Letter to a federal politician

By Past CACOR Chair, John Hollins
2019 January 4

Dear Fred,

During the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC in Katowice in December, a team of 80 scientists led by Corinne Le Quere, Director of the Tyndall Centre of Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia, UK anticipated that global emissions of carbon dioxide mainly from fossil fuel burning would rise 2.7 percent in 2018.  She said this signals a world “completely off course” in the fight against climate change.

Below you will find an interesting graphic from her statement, which shows the evolution of emissions of carbon dioxide by the major emitting countries from 1959 to 2017.  The title of this graphic refers to the rise by China from fourth place to first place.  Canada was in sixth place in 1959 and in 2017 it was tied in eighth place with Saudi Arabia and South Korea.

The most striking feature for me, however, is the continuous, unrelenting increase in global emissions (long established and presented here in an novel manner).

Now, Fred, I do not suggest for a moment that Canada should avoid doing its full moral part in seeking to reduce its emissions in the interests of life on Earth (all life).  Au contraire, I think that we should be much more competent in the way we do that.  But I do think that we should remove our rose-coloured spectacles, observe and understand what has happened and what is happening.  The top item on Canada’s agenda for global warming should be adaptation:  enabling the citizens of Canada to start preparing now to deal with inevitable change.

I am indebted to Jean Brasseur, a member of the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome, for drawing this statement to my attention through the CACOR-CLIMATE Google Group.