We need emergency action — not rhetoric — to fight climate change

As the minister for the Environment and Climate Change, Mr. Wilkinson’s opinion is of national interest.

His rhetoric in this piece sounds as though he might understand the climate emergency we face.

After all, he uses words like "crisis", "emergency" and the "accelerating" climate crisis. However, what he has proposed in our new Climate Accountability Legislation does not indicate we are in a crisis at all.

While he suggests we will meet or exceed our 2030 target, that target in the legislation is one half of what Canada needs to accomplish by 2030.

The paltry 30 per cent reduction of GHG emissions by 2030 is the same target Harper had for us before the Paris Agreement in 2015. We do indeed face a crisis of huge proportion, and we do not have 10 years to get up to speed.

We need a 2025 target that we are accountable to meet.

Wilkinson’s opinion is a reduction of 50 per cent in methane pollution from oil and gas would be a worthy target for 2025. Why not have that in the legislation then?

Actually, a 50 per cent reduction in oil and gas extraction and burning would be a bolder, more worthy goal as any methane and carbon continue to accelerate the natural feedback loops that are starting to take hold, particularly in our North.

If we do not reduce our GHG emissions by 60 per cent for 2030, the planetary window for change will have closed. It is indeed a global crisis.

We need your emergency action, not your rhetoric, Mr. Wilkinson.