Latest news with #DavidSuzuki
CBC
a day ago
- Politics
- CBC
What young activists think of David Suzuki saying we've lost climate change fight
Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki made headlines last week when he said in an interview with digital news outlet iPolitics that humanity has lost its fight against climate change. Aishwarya Puttur, a former youth climate adviser to the federal government, says she believes there is time left to fight against climate change. Lily Yang, part of Canada's official delegation to a 2025 UN forum on sustainable development, says activism should be focused on dealing with big polluters and industries.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
No, David Suzuki hasn't given up on the climate fight — but his battle plan is changing
Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki made headlines last week when he said in an interview with iPolitics that humanity has lost its fight against climate change. "We're in deep trouble," Suzuki told the outlet. "I've never said this before to the media, but it's too late." Though he made it clear that he hasn't entirely given up, Suzuki says that rather than getting caught up in trying to force change through legal, political and economic systems, we now need to focus on community action. "I look at what the straight science says and that is that we've passed too many boundaries," said Suzuki in an interview with CBC News on Monday. "It's going to get hotter, there's going to be floods, and all kinds of other things that we can't predict at this point," he said. "As the temperature rises, even half a degree to a degree warmer, the repercussions ecologically are going to be immense." Suzuki says he goes by Johan Rockström's work with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research to define nine planetary boundaries, or safe limits, for human pressure on certain critical processes. During an interview with CBC in June about deep-sea mining, Rockström discussed how humanity is approaching tipping points when it comes to climate change. "We have more and more scientific evidence that we are pushing these systems to the brink of potential collapse," he says that we passed the seventh boundary this year and are now in the extreme danger zone, noting that Rockström says we have five years to get out of it. According to Suzuki, it's not likely we'll be able to pull back on these boundaries within five years. "It's crystal clear: we're going to overshoot." For example, there have been 12 consecutive months where temperatures warmed 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels — the threshold set by scientists to avoid some of the worst impacts of climate change. "And that was the level we were supposed to reach by 2100," said Suzuki, noting that we haven't capped emissions and they continue to climb. "At some point, you have to say, we're not going to do it." Climate advocates have long said that one of the biggest things people can do to impact climate change is to vote, contact politicians and get involved. But now, Suzuki says he's changing his advice to environmental advocates. He says he hasn't given up on finding solutions, just on waiting for governments and institutions to take meaningful action. WATCH | Suzuki explains why he's given up on governments solving climate crisis: "It's an unpredictable world that we're heading to, and so much of our efforts in the environmental movement have been spent on assuming that politicians are going to take the right steps," he said. As an example, he recalls approaching an MP at a fundraiser gala for his non-profit environmental foundation. Suzuki says he believed the MP understood the severity of the climate crisis and urged him to reach out across party lines to take action because climate change couldn't remain political. But he says the MP responded by saying he was worried about the next election. "And I said, 'Are you saying that you're not going to do what should have been done years ago that must be done immediately because of the political possibility that you'll lose the next election?' " Suzuki recalled. "And he said, 'Yeah, that's politics — politics prevents you from doing the right thing.' " Having abandoned politics as a solution, Suzuki says he's turning to community. "Do we just give up? No," he said. "Get together with your local block or your series of blocks and start finding out who's going to need help in an emergency." Suzuki says the Kitsilano neighbourhood in Vancouver where he's lived for 50 years is having a block party next week that he hopes will help combat the isolation and loneliness he says will be major challenges for what lies ahead. There are other places in Canada that are also prioritizing community. The town of Lytton, B.C., is still rebuilding after a 2021 wildfire destroyed most of its homes and businesses. Part of their rebuilding plan includes a Community Hub project. "We're calling it a hub because we plan to have a number of services within that building … and an outdoor space like a covered festival, farmers market multi-purpose space as well," Lytton Mayor Denise O'Connor told CBC News. The community hub will be net zero and will also have climate resilience built in, with a swimming pool that can double as a water reservoir. Suzuki says this kind of community resilience will be key. LISTEN | How engaging with your community can help with climate anxiety: "Mother Nature is going to come down so hard that we're going to have to face up to the big changes, but I'm saying to environmental groups now, 'focus on the local community, get them to be as self-sufficient and self-reliant as you can possibly be,' " he said. "The science says that we're done for, but I'm saying at least the time that we've got left, let's fight like mad to be as resilient as we can in the face of what's coming."
National Observer
5 days ago
- Politics
- National Observer
Is Suzuki right that it's 'too late'? We are in an era of simultaneous wins and losses
I didn't mean for it to happen. I was watching a Disney show on my laptop with my 10-year-old son. But when the show ended, and I closed the tab, the next open tab filled my screen. It was an article from iPolitics with the neck-throttling headline: ''It's too late': David Suzuki says the fight against climate change is lost.' 'What?' cried my son. 'David Suzuki said that!' I was caught off-guard. 'It's complicated,' I stammered, that last refuge of scoundrels. 'He is wrestling with some despair after trying for so many years.' He's in good company. Truth is, the article caught many of us off-guard, if my social network is any indication. Some of its readers concur, while others were angry. 'I'm really annoyed about that Suzuki thing. It's irresponsible,' a colleague texted me. 'He is saying out loud the private thoughts that many of us have all the time,' wrote Devika Shah, executive director of Environment Funders Canada on LinkedIn. 'It was a tough read, but we humans are where we are. For my fellow climate peeps who think he is wrong to say this — please recognize that he's earned the right.' All of us who work on climate have long walked a razor's edge between hope and despair, and the last few months (or years) have made it near impossible to keep one's balance. But I would put the current predicament differently. While we all know Suzuki as a communicator, he is firstly a scientist and is speaking some basic scientific truths. He's also trying to sound an alarm and rouse us out of a collective stupor, and he's not wrong to want to do that — while polling indicates Canadians are worried about climate change, we are clearly not as scared as we should be. The scientific community as a whole is worried. The situation is grim — temperature increases are happening faster than predicted, extreme weather events are escalating, planetary boundaries are being breached. The assaults on the people and places we love aren't a distant threat somewhere else, sometime in the future — they are here and now. Governments throw in the towel I, too, am losing faith. All of us who work on climate have long walked a razor's edge between hope and despair, and the last few months (or years) have made it near impossible to keep one's balance. We are all wrestling with the jarring and growing disconnect between climate events and our politics. President Trump's brutal roll-back of climate actions south of the border is throwing us all for a loop. But even in our own country, our federal and provincial governments are acting like a bunch of surrender monkeys, walking away from their climate commitments. Our official climate plans are in a shambles and riddled with incoherence, as governments continue to approve new fossil fuel infrastructure while abandoning carbon pricing, emission caps and, potentially, vehicle mandates. The defeatism is hard to take. The complicated psychology of now All that said, I would put the current predicament differently than saying it's 'too late.' More accurately, it both is and isn't too late. Those of us trying to move the public to action must hold with care the collective psychology of the moment, and engage in responsible truth-telling. For example, the leaders we most remember from the Second World War were outstanding communicators who managed to walk a difficult line — they were forthright with the public about the severity of the threat, while still managing to impart hope. That's what this moment requires. We are motivated by a complicated and highly personal mix of hope and fear, love and anger. All of which needs to be tapped to win this fight. There is no place for false optimism. But as the climate scientist Kate Marvel says, this battle for our lives doesn't need optimists, it needs heroes — people of courage, which she defines as, 'the resolve to do well without the assurance of a happy ending.' Ten years ago, the countries of the world signed the Paris Agreement and committed to do what they could to keep global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius. Sadly, on that score, it is indeed too late. Admitting this defeat is not something that should be done nonchalantly; it is a brutal indictment of us all. In Paris, the rallying cry of Pacific Island nations and others from the Global South was '1.5 to stay alive.' That threshold is indeed existential for them, and we have failed them. But the climate fight is not something we either win or lose. As the saying goes, it functions as a 'matter of degrees.' Each incremental increase in temperature comes with devastating losses to the people and places we love. But it is also the case that each incremental increase we prevent saves millions. While we are already witnessing the death and destruction that comes with 1.5 degrees, a 2-degree world — which can still be prevented — will be that much worse, while a 3-degree world is unimaginable, and a 4-degree world is not one any of us would want our children and grandchildren to inhabit. To not continue to do everything we can to avoid that next incremental increase is obscene. The awkwardness of the current period is that, for the next many years, we are going to experience both losses and wins simultaneously. Yes, we need to be eyes wide open to the devastating extreme events now underway. But we also need to be alive to the hopeful trends: China looks to have peaked its GHG emissions, years ahead of schedule; Europe is driving down emissions much faster than Canada; in Norway, 97 per cent of new vehicle sales are now zero-emission; in the UK, emissions are now lower than at any time since the start of the industrial revolution in the late 1800's; and around the world, the adoption of renewable energy is exploding. The point being, the struggle to tackle the climate emergency is a steep climb down, not a cliff. This September, the global climate movement will be trying to recapture some of the lost momentum of recent post-pandemic years. At rallies across Canada and around the world, under the banner ' Draw the Line,' people are being invited to shake off their feelings of isolation and join this call: 'Floods, droughts, storms and heatwaves are getting worse. Food and energy costs are going up while a few billionaires profit and prop up the industries that harm people and pollute our lands, air and waters. Indigenous leaders from the Amazon to the Pacific have spoken out: our future is at stake. To solve this crisis, the answer is us — the people… This September we will come together to draw the line against injustice, pollution, and violence — and for a future built on peace, clean energy and fairness. This world is ours. This is our line to draw.'
CBC
5 days ago
- Politics
- CBC
No, David Suzuki hasn't given up on the climate fight — but his battle plan is changing
Social Sharing Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki made headlines last week when he said in an interview with iPolitics that humanity has lost its fight against climate change. "We're in deep trouble," Suzuki told the outlet. "I've never said this before to the media, but it's too late." Though he made it clear that he hasn't entirely given up, Suzuki says that rather than getting caught up in trying to force change through legal, political and economic systems, we now need to focus on community action. 'We've passed too many boundaries' "I look at what the straight science says and that is that we've passed too many boundaries," said Suzuki in an interview with CBC News on Monday. "It's going to get hotter, there's going to be floods, and all kinds of other things that we can't predict at this point," he said. "As the temperature rises, even half a degree to a degree warmer, the repercussions ecologically are going to be immense." Suzuki says he goes by Johan Rockström's work with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research to define nine planetary boundaries, or safe limits for human pressure on certain critical processes. During an interview with CBC in June about deep-sea mining, Rockström discussed how humanity is approaching tipping points when it comes to climate change. "We have more and more scientific evidence that we are pushing these systems to the brink of potential collapse," he said. WATCH | What we can do to continue climate fight even as warnings grow dire: Continuing the climate change fight amid dire warnings 13 hours ago Duration 8:20 Environmentalists like David Suzuki say not enough has been done to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. But Seth Klein with the Climate Emergency Unit says a lot can still be done if people get politics out of the way of action and develop solutions around renewable energy, high-speed rail and retrofits in public infrastructure. Suzuki says that we passed the seventh boundary this year and are now in the extreme danger zone, noting that Rockström says we have five years to get out of it. According to Suzuki, it's not likely we'll be able to pull back on these boundaries within five years. "It's crystal clear, we're going to overshoot." For example, the 1.5 C target in global warming set by the 2015 Paris Agreement has now been surpassed. "And that was the level we were supposed to reach by 2100," said Suzuki, noting that we haven't capped emissions and they continue to climb. "At some point, you have to say, we're not going to do it." Why Suzuki has given up on politics Climate advocates have long said that one of the biggest things people can do to impact climate change is to vote, contact politicians and get involved. But now, Suzuki says he's changing his advice to environmental advocates. He says he hasn't given up on finding solutions, just on waiting for governments and institutions to take meaningful action. WATCH | Suzuki explains why he's given up on governments solving climate crisis: David Suzuki says we've chosen politics and economics over the environment 2 days ago Duration 12:42 In an interview on CBC's The Early Edition, environmental activist David Suzuki explained comments he made during an iPolitics interview, where he declared "humanity has lost the fight against climate change." Suzuki said elevating economics and politics over science for decades has brought the world to a critical point. "It's an unpredictable world that we're heading to, and so much of our efforts in the environmental movement have been spent on assuming that politicians are going to take the right steps," he said. As an example, he recalls approaching an MP at a fundraiser gala for his non-profit environmental foundation. Suzuki says he believed the MP understood the severity of the climate crisis and urged him to reach out across party lines to take action because climate change couldn't remain political. But he says the MP responded by saying he was worried about the next election. "And I said, 'Are you saying that you're not going to do what should have been done years ago that must be done immediately because of the political possibility that you'll lose the next election?' " Suzuki recalled. "And he said, 'Yeah, that's politics — politics prevents you from doing the right thing.' " Focus on community and resilience Having abandoned politics as a solution, Suzuki says he's turning to community. "Do we just give up? No," he said. "Get together with your local block or your series of blocks and start finding out who's going to need help in an emergency." Suzuki says the Kitsilano neighbourhood in Vancouver where he's lived for 50 years is having a block party next week that he hopes will help combat the isolation and loneliness he says will be major challenges for what lies ahead. There are other places in Canada that are also prioritizing community. The town of Lytton, B.C., is still rebuilding after a 2021 wildfire destroyed most of its homes and businesses. Part of their rebuilding plan includes a Community Hub project. "We're calling it a hub because we plan to have a number of services within that building … and an outdoor space like a covered festival, farmers market multi-purpose space as well," Lytton Mayor Denise O'Connor told CBC News. The community hub will be net zero and will also have climate resilience built in, with a swimming pool that can double as a water reservoir. Suzuki says this kind of community resilience will be key. "Mother Nature is going to come down so hard that we're going to have to face up to the big changes, but I'm saying to environmental groups now, 'focus on the local community, get them to be as self-sufficient and self-reliant as you can possibly be,' " he said. "The science says that we're done for, but I'm saying at least the time that we've got left, let's fight like mad to be as resilient as we can in the face of what's coming."
Toronto Star
04-05-2025
- Business
- Toronto Star
Mark Carney championed this cause before he ran for office. What will he do now that he's in power?
The brutal truth about our planet is hard to hear. 'The challenges currently posed by climate change pale in significance compared to what might come. … Climate change will threaten financial resilience and longer term prosperity. While there's still time to act, the window is finite and it's closing.' This quote was not uttered by David Suzuki or put out by Greenpeace or even included in a report by the International Panel on Climate Change. They're words spoken by Prime Minister Mark Carney — 10 years ago when he was governor of the Bank of England. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW It would have been easy for Canadians to follow the federal election campaign over the past month and completely miss the fact that Carney is widely considered to be a world leader on climate action. 'It's not that he was just some guy in climate finance. He was the guy in climate finance,' said Matt Price, executive director of Investors for Paris Compliance. Carney brought the concept of climate finance into the mainstream, promoting the idea that the green economy is profitable and carbon emitters will lose money — at least in the long term. At one point, he even convinced many of the world's biggest banks to commit to shifting trillions of dollars of investment away from carbon-emitting industries and into net-zero aligned companies and infrastructure. But during the campaign, not only was Carney virtually silent on climate, he kiboshed the previous government's signature climate policy, the consumer carbon tax. 'He was very intentional not to spotlight climate during the election. It was an election strategy. Climate itself was not going to be a helpful topic in terms of getting elected,' said Richard Brooks, director of climate finance at the environmental organization 'Now we're postelection and this is where climate is going to come back into the conversation.' The big question now is how Carney will bring his years of climate advocacy as a central banker and businessman to the office of prime minister — and whether the skills he honed persuading investors will work when trying to convince Albertans. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Based on a decade of speeches and writings, Carney clearly understands the severity of the climate crisis and the catastrophic outcomes if emissions aren't cut dramatically. His solution is market-based: If big companies and banks calculate what climate change will do to their assets and their business, this will put a price on inaction — and reveal the profits to be made from slowing climate change. 'The more we invest with foresight, the less we will regret in hindsight,' Carney said in his seminal 'Tragedy of the Horizon' speech in 2015. His signature achievements to date have been the Net Zero Bankers Alliance (NZBA) and the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), announced with great fanfare at the 2021 Glasgow climate. Both were voluntary measures that hundreds of the biggest financial businesses in the world pledged to follow. The theory was that these principles would drive increased profits, attracting new members and creating a 'virtuous circle' where the profit motive produces benefits for society. The only problem is that both initiatives have not lived up to their promise. All six of Canada's big banks withdrew from the NZBA after U.S. president, and climate skeptic, Donald Trump was elected again last fall. This week, RBC abandoned its own climate finance goals. 'So long as it remains profitable to burn the planet, the banks will burn the planet,' said Price. 'I think the question really is: Was that the right theory of change? Did we just waste a decade where we should have been regulating as opposed to relying on the goodness of bankers?' This is the definition of a market failure, where investors have not fully comprehended the future losses that climate change will bring, says Adam Scott, executive director of Shift, a charity that advocates for pensions to align their investments with climate action. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW The lesson of the past decade is not that the voluntary efforts championed by Carney should be abandoned, but that they should become mandatory, he said. And similarly, Carney's approach to climate in the private sector doesn't need to change now that he's in public office, it just needs to be strengthened. 'The previous government tried to appease everybody too often,' said Scott. 'At the heart of climate policy in Canada is a harsh reality that the energy transition requires moving away from fossil fuels. And that reality creates political tension.' The Trudeau government's decision to buy and complete the Trans Mountain Pipeline, which cost $34 billion, set back Canada's climate progress and did not result in any goodwill from the oil industry or the Albertan government, he said. 'It takes a thicker skin. It takes somebody who really understands what's required to be effective in climate policy and takes a longer term view of what they're really trying to accomplish,' said Scott. Every climate finance expert the Star spoke with was hopeful that Carney would be the right man for the job, considering he was elected to do what is necessary to save Canada's economy from ruin. While his pitch may have been saving the country from Trump, saving the country from climate change amounts to the same thing, said Brooks. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW 'There's a real opportunity here for him to use the levers of power of government to incentivize investment in things that are going to drive the energy transition in Canada and globally,' he said. By fostering stronger ties with Europe, which is far ahead of Canada in their clean economic transition, Carney changes the yardstick by which we measure our progress. Instead of looking to the United States, where fossil fuel production is growing, Canada can measure its progress against the massive amount of renewable energy that's being installed in the U.K., France and Germany. Canada could also take up a leadership role in exporting green technologies to developing countries like India to hasten their transition away from fossil fuels, instead of liquid natural gas, which will prolong it, Brooks said. Diversifying trade partners to deprioritize the United States works hand in hand with diversifying exports to deprioritize fossil fuels, he said. 'That's where the energy transition and the question of whether we're going to be able to tackle this climate crisis is going to be decided.' In order to succeed, Carney is going to have to reckon with a complex set of interlocutors, many of whom — including the oil sands producers and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith — are dead set against any climate policy. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Both the oil and gas CEOs and Smith sent Carney a list of demands, calling for a rollback on emissions reductions targets and public money for new pipelines. 'There's no common ground with those stakeholders,' said Scott. 'I'm not suggesting that Mark Carney is going to have to write off whole parts of the country. He's just going to have to stop trying to pretend that this one narrow, tiny, special interest — specifically the CEOs of fossil fuel companies — are a stakeholder that can be assuaged or brought up in line with a credible climate strategy. 'What he needs to do is find other allies, other partners to work with.' As Carney himself said a decade ago: 'Financing the decarbonization of the economy is a major opportunity … it implies a sweeping reallocation of resources and a technological revolution.' Or, as he said in his election victory speech last week: 'We will need to think big and act bigger. We will need to do things previously thought impossible at speeds we haven't seen in generations.' Politics Headlines Newsletter Get the latest news and unmatched insights in your inbox every evening Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. Please enter a valid email address. 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