Mr. Speaker, climate change is our most pressing environmental issue, perhaps the defining issue of our generation and will profoundly affect our economy, health, lifestyles and social well-being. It requires moral responsibility and intergenerational responsibility. How we respond will define the world our children and their descendants grow up in.
I spent the last 20 years of my life studying climate change, particularly the impact of climate change on human health. I had the privilege of serving as lead author on the intergovernmental panel on climate change for two reports and consulting to Environment Canada's climate adaptation impacts research group for many years.
It is for these reasons I spent four months building the first ever all party climate change caucus on Parliament Hill. During the Durban climate change conference, or COP17, I had the South African High Commissioner come and speak to the climate change caucus about the negotiations.
I was therefore extremely disappointed when the government refused to include opposition MPs in the delegation to Durban. For decades, Canadian delegations to international conferences have been understood to represent Canada, not just the governing party. The Conservative government broke this tradition in 2006 for COP12 in Nairobi. Opposition MPs were again included at COP14 at Poznan.
It was important to take part to reflect the voice of Canada, and not just quote, according to the Minister of the Environment, “a strong, stable, environmentally sensitive Conservative government”. I find the words “environmentally sensitive” extremely egregious, as that is the government that slashed the budget of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency by 43%, planned cuts to over 700 Environment Canada scientists, planned cuts to critical ozone monitoring and withdrew from Kyoto.
It is important that the Canadian delegation recognize that climate change is not just an environmental issue, it is also a human rights issue, the right to live. Climate change is also an international security issue and a justice issue; that is, the ones who are suffering most had the least responsibility for it.
We must listen to the leaders of small island states who remind us that climate change threatens their very existence. Recently the island nation of Kiribati became the first country to declare that climate change was rendering its territory uninhabitable and asked for help to evacuate its population.
In any struggle it is important to listen to the front lines. In the case of climate change, they are aboriginal peoples, those living in low-lying states and those living in the Canadian Arctic. If people are being meaningfully impacted by climate change, they should be meaningfully involved in negotiations. Governments must be accountable to those who are impacted. Tragically, Kiribati and the Maldives are the canaries in the coal mine. If the international community cannot save the front line first, it will not be able to save itself down the line.
In pulling out of Kyoto, the government abdicated responsibility to our global neighbours and to our children and grandchildren. The government appears to have no understanding of what is at stake for Canada or the world. Judging by its actions, it appears it has no appreciation that climate change is real, that it is happening now and that the chance of keeping the average warming to 2° Celsius associated with dangerous climate change is growing slim.