Ottawa backs Obama’s climate change warning
U.S. president sounds alarm on envrionment, comparing issue to terminal cancer
MANILA, PHILIPPINES— Canada is backing strong warnings from U.S. President Barack Obama about the need for nations to act on the “urgent, growing” threat of climate change.
In an address to a business audience here Wednesday, Obama laid out the threat of climate change, saying the “patterns and the science don’t lie” and that no nation is immune to the consequences.
“Temperatures and sea levels are rising, ice caps are melting, storms are strengthening,” he said.
“If we want to prevent the worst effects of climate change before it’s too late, the time to act is now, and it is going to affect people’s bottom lines. We will be able to price the costs in serious ways, already insurance companies are factoring it in to their determinations. That’s why in Paris we have to come together under an ambitious framework to protect the one planet that we have while we still can.”
His comments come as countries prepare to gather in Paris this month in a bid to reach new agreement to curb greenhouse gases.
When a fellow participant likened climate change to cancer, Obama said, “I’m just saying people, you don’t want to get to Stage 4.”
But the president highlighted the potential upside, saying an agreement in Paris would prompt investments in clean energy technologies.
“If we can get an agreement done, it could drive new jobs and new opportunities and investment in a global economy that frankly needs a boost right now,” Obama said.
The president’s remarks were endorsed Wednesday by Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion, who agreed with the analogy that climate change is a cancer.
“It’s the worst threat we are facing during this century,” Dion said.
He said Canada will be a strong advocate for a climate change deal and will work with the United States and summit host France to make it happen. “We will be strong on the floor. We will speak to any country that may have difficulties because we need to have unanimity at the end of the day,” Dion said.
“I know it may be long and complex but Canada will be there to help. Our partners in the United States and France appreciate that.”
He said leaders are taking the upcoming talks “seriously” and that there is “momentum” for a deal.
The argument that action on the environment hurts the economy no longer stands, he said.
“To disassociate climate change from the economy, to have classic discussion on the economy as if we didn’t have this problem of our relationship with the planet, it is passé now,” Dion said.
In Edmonton, federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna met with her provincial counterpart ahead of a trip to Paris for a meeting of global leaders on climate change, The Canadian Press reports.
She said the visit was one of several meetings with the provinces to get a better idea of what each jurisdiction faces as Ottawa tries to develop a national framework to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
McKenna said she expects Alberta to come up with a realistic climatechange plan, although it still hasn’t seen any details just days before the start of an international meeting on the issue.
“We haven’t seen the plan,” McKenna said Wednesday. “We certainly trust that Alberta will come up with a credible plan. Everyone’s got to do their part.”