LETTER

Getting to Paris target requires more rapid transition off fossil fuels

 

A leaked summary on February 21 of the upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on the pathway to 1.5 degrees C provides clear warning that Trudeau's climate policy is wholly inadequate. In Paris in 2015, the IPCC was instructed to report in 2018 on what emission reduction trajectories would be required to meet the Paris target. It was clear in December 2015 that the totality of all governments' promises, if achieved, would blow past 1.5 to as much as 3.5 degrees C. This leak provides confirmation that the situation has worsened. "This summary makes clear that we are about to plumb the depths of the worst effects of climate change if we do not immediately adopt a fossil fuel phase-out policy, along with implementing atmospheric CO2-sucking technology, in order to have any hope of limiting global temperature increase to less than the 1.5C that our government has committed itself to," argued Richard Zurawski, meteorologist and Green Party of Canada Climate Change Critic. Environment and economy do go hand in hand, but only when the decisions support both; not when they are mutually inconsistent," concluded Ms May.

Debra Eindiguer

Ottawa