The Canadian government’s baby steps toward solving the climate crisis are “embarrassing,” noted environmentalist David Suzuki said Monday while expanding on the crude criticism he leveled during a federal announcement last week.
“We are the only G7 country that has not reduced our greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels,” Suzuki told CTV News Channel’s Power Play.
“We haven’t even capped our emissions. We’re 20% above our 1990 levels, and we’re saying we’re leaders? How could we be leaders with that kind of record?”
Suzuki was waiting for a seaplane in downtown Vancouver on Friday when he came across a news conference with Tourism Minister Randy Boissonnault, who at one point remarked on the scenic waterfront view of the Coast Mountains north of the region.
“If a picture is worth a thousand words, today’s view is worth a million,” said the minister.
Suzuki was put off by the comment, noting that the view was obscured by thick smoke from several nearby wildfires, prompting an air quality advisory for much of Colombia’s Lower Mainland. -British.
Those hazy skies remained through the weekend and all day Monday, as did abnormally hot and dry weather that brought drought conditions to many parts of the province and tipped dozens of daily temperature records. in various communities.
“Fire season normally ends in September,” Suzuki told Power Play’s Mike Le Couteur. “The environment that is this great attraction that we are touting is under threat.”
When the federal announcement of $1.2 million in new tourism funding ended and a government staffer opened the microphone for questions, Suzuki decided to take the stage — delivering several swear while accusing officials of failing to act on climate change.
“It was just an opportunity that presented itself. I happened to be there,” he said.
Suzuki lamented that climate change remains a partisan political issue in Canada, underscored Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre’s commitment to revoke the carbon tax, and envisioned a government of elected leaders who could rally to the cause as they did at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“All parties have come together and acted as we should in an emergency,” he said, adding that current and future impacts of climate change should be treated equally.
“It’s an emergency.”
Continuing his criticism of the federal government, Suzuki noted that Canada’s approval of the controversial Bay du Nord offshore oil megaproject in Newfoundland in April came just days after UN Secretary-General António Guterres called investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure “moral and economic folly”. “
Continued support for the fossil fuel industry cannot be outweighed by what Suzuki described as minor progress toward solving the problem.
“A tax increase here, an incentive there, a little park here, those are increases,” Suzuki said. “We need to start reducing our greenhouse gas emissions very quickly – not net zero by 2050, right now.”