Mr. Speaker, I am astonished that the parliamentary secretary thinks that the consensus statement of the world's scientists gathered in Canada, at a conference opened by former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, constitutes hyperbole.
When we look at the statements from our Minister of Natural Resources recently, when he said that “an end to the use of fossil fuels would have dire, if not catastrophic, global economic and social consequences”, we have to wonder if he has looked at any of the science or understands it at all.
He quotes often from the International Energy Agency, in fact in that same paragraph I just cited, but never quotes this. I ask the parliamentary secretary if she would say this is hyperbole. The same report cited over and over again by the Minister of Natural Resources claiming to say that fuels will be used well into the future states:
No more than one-third of proven reserves of fossil fuels can be consumed prior to 2050 if the world is to achieve the 2°C goal.
That is her government's target: to avoid 2°C.
The global experts and the International Energy Agency say, clearly, that two-thirds of all known reserves have to stay in the ground. That is not hyperbole. That is fact.