Enviro Groups Call on Parties to Unite on Climate Action

In the wake of the federal election, Canada’s heavyweight environmental organizations are calling on all political parties to set aside their partisanship and work together to tackle the existential threat of climate change.

The organizations launched the No More Delays campaign as the ballots were counted and Canada’s minority Liberal government was announced.

The campaign calls on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to adopt progressive climate-change policies from different parties’ platforms within the first 100 days of government.

The four main demands are:

• End fossil fuel subsidies and stop all new fossil fuel expansion;


• Deliver a clear timeline for the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s Calls to Action;


• Pass Just Transition legislation to support moving towards a net-zero carbon economy; and


• Commit to a 60-per-cent reduction of CO2 emissions from 2005 levels by 2030. (Canada has currently committed to a 40- to 45-per-cent reduction in emissions by 2030).

“What we want is these parties to come together and work together to implement the most ambitious climate policies,” said Caroline Brouillette, domestic policy manager at Climate Action Network Canada, part of a global coalition of organizations combining efforts to take action against climate change. “Parties need to put aside partisanship and work together because the climate crisis demands it.”

Brouillette says the planet, and the people who live on it, can’t afford any delays, or politicians making promises and then not following through.

In addition to Climate Action Network, the campaign is backed by groups like Greenpeace, Stand.earth and Environmental Defence.

But will politicians heed the call?

Elizabeth May, Green MP for Saanich–Gulf Islands, says she’s in, but the plan could be more ambitious. May is the only Green MP in B.C. (and just one of two across Canada) after Paul Manly lost in his Nanaimo-Ladysmith riding.

At first glance, the No More Delays campaign mirrors the Green Party of Canada’s platform, but it stops short of demanding the country immediately cease all fracking and stop all fossil fuel expansion — including projects that are underway, like cancelling the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, May says. Calling for “new” projects to be cancelled creates a back door for the government to keep building projects that it’s already committed to, she added.

But it still holds some good ideas — ones that are necessary for the survival of the human species, she says.

For example, blowing past 1.5 C of global warming compared to pre-industrial levels — the “safe” limit for temperature rise outlined in the Paris Agreement — means the climate can get stuck in “self-accelerating global warming where anything humanity does will no longer make a difference,” May said.

Fighting against global warming is fighting against “mass extinction, including us,” she said. “The situation couldn’t be more dire.”

May says in order for all parties to work together, the federal government needs to “establish a war footing” against climate change so that regardless of which party is in power, all MPs understand what’s required of them to reduce global warming.

This would be similar to how the U.K. ran its government during the Second World War, she says. All government decisions centred on defeating Hitler.

Carla Qualtrough, Liberal MP for Delta, agrees the parties need to come together to tackle climate change, and says a cross-party climate cabinet would be a “good idea and necessary.”

“There’s a couple really important issues that need to transcend partisanship and climate action is one of them,” Qualtrough told The Tyee.

But there’s a ways to go before the parties agree on how to take on climate change.

Take the TMX, for example. Qualtrough says the pipeline is a “transitionary tool” that will help fund Canada’s shift to a more climate-friendly economy.

May argues the government should cancel the pipeline and transform the 100-per-cent federally owned corporation into a project that bolsters climate resilience. The machinery and labour hired to build the pipeline could instead be used to construct firebreaks for remote communities, plant trees or help build an inter-provincial power grid to share hydro electricity, she says.

May says a cross-party climate cabinet could be modelled after the U.K.’s Climate Change Committee, a body that helps the government create climate goals, reports on progress made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change, according to its website. May says the body is respected and independent.

Canada already has a somewhat-similar climate advisory body under Bill C-12, Canada’s Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, that advises the Minister of Environment on policy — but May says “it’s a joke.”

The U.K. Climate Change Committee “is a very different structure. It’s much more public, much more respected and has robust science capacity — none of that is true of the multi-stakeholder group created under C-12,” May said.

Perhaps a Canadian climate change committee could decide once and for all what Canada’s emissions reductions goals should be, which are another climate change pillar that the parties disagree on, she suggests.

The Greens were the only party to call for a 60-per-cent emissions reduction target below 2005 levels by 2030, which is the same target the No More Delays campaign calls for. The NDP proposed a 50-per-cent reduction, the Liberals 40-45 per cent and the Conservatives called for a 30-per-cent reduction.

Qualtrough says the Liberals are committed to a target that can be met, but there is always room to work with other parties and exceed those goals.

May pointed to the recent announcement by the United Nations that even if the world’s 191 countries hit their current climate goals, the planet will still warm 2.7 C by the end of the century.

During the election May says she heard a lot of criticism that the Green party’s platform was too ambitious. But judging climate plans on how easy they are to achieve would be the same as soldiers during the Second World War shrugging their shoulders and saying, “Well, we’re not sure if we can defeat Hitler, so let’s all learn German,” she says.

“One thing that we need to remember from [the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] is that 1.5 C of warning is not necessarily a safe place, but it’s the safest thing we can possibly hold on to right now,” May adds.

The Tyee contacted several Conservative and NDP MPs for an interview, but did not hear back by publication time.