Climate change is by far the greatest existential threat ever faced by humankind. The housing crisis, homelessness and poverty are indeed real problems (more signs of uncontrolled corporate greed), but The Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)) feels they pale in comparison to climate change’s overwhelming and immediate threat to a livable global future.
Britain’s Guardian newspaper recently reported that several hundred climate scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) now expect at least a 2.5 C average surface temperature increase in a world where there is widespread agreement that this threshold should not exceed 1.5 C. For the past four years, it has averaged 1.2 C. For 2023 alone, this rose to 1.4 C.
The Guardian goes on to note that these scientists feel hopeless, infuriated and scared. They believe that government inaction will inevitably lead to more frequent, intense and longer lasting heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, floods and storms within this decade. This will in turn lead to increased famine, conflict and mass migration.
In Canada, the blame must be placed squarely on the shoulders of all three federal political parties.
- The Liberals declared a National Climate Emergency on June 17, 2019. The very next day, they again approved the Trans Mountain pipeline. Their nine years in power have been marked by a continuing series of contradictory steps, punctuated by ongoing inaction. Their recent raising of the capital gains tax for high income Canadians is a step in the right direction but it can hardly be titled “fairness for every generation” when our children’s future is imperilled by global climate change.
- The Conservatives’ proposed solution to climate change is to “axe the [carbon] tax”, even though the Bank of Canada notes that, with its rebates, this tax is responsible for only a 0.2% increase in inflation, and even though the vast majority of economists defend this step as the single most effective way to reduce fossil fuel emissions.
- The New Democrat Party has squandered its leverage of the minority Liberals with its unilateral focus on funding for a dental care plan. Excuse me, but what’s the point of such a plan if our planet is going to hell in a handbasket? And, shame on the NDP for not stoutly defending the Canada Carbon Rebate. There’s far too much political posturing going on at the expense of ensuring a livable future.
This is a massive wake-up call for our federal political parties. You MUST make fighting climate change your number one priority, and you MUST assume a proactive leadership stance whereby you educate the Canadian public on the absolute necessity of responding immediately and in an ongoing fashion to this existential crisis. If you decisively lead, I believe the public will follow.
You must also make a firm commitment to “move the money.” Tax the colossal profits of fossil fuel companies ($38 billion in 2022). Stop paying fossil fuel subsidies (18.5 billion last year; that’s $600 per Canadian taxpayer!) Put these funds into green infrastructure grants, including a revived Canada Greener Homes Grant.
Human-caused climate change is the elephant in the room. Virtually everyone knows it exists and that it is critical. But we don’t talk about it, because we are unsure what to do and we are distracted by a myriad of daily concerns. We must change this. We must speak up. We must demand immediate, far-reaching and sustained action from our elected officials.
Grant Linney lives in Dundas. He will reach his 999th presentation on climate change next month.