moved:
That this House do now adjourn.
Madam Speaker, we have a choice, as elected officials, when confronted with a difficult and complicated issue like climate change. We can lead or we can follow. We can take evidence seriously and communicate the need for action to our communities, we can work to change minds in pursuit of the public good, we can spend our energy building the necessary political will to do what is right or we can do what is easy: we can dismiss experts, embrace populism and attack evidence-based solutions without offering any alternative of our own. We can do what is easy for electoral gain or we can fulfill our responsibilities as trustees in the public interest and do what is difficult because it is right.
I am going to quote an American. On September 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy said the following about going to the moon:
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win...
The same leadership is required now. We require that same willingness to spend significant time and resources to accomplish great things.
In contrast, here is what we heard from the current president on 60 Minutes this weekend:
I think something's happening. Something's changing and it'll change back again. I don't think it's a hoax, I think there's probably a difference. But I don't know that it's man-made. I will say this. I don't wanna give trillions and trillions of dollars. I don't wanna lose millions and millions of jobs. I don't wanna be put at a disadvantage....
I'm not denying climate change. But it could very well go back. You know, we're talkin' about over millions of years.
He went on to question the consensus among scientists that we should be concerned with human-caused global warming, stating that scientists have a very big political agenda. This is a failure of leadership. I highlight the lack of American leadership today because Americans have historically helped to lead our world in so many important ways. If we do not have committed American leadership, if we do not have America helping Canada to lead the world on this issue of climate change and tackling climate change, we face serious challenges in confronting this.
Of course, we face similar challenges of leadership here in Canada, too. Conservative Premier Doug Ford has recently said that he has heard from people across Ontario and from out west and he wants the Prime Minister's hands out of their pockets. This is a failure of leadership and, frankly, it is wilful blindness toward the evidence. Any Conservative MPP who supports this attack on evidence-based decision-making on the most important issue of the day should be ashamed of themselves.
We have a failure of leadership in this House, too, when we talk about the importance of climate change and the fact that a Nobel Prize winner in economics, William Nordhaus, won it for his support of carbon pricing, of putting a price on pollution. We have the Conservative opposition, not to a person because there is some leadership on this side but almost to a person, saying the carbon tax is a tax grab and the price on pollution is a tax grab.
I went to six schools this past week, elementary and high schools in the area, and I thanked the students of Bowmore, George Webster, East York, Malvern and Neil McNeil. When I asked them if those causing damage to our environment should have to pay for the damage they cause, everyone said they obviously should. When I asked if someone profiting from an activity and imposing the costs of that activity on the rest of us should be the one who pays, they said of course.
It is not just the kids who say this. Every economist, climate scientist, everyone who has studied this issue all say the same thing: we need to address the negative externality of polluting. We need to make sure that the cost of polluting is paid for by the polluter. We need to make sure a price is put on this to address the market failure. Yes, a carbon price, a price on pollution is the conservative way to address climate change. It is the most fiscally responsible way to address climate change. It is the market mechanism through which we can most effectively address climate. However, do not take it from me or the kids at Bowmore; take it from the 2018 winner of the Nobel Prize in economics and his lifetime of work.
I do not want to spend any time tonight just talking about one particular solution because, frankly, when I read that IPCC report and the importance of getting to one and a half degrees, my takeaway is that we need to talk about the problem. I think the problem is obvious. The kids in those classrooms think the problem is obvious. However, not enough Canadians clearly think that the problem is obvious. Certainly not enough people in this House think that the problem is obvious. We need to change that.
We see the chairs of the IPCC working groups say that this is a problem of political will. We know that the science is there and we know that we can go to the moon, as it were. I referenced John F. Kennedy, except that the difference is that going to the moon was a choice. We have no choice but to tackle climate change, and that is so clear in this recent report from the IPCC and thousands of scientists around the world.
We need to talk about the problem more because we have individuals in this House who say our solution is not any good without offering any solution at all. They clearly do not understand the significance, the importance and the nature of the problem. Thus, we need to talk about the problem and expand our efforts.
I cannot think of a more important issue to spend our efforts on addressing. We need to spend our efforts building the necessary political will. We need to show leadership. We need to say, yes, this is a difficult problem and that we are going to spend our time as leaders of our communities and of our country educating Canadians who do not understand the problem and do not understand the potential solutions while building the necessary political support for doing what is right.
We heard Debra Roberts of the IPCC say that over the next few years, not waiting until 2030, not waiting until 2045, and not waiting decades into the future, but that the next few years will be the most important in human history because the decisions we make now as political leaders on the issue of climate change will affect generations to come. I heard Jim Skea, another co-chair of the IPCC working group, say, “We know that the physics are there. We know that the chemistry is there. We know that the science is there and the final tick box is political will”.
If anyone in this House has kids or grandkids and cares about future generations, how is it that we can hear the clarion bell from scientists around the world from many different countries? The consensus from the scientific community is loud and clear.
We can see that the final tick box is political will. We stand or sit in this House and fail to take the necessary action to build that political will. Anyone who fails to take the steps necessary to build that political will is not doing their job in this House. They are taking the easy way out. They help by attacking the carbon tax in “axe the tax” because it rhymes, it might win an election and it is easy to sell. They should be ashamed of themselves.
This is so important not just to our generation. The IPCC report tells us that will see major changes. There are huge differences between one degree, one and a half degrees, two degrees or the disastrous three degrees that we are currently on pace for, major differences. This is not an “all or nothing” approach.
However, there is an idea that Canada plays a small role with a small number of emissions or that we have a high level of per capita emissions but we are such a small percentage of the total pie that we should not do anything. We are not going to be successful anyway, so what is the point? The future generations are the point. Every step we take to reduce a tonne of emissions will matter. We should do everything that we can reasonably do over the next few years, which are the most important in our history, to change this conversation and to frame this debate in the right way so that we can do what is right.
It is so frustrating. At the end of the day it comes down to political leadership and there just is not enough of it. We are in short supply.
It is incredibly important that we are having this debate tonight so that Canadians can see that some political leaders care. There are still members of the government willing to stand up and say that climate change is real and we are going to use the most efficient and effective method of tackling climate change because that is not only what the climate scientists tell us, that is what every expert who has studied the issue tells us. We running out of time. The IPCC report says that in a worst-case scenario we will face disastrous consequences if we continue on the pace that we are on by 2030, which is in 12 years.
Seeing what I have seen, the lack of leadership from the other side and the attack on basic steps, like putting a price on pollution as the government from the other side has tried to do, I can say that if we do not change the conversation now, we are going to wake up in 2025 or 2028 on the precipice of this disaster and we are simply not going to have done enough. Have we done enough today? I think the answer is absolutely no.
Over the last three years we have made significant strides toward tackling the most pressing issue of the day, not only for our country but for our world. I have talked about a lack of political leadership. However, we have had leadership in B.C. that has put a revenue-neutral price on pollution years ago. All it takes is us seeing what works, making that a rule for the rest of the country and, if the Nobel Prize winner in economics had his way, making that a rule for our global community.
Here is a quick rundown of some of the reasons for us to be optimistic: a price on carbon, a price on pollution; important investments in public transit, green infrastructure and clean energies; stringent rules on methane; and the phasing out of coal. These are all important steps, yet we are working with targets right now that are themselves insufficient to do the job. That is the fundamental point of this report, which is to say that the government, as political leaders, has to make sure that the target it is working toward is the right one. We have to not just hope for but have to work toward that 1.5° with a concrete plan if we want to stave off the worst of climate change.
What does that mean? What is it that we must do to do our part? For starters, it is the Paris Agreement. Yes, it is important that we entered into the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement contemplates that a country has to revisit the nationally determined contribution every five years. I would say in the wake of this report, the largest clarion bell from the science community is when scientists who are part of this report say that if there is any takeaway for people from this report, it is that this is an urgent issue to deal with, and that there is a sense of urgency. That is what I want political leaders to take away from this report. Therefore, if we are acting on that sense of political urgency, we need to make sure that our targets are consistent with that 1.5°, and that tomorrow no one is snapping their fingers and saying that we are fossil fuel free. It is an impossibility. We need to make sure we are on a trajectory to not only meet our current targets but to meet the targets and do our international, our intergenerational and our moral part by doing our part in the world.
Faced with the idea that we can walk away from doing what is right for not only ourselves but for the global community and future generations, we have to draw a line in the sand and say enough is enough, the science is there, enough of the political games, enough of the political attacks on good ideas and experts, that we stand with those who have studied the issue, we stand with scientists, we stand with the evidence, and we are going to act on the evidence in the best interest of our world.
What can we do beyond setting targets? I think the report is an important document, not only for stressing the urgency of the problem but for setting a pathway toward solutions. We know that transportation is a major issue that needs to be dealt with. The current government has to introduce a zero-emission vehicle strategy that is on par with world leaders like California. It has to tackle retrofits for buildings. If the provinces are walking away from the responsibility of providing incentives to homeowners and commercial landowners to retrofit their buildings to make sure they are resilient and there is no energy leakage, we as a government have to fill that void, be the political leaders in Canada, and make sure that there are programs so that homeowners and commercial landowners are doing their part in changing and upgrading their buildings.
We need to recognize that our own consumption habits make a huge difference. I know that no one is going to become vegan tomorrow because of the speech I give tonight, but I will say this. When I look at the reports of the impact of our diets on climate change, over 20% of the total greenhouse gas emissions are caused by livestock and agriculture. It is about 15% from livestock alone. Someone who consumes 100 grams of meat a day on average makes a two and a half times impact on climate change than someone who consumes a plant-based diet.
We all need to change our consumption habits if we care about future generations and doing our part in this world. Yes, it is mainly about governments but it is also about citizens. We are all in this together and we need to act as if we are in this together.
Scientists have been calling on political leaders to act for a very long time. In 1992, the Union of Concerned Scientists, composed of more than 1,700 independent scientists including the majority of living Nobel Laureates, wrote “1992 World Scientists' Warning to Humanity”:
A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided.
Fast forward to December of last year. Over 15,000 scientists from over 180 countries wrote a second warning to humanity:
Since 1992, with the exception of stabilizing the stratospheric ozone layer, humanity has failed to make sufficient progress in generally solving these foreseen environmental challenges, and alarmingly, most of them are getting far worse. Especially troubling is the current trajectory of potentially catastrophic climate change due to rising GHGs from burning fossil fuels, deforestation, and agricultural production—particularly from farming ruminants for meat consumption
Further on they state:
As most political leaders respond to pressure, scientists, media influencers, and lay citizens must insist that their governments take immediate action as a moral imperative to current and future generations of human and other life.
This past week we have another report from thousands of scientists saying that time is running out. We only have a runway of a few years to change course now so that we make those long-term planning decisions, so that by 2030 we are at a place where we are going to have a cleaner economy and we are going to be able to meet that 1.5° target.
I started with two quotes from American presidents, one good and one disastrous. If the Americans are unwilling to lead on the world stage, then that has to be Canada's role and we cannot lead on the world stage unless we take action at home.
If nothing else comes from this emergency debate, I hope for two things.
The first is that those following this debate at home will recognize that we have to talk about the problem more, with our neighbours and with our communities. We have to recognize the scope and importance and urgency of this problem if our political leaders are going to act, because at the end of the day, from what I have seen in the House, people will follow as citizens demand it, and we need citizens to demand it. We need citizens to ask for greater leadership from those in the House of Commons.
The second takeaway is those of us on this side of the House see a failure of leadership from the Conservative Party on this issue, but it is not all Conservatives. Mark Cameron, Preston Manning, and I could list a number of Conservatives who believe in market principles and pricing carbon but the current Conservative leader does not believe in that evidence and not enough people on that side are standing up to say they believe in evidence and that they are going to stand with the evidence and they are going to stand with the scientists.
If we are going to see a failure of leadership on that side, then we need to double down on this side and say that doing the right thing is more important than doing what is politically expedient.
When thousands of scientists around the world are saying now is the time to act, here is the pathway for action, and if we do not act there will be dire consequences, then it is up to us to be the political leaders. It is up to us to educate Canadians about the scope of the problem, the importance of the problem, the urgency of the problem, the solutions to the problem and make sure we act far faster and much more immediately than we currently are.