Mr. Speaker, the government is failing Canadians and future generations. Adaptation costs by 2050 will be $21 billion to $43 billion. Young Canadians will not be able to afford that.
I had the privilege of consulting the department the parliamentary secretary is supposed to defend and I served on the intergovernmental panel on climate change, which shares the 2007 Nobel Prize.
The government should accept the science of climate change and table a comprehensive climate change plan. Rather than its sector-by-sector approach playing on the fringes, it should commit to attaining its greenhouse gas emission reduction goals that are supported internationally, which is the 17% below the 2005 level, and commit to keeping global warming to 2°C, which is associated with dangerous climate change.
Again, Canadians simply cannot afford the crippling climate change adaptation costs of $21 billion to $43 billion with which the government is saddling them.