We should all be alarmed about Canada’s plans to achieve its national clean-energy goals of a 40 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030, and net-zero emissions by 2050. Consider that emissions in 2022 were an estimated 708 Mt of CO2 equivalent, a reduction of just seven per cent from the baseline year of 2005 when emissions were 761 Mt.
By our evolutionary nature, humans struggle to accept or respond to problems that are not clearly visible, particularly when politicians and the fossil fuel industry have fed a machine of denial for decades. There are complex reasons why the European Union acted earlier to mitigate the climate crisis, including oil import dependency; proportional representation voting that permitted green parties a voice; and experiences such as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.