Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge 16-year-old Sierra Robinson and the Cowichan Valley chapter of Earth Guardians. They are organizing a youth climate strike for action in my riding today. An environmental consciousness is awakening in Canada's youth, who are increasingly looking at the threat of climate change and to their future on this planet.
Human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are warming our planet, and our current trend will see us arrive at an increase of between three and five Celsius degrees by the end of this century. The ecological and economic consequences of this warming will dwarf anything and everything humans have ever faced during our time on Earth.
Unfortunately, our federal government, through its continued subsidies to oil and gas and its purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline, is not meeting the expectations of our youth.
We have the skills, the technology and the know-how to make a transition to the renewable energy economy of the future. We just need the political will to make it happen.