Canada publicly declared a 2 degree C rise in the planet’s temperature “unacceptable” but it is putting all of its resources at the Bali climate change conference into wrecking the process said Hans Verolme, director of WWF’s Global Climate Change Programme.
“What they are doing here will will get us 4 degrees C” of global warming, said Verlome at a press conference today from Nusa Dua on the island of Bali, the site of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference running until Dec. 14
Anything above two degrees scientists term “dangerous”. Indeed, even at 2 degrees the IPCC says we have just a 50-50 chance of avoiding dangerous climate change.
Canada and Japan seem to be playing the US card of doing nothing he said.
And yet on Monday Dec 3, Environment Minister John Baird made a speech in Canada’s House of Commons: “a rise of 2° in the Earth’s temperature as a result of human activity contributing to global warming, simply put, is unacceptable.”
“I don’t understand Canadian politics,” said Verolme.
Related stories:
Canada’s Shocking Environmental Decline
Destroying Canada’s Boreal Forest for America’s Oil
Stephen Leahy, International Environmental Journalist 
Canadian politics are no longer simple. After years of bumbling prime ministers, Canadians are willing to believe that a smooth-talking prime minister like Steven Harper – who seems to at least be capable of doing “something” – is a genuinely good guy.
Unfortunately, Canadians have turned into Americans when it comes to politics and they no longer seem to care about what their leaders are actually doing. Sure, there is a *highly* vocal minority, but the problem is that Canadians have largely fallen for a two-party system like in the States; the problem is that one of those two parties has just lost a great deal of their respect and so there is really one party left. I’m sad to say that my fellow Canadians can no longer be counted on as anything more than “Americans, lite”.
So, when you hear about Canadians “wrecking” initiatives, remember that you are no longer talking about Canadians. You are talking about slightly gentler Americans, who only believe they are different. Why? Because that’s the only thing that gets them politically excited – not being Americans. The problem is, they are Americans. Just not officially (yet).
I too am a sad and very embarrassed Canuck.
Rajendra K. Pachauri, chair of the Nobel-Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, rightly called Canada “a government of skeptics” that “do not want to do anything on climate change.”
Our leaders are both duplicitous and criminally irresponsible.
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