Canada is going in the wrong direction fighting climate change

SAANICH GULF ISLANDS, B.C.—In the midst of a pandemic, it is hard to keep a focus on anything else. When overlaying that pandemic, south of our border, we watch a gathering storm of race-based violence and white supremacy, unmasked on the faces of police officers in state after state, it is harder to keep a focus. The United States of America is no longer a safe place. And the ongoing recklessness of its president—whether in the face of COVID-19, or daytime murders of innocent and unarmed black men, or the climate emergency, Donald Trump makes the world less safe. Still, this issue of The Hill Times is giving us a rare chance in our spiralling crises to focus on those things that are falling through the cracks—like the planet. The recent decision to postpone the planned Glasgow climate negotiations from November 2020 to November 2021 is very bad news indeed. The Conference of the Parties (COPs) are annual. But some years are more important than others. Clearly, COP3 in Kyoto, COP 11 in Montreal, disastrous COP15 in Copenhagen, and successful COP21 in Paris were very important COPs. So too is the upcoming meeting. The year 2020 is the year designated in the Paris Agreement for a full review of existing targets with a requirement that countries accelerate their carbon reductions to meet the treaty’s goals—holding global average temperature increase to no more than 1.5 degrees C (as compared to pre-Industrial levels) or as far below 2 C degrees as possible. While the COP is postponed, the requirement that Canada submit a new target (called a nationally determined contribution—NDC—in UN-speak) is not postponed. The new target is still due in calendar 2020. On May 27, in the hybrid Parliament, I pointed out that the planet’s atmosphere hit an unprecedented 417 parts per million (ppm) that week. When I say “unprecedented” it is in the context of never seen over the last million years. This is cause for alarm. Meanwhile, one of the hottest places on Earth was inside the Arctic Circle at 30 degrees C. We must ensure that Canada at least doubles our nationally determined contribution this year. (See details at greenparty.ca by clicking on “Mission: Possible” for full details.) Meanwhile, Canada is going in the wrong direction. A study released May 26 found that of all the G20 countries, Canada is the worst offender of fossil fuels subsidies, reported The Energy Mix: “Canada has lavished at least C$13.8-billion per year in public financing on oil and gas projects since signing onto the Paris Climate Agreement, making it the fossil industry’s highest per capita source of public finance in the G20, and their second-largest overall benefactor after China, according to a blistering new report issued today by Oil Change International and Friends of the Earth U.S.” The crisis in loss of biodiversity continues while we focus elsewhere. A very worrying study demonstrated logging in British Columbia is jeopardizing the survival of caribou. Logging is continuing into critical caribou habitat despite the listing of caribou in the federal Species at Risk Act. University of Montana scientist Eric Palm, one of the study’s authors, said “It is dire. They’re going extinct and it is happening now.” Meanwhile, on our other coast, a coalition of conservation organizations took the Nova Scotia government to court for its multiple failures to act to protect endangered species. Justice Christa M. Brothers for the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, wrote: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not. " It may be The Lorax’s first judicial citation. Citing failures to act in the cases of the Wood Turtle, Canada Warbler, Ram’s-head Lady Slipper, Eastern Wood Pewee, Black Ash and Mainland Moose, Justice Brothers ruled, “... the minister has exhibited a chronic and systemic failure to implement action required under the ESA .” We can say that of all ministers administering various bits of endangered species legislation, whether federal or provincial. The whole system is failing. Species are going extinct. It is time for a fundamental reset to laws that work and ministers who will enforce them. But what of our pollution laws? Are we doing any better in that corner of Environment Canada? Tragically, things are no better there as inspections and prosecutions for air pollution and toxic chemical violations of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act are down—even as compared to the Harper era. During the negotiations for unanimous consent to keep Parliament functioning, Greens asked that the House Environment Committee be on the short list of committees back at work. No other party supported our request, and I wasn’t willing to deny and stop the billions of dollars of emergency aid to reach Canadians. But the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies cannot keep being put on hold. Elizabeth May is the MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C., and the Green Party parliamentary leader.