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House Hansard - 92

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 20, 2022 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 92 - Jun/20/22
Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)
  • Jun/20/22 3:11:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the latest IPCC report advanced the clock on “too late”. To have any hope of holding to 1.5°C or even 2°C, global emissions must peak before 2025 and drop rapidly from there to roughly half by 2030. Net zero by 2050 will not make any difference without deep cuts before 2025. We are 30 months from too late. When we get back here in September, we will have 28 months, yet the government continues to approve fossil fuel expansion. Who would care, in this place, to explain this madness?
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Context: House Hansard - 92 - Jun/20/22
Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)
  • Jun/20/22 11:48:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to pursue a question I put to the Prime Minister on April 6, which was two days after a quite devastating report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It was from working group III, in the sixth assessment report. What that report told me when I read it was that we have less time than I thought, because the timeline for action to avoid going above 1.5°C or even holding to below 2°C was shortened considerably. I asked the Prime Minister, two days later, whether anyone had briefed him on this new documentation from the IPCC and whether he understood how rapidly the window on 1.5°C was closing. Unfortunately, in the Prime Minister's answer, he revealed that he had not been briefed, not possibly. The answer he gave was the usual response, that the government is doing a wonderful job. He said that we have put forward a very comprehensive plan and that we are committed to reducing emissions and will reduce them “by 40% from 2005 levels in the next eight years.” That statement alone confirmed that no one had briefed him, or if they had he chose to reject the advice, because saying that we have a “doable and concrete” plan is not the same thing as saying that it is adequate. I am going to do something I probably should not attempt to do at midnight in this place, which is read from the “Summary for Policymakers”, give a reference to the paragraph and page, and decipher some fairly impenetrable language so if the Prime Minister or his staff should happen to watch this late show, maybe they will understand that they are proposing a plan that does not preserve any hope of holding to 1.5°C. Paragraph C.1, on page 22, working group III, sixth assessment report, from April 4, states, “Global GHG emissions are projected to peak between 2020 and at the latest before 2025 in global modelled pathways that limit warming to 1.5°C...and in those that limit warming to 2°C...and assume immediate action.” I have to explain that the way the IPCC writes is somewhat impenetrable. It is not projecting something that will happen. The sentence would make more sense if it was reversed. What the IPCC is saying is that all the models it has worked through, all the pathways it has found that hold to 1.5°C or 2°C require that “between 2020 and at the latest before 2025” we begin to see a total drop in emissions, so the word “peak” is to suggest that no later than “before 2025” total greenhouse gas emissions must begin to drop and the highest level they ever achieve must be before 2025. This is seriously concerning, because going above 1.5°C or 2°C is not a political target. We cannot negotiate with the atmosphere. The physics and chemistry of the atmosphere tell us, from the best peer-review process of science in the history of the world, the IPCC, that we have to ensure that greenhouse gas levels begin to drop by then or the window on holding on to a livable world will close, and close forever. It does not reopen. I repeat: Going above 1.5°C or 2°C is not a political target. It is about whether global climate systems remain hospitable to our species. If we exceed those, our children may be condemned to an unlivable world.
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