most impacted laborers.