AN OPEN LETTER TO PRIME MINISTER TRUDEAU
Dear Mr. Trudeau: Thank you for speaking up last December in Paris as a start to restoring Canada’s pathetic climate reputation (“Canada is back,” you said, after we spent way too many years in the world’s climate doghouse.) Then in February, you signed an agreement with all of Canada’s First Ministers to adopt an integrated national carbon price, a good first step, which we hope you will vigorously pursue. Then in March, you made a landmark deal with US President Obama to ‘drastically’ reduce methane emissions from our oil & gas industries.
Yet, despite these actions, time is getting brutally short if we want to avoid catastrophic, irreversible climate change. February 2016 was the first month that the average global temperature rose more than 1.5º Celsius compared to pre-industrial times, NASA reported. That’s the exact temperature limit all nations in Paris, including Canada, aimed to stay under. No one expected this to happen so soon, and it’s a terrifying milestone.
We support your boldest, most uncompromising actions to bring us back from the climate brink. If you ever need to muster more resolve, here are your three best reasons to be fearless: Xavier, Ella-Grace and Hadrien. Succeed for them, and the whole world – and all the kids – will thank you and remember you as a climate hero.
We have the tools and technology to get to zero carbon by 2050, or even sooner. Do we have the guts and gumption?
Sincerely,
Liz Armstrong
Liz Armstrong