Elizabeth May, MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands, Co-leader of the Green Party of Canada, and long time environmental activist joins Paul Beckwith in a discussion about the recent United Nations CBD-COP15 and UNFCCC-COP27 events. Elizabeth draws from years of experience to provide insightful historical context for the two treaties as well as her perspective on their outcomes.

This video was recorded on December 15th, 2022 and published on January 12th, 2023.

Some of the topics discussed:

– How since the Framework Convention on Climate Change was first signed in Rio in 1992, humanity has emitted more greenhouse gases than from the time of the beginning of the Industrial Revolution up to when the convention was signed.

– How the negotiations at these UN conferences are like a basketball game. One plays for 2 hours and the game is often decided at the last minute.

– How the climate crisis is the largest single threat to preserving species, and the single largest cause of potential extinctions.

– How Canada is no exception in that it continues to hack away at the forest cutting through old growth forest, poisoning biodiversity through our use of pesticides, and pursuing minerals underground getting forests out of the way to get them.

– How the target of 30% by 2030 is more complex than one might initially consider when a country’s biodiversity impact can be primarily caused by its consumption rather than what it is doing within its own borders since this consumption impacts other parts of the Earth.

– The importance of the indigenous peoples when one considers that 30% of the land base has to have no people on it. Should this mean we dispossess the Indigenous people from their lands in order to preserve biodiversity?

– How In terms of the goal of 30% by 2030, the biggest obstacle will be that those repositories of biodiversity, which have the most potential for us to set aside and preserve, are in developing countries where it’s simply not possible for biodiversity to be set aside without financing to ensure that those countries are compensated for what they give up in development.

– And much more . . .

Links:
– COP15 ends with landmark biodiversity agreement
https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories…

– UN Biodiversity Conference CBD-COP15 Scores Historic Goal for Nature
https://www.natureunited.ca/newsroom/…

– Former Environment Minister, Green Party of Canada and Green Coaltion call on Canada to set an example
Canada and Green Coalition call on Canada to set an example and be a leader on biodiversity
https://www.greenparty.ca/en/media-re…

– Philippines delegate refuses to eat until action on climate change ‘madness’
https://www.cnn.com/2013/11/12/world/…

– Climate Endgame (CEF Video)

– Canada in deepwater: behind the Trudeau government’s approval of the Bay du Nord development project
https://thenarwhal.ca/bay-du-nord-new…

Special Guest:
Elizabeth May – Canadian politician, environmentalist, author, activist, and lawyer who is serving as the leader of the Green Party of Canada since 2022, and previously served as the leader from 2006 to 2019. She has been the member of Parliament (MP) for Saanich—Gulf Islands since 2011. May is the longest serving female leader of a Canadian federal party.
.
Regular Panelist:
Paul Beckwith – Climate Systems Scientist. Professor at the University of Ottawa in the Paleoclimatology Laboratory as well as at Carleton University

Video Production:
Charles Gregoire – Electrical Engineer, Webmaster and IT prime for FacingFuture.Earth & the Climate Emergency Forum; Climate Reality Leader

Heidi Brault – Video production and website assistant, Organizer and convener, Metadata technician, COP26 team lead for FacingFuture.Earth and the Climate Emergency Forum; BA (Psychology); Climate Reality Leader

Acknowledgement:
We’d like to acknowledge these two organizations without which our attendance at COP15 in Montréal, Quebec, Canada, would not have been possible.
– Vita Sapien – https://vitasapien.org/
– Facing Future – https://www.facingfuture.earth/

Our Website:
https://climateemergencyforum.org/

Attributions:
Background Music:
– Title: Through the City II
– Author: Crowander
– Source: Free Music Archive
– License: CC BY-NC 4.0

Image and Video: https://climateemergencyforum.org/ass…

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Well, of course, that isn’t true in real life. In real life, we have both a fiscal deficit and an infrastructure deficit (not to mention the more pressing ecological deficit), and none of them are subject to a plausible plan leading to elimination.

In Montreal, some of the water pipes that run under the city are so old that they are made of wood. Across Canada, water works are antiquated and designed for a climate we no longer haveas increased and more intense deluges lead to raw sewage bypassing treatment to enter rivers and seas, untreated. We have bridges that are shut down for repairs, in Saskatchewan and Quebec.

In six Western Canadian cities alone, (Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, Regina and Winnipeg), the Canada West Foundation puts the infrastructure deficit in 2003 at $543-million. That critical weakness in infrastructure is in roads and bridges, water-works, lack of efficient public transit, lighting, waste disposal and on and on.

The most recent figures I could find come from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) in its January 2013 report. According to the CCPA, the extent of gap between safe and modern infrastructure and our current situation is $145-billion worth of missing investment. To address the threat posed by crumbling infrastructure, CCPA says we need an additional $20-billion to $30-billion a year.

We know that kind of money is not going to come from the coffers of municipal governments. Of every dollar paid in taxes, only eight cents goes to municipal governments. Yet it is in municipalities that we experience our closest relationship with any level of government.

The current Conservative administration has done some good things in this area. The gas tax fund is now specifically tied to municipal infrastructure funding, but that is only approximately $3-billion per year. The overblown announcement, particularly in the leaks in advance of the 2013 budget, claimed that the Harper administration had committed a new high in commitment to infrastructure of $53-billion. Why not call it a $530-billion announcement? The big number comes from taking virtually status quo spending and multiplying it out by 10 years? Why not 100 years? It is no more helpful to municipalities. Worse, the spending, ($32.2-billion existing from gas tax fund and the implementation of the GST tax rebate, $14-billion in support of major infrastructure, including $4-billion for federal infrastructure spending, and $1.25-billion to renew the P3 Canada Fund) will not kick in with any funding increases until after the next election and the 2015 due date for getting to balanced budgets.

While the infrastructure deficit that exists today presents a $20-billion to 30-billion annual shortfall, the climate crisis will raise the stakes considerably. The Insurance Bureau of Canada has recommended that the federal government increase support for municipal infrastructure in response to the increased risk to assets due to the manmade destabilization of climate. Global warming is leading to increased severity and increased frequency of extreme weather events.

The U.S. General Accounting Office has determined that the threat to U.S. federal assets qualifies climate change as “high risk” to the health of U.S. government finances. Yet, here in Canada, we have no carbon reduction plan and no adaptation plan. Without both we are headed for new and unprecedented threats to our future, our economy and our infrastructure.

If anyone doubts that profound impacts of the changes brought on by global warming, review the costs of the brief burst of heavy rainfall that caused the collapse of Finch Avenue in Toronto in July 2009. This one event cost Toronto millions of dollars to repair. Warmer atmosphere contains more moisture than colder air and, as a result of global warming, Canada’s rainfall patterns have already changed. The impact is severe on infrastructure built for a different climate. This applies to roads, waterworks, and developments in floodplains.

Meanwhile, northern infrastructure is severely impacted by melting permafrost and buildings along tornado alleys requires significant adaptation investment. None of this is currently budgeted within announced funds.

Let’s agree it is time to take The High Road, make like a group of Angus McLintocks, and start funding our shared, common and public servicesroads, bridges, water-works, public transit, common spaces. It is time dedicate the resolve and funds necessary to eliminate the infrastructure deficit.

Originally published in the Hill Times.

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12:30 p.m. – Elizabeth May will deliver a speech on her work as a Green MP.

Concordia University
515 Ste-Catherine O. 
EV Building, Room 1.605 (main floor)
Montreal, Quebec

Note: Doors will open at noon.

3:00 p.m. – Green Leader Elizabeth May will deliver a speech on food policy and sustainable agriculture during EXPO manger santé et vivre vert.

Palais des Congrès
1001 Place Jean-Paul–Riopelle
Montreal, Quebec

Public event for Green Party of Canada Leader Elizabeth May for Sunday, March 17^th is:

Noon – Elizabeth May will be joined by Green Deputy Leader Georges Laraque in marching in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade.

Corner of Ste-Catherine and Fort
Montreal, Quebec

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