Canada’s climate pledges still falling short as timeline to limit warming narrows: May
Global News
'Canada's commitments fall far short of what the science requires,' said Elizabeth May on the heels of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.
Canada is still falling short on the amount of drastic environmental action that is needed to limit global temperature increases amid a narrowing timeline, says former Green Party leader Elizabeth May.
In an interview with The West Block‘s Mercedes Stephenson, May reflected on the “laundry list” of pledges announced or re-announced by the federal government at the COP26 climate summit over the past two weeks, and warned the current commitments will not be enough.
“Canada’s commitments fall far short of what the science requires,” she said, pointing to the message from United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that a vital global goal is now “on life support.”
“It requires more cuts than we have now committed to doing as a nation, and the collectivity of nations aren’t there yet.”
The core goal in question is the pledge under the Paris Agreement to “limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.”
The idea behind that is while many of the impacts of global warming global are now irreversible, the most damaging can still be prevented and mitigated by limiting the increase of the global average temperature to around 1.5 Celsius.
May’s comments came as the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, ended and as the world has borne the brunt of increasingly costly and devastating environmental disasters over the last several years in the form of wildfires, droughts, floods and severe weather events in many different forms.
“The impacts for the planet as a whole, if we go to two degrees, are quite substantially more dangerous than if we can hold to 1.5 degrees,” she said, adding Canada can still become an energy superpower. “But it’s going to be solar and it’s wind and it’s geothermal and it’s tidal.”