MONTREAL | TIOHTIÀ:KE | UNCEDED TERRITORY OF THE KANIEN’KEHÁ:KA NATION — Today the United Nations released its Global Stocktake report, the first report to assess the global response to the climate crisis and The Paris Agreement.
The report calls for “radical decarbonization” and “phasing out all unabated fossil fuels.”
The Paris Agreement includes cutting greenhouse gas emissions to limit global temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees C, building resilience to climate impacts and aligning financial support with the scale and scope needed to tackle the climate crisis.
Sabaa Khan, the David Suzuki Foundation’s Director General for Quebec and Atlantic Canada and Director of Climate Solutions, said:
“This report makes clear that we are not moving fast enough on the source of the climate crisis: the fossil fuel industry. We’ve just had a summer of reckoning here in Canada. We need to accelerate mitigation and adaptation efforts to keep the planet from warming past the 1.5-degree mark.
“For Canada, that means taking immediate action to cap oil and gas sector emissions. The Canadian fossil fuel industry is pushing carbon capture, but the UN warns that the geophysical, environmental-ecological, economic, technological, sociocultural and institutional challenges of carbon capture remain unresolved. Rather than risking our future on expensive, unproven technologies, we need to stop fossil fuel expansion and make way for long-term climate solutions.
“The people of Ecuador recently voted to protect a large part of the Amazon from drilling. The United States just cancelled oil drilling in the Arctic refuge — a huge win for Arctic Indigenous communities and the planet. We need Canada to step up as well.”
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For more information or media interviews, please contact:
Melanie Karalis, mkaralis@davidsuzuki.org, 548-588-1279
The David Suzuki Foundation (DavidSuzuki.org | @DavidSuzukiFdn) is a leading Canadian environmental non-profit organization, founded in 1990. We operate in English and French, with offices in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. We collaborate with all people in Canada, including First Nations leadership and communities, governments, businesses and individuals to find solutions to create a sustainable Canada through scientific research, traditional ecological knowledge, communications and public engagement, and innovative policy and legal solutions. Our mission is to protect nature’s diversity and the well-being of all life, now and for the future.