Report Card

The Parish Agreement 2015 was the best one to date on climate change. I still remember the enthusiasm of one person I know on his return from the COP Conference compared to previous ones he attended. There is a great story in the book, Not Too Late called “How the Ants Moved the Elephants in Paris”.

The Climate Vulnerable Form was formed in 2009 and composed of the countries who stand to lose the most from climate change. While rich countries wanted global warming limited to 2 degrees centigrade, in the long term, it meant that the vulnerable would still lose their right to food, health, shelter, and water. They asked for an increase of 1.5 degrees. Everyone would have to work on carbon reduction - and the largest countries would have to work better and faster. One hundred countries had supported them, but the recommendation hadn’t made it into the proposed final goal.

The CVF broke into action - having the Eiffel Tower light up with the the goal “1.5C” and a statement read into the record, which ended , “The parties which stand in the way of recommending a sound decision base on the information available will be remembered by the children of today for the failure of Paris, and we will shout it to the rooftops.” Eventually even Saudi Arabia chimed in and agreed.

It is now 2023 and heading into the next COP conference soon. The most recent report commends what has been done. We can take a minute to rejoice that the rise of greenhouse gases as slowed. In 2015, we were then on track for a rise of 4C degrees if we did nothing. Then we have to face that it is not enough. By 2100, we had reduced the pace to 3 degrees Celsius. Many countries have made promises - largely still on paper. If these are followed through, the predictions are a rise of 2-2.4C by 2100. That takes us back to the fears of the CVF as the real scenario.

The Climate Action Tracker has been created to measure our progress. SCroll down on the tracker to find out progress. Here are Canada’s for the year 2050:

• Our policies and action: Highly insufficient. We’re contributing to a future 4 dgree world

• Our target: almost sufficient for a 2 degree world

• Our target against taking our fair share - insufficient for a less than 3 degree world

• Financing climate change - Highly insufficent.

  Our overall score: Highly insufficient.

  Get angry if you like. But act. Elect people who support the right policies and get the right people on the bus. Keep the wrong people off it. This applies anywhere you have a say - with government, with corporations, in communities and community groups. We have voices. We need to raise them.

Portraits

Yesterday I went to the funeral of a distinguished Canadian whose life was celebrated in an historical cathedral. He was a former primate of the Anglican Church of Canada (in the US called a Presiding Bishop in the American Episcopal Church). Among those attending were two of his successors in that role, the national indigenous bishop, other archbishops, bishops and clergy, and a great many family and friends. I knew Michael when I was an undergraduate student studying English literature and he was finishing a degree in theology at the University of Toronto in the late 1950s. Some years later I was a guest at his wedding in Ottawa. Earlier he had trained as a translator and decades later as primate, he was able to address a Russian Orthodox assembly in Moscow, delighting them by speaking to them in their own language.

His family members spoke of a loving father; one of his associates remembers a wise and thoughtful leader and one of his successors, a man who befriended a small and isolated national church in Cuba. Beneath the record of achievements, not the least of which was an early public apology to Canada’s First Nations of our treatment of their people in residential schools - was the underlying sadness of the last five years of Michael’s life with Alzeheime’s disease and the strength of the daily and loving support of his wife, family members and friends.

On the service leaflet is a picture of Michael in his prime. He once joked about a letter confusing primates of the human kind with those of animal kin - but you would never confuse this image with an intelligent, thoughtful and welcoming gaze, as he poses dressed in the robes of his office. I guess it is a form of mugshot. Later in the day we saw another. It’s one that the poser - pun intended this time - is said to be trying to look powerful and menacingly toughly and defiant. It’s an image of the grade school bully that masks other feelings and realities, not the least of which is fear. How will his followers interpret it? So many currently see and fear power that they see behind it and bow or kowtow to that. How scared are Americans when they are are told he is a stand-in for them as victims? A couple of supporters outside the jail expressed how much they love him? But is this a face that loves back? Will it be the one on a funeral leaflet some day?

Power & Energy

We in the west are the beneficiaries of the development of energy originally produced by the burning of coal. I am old enough to remember the arrival of the coal man who provided fuel stored in the basement of my house - a scary person, because he was necessarily covered in soot. Later the oil truck arrived to deliver fuel. Still later, my father had a heat pump installed in a newer house - in the late 1970s. His motivation probably had little to do with saving the planet, but saving money.

Canada is blessed with much electricity produced by hydro electric power and my province has more resources than others. But it is human power that also plays a role. There is news this morning that young people in Montana have been successful in suing their state government asking for the right to “a clean and healthful environment” through a provision relating to energy projects. It’s the first successful case following a number of others started by young people. The impact on climate has to be a consideration in approving projects, and more rulings will now have a better chance of success. The suit was brought on behalf of the Children’s Trust and it involved 16 young people aged 5=22.

The oldest of these will be 49 in 2050. I have a friend who is now in his 102nd year and he has said that he thinks 144 would be a good age for a lifetime. He is a retired professor and when he retired at 75 as a University professor, he thought working five hours a day on academic research would be a good aim. He still does - without either a TV or a computer - but attends both opera and Blue Jays games as a fan. His environmental impact is much lower than mine - and since he has never driven a car, it undoubtedly is.

The likelihood of his making age 144 is small. But the politicians who want to slow down the use of climate change might think about how old they will be in 2050. The premier of Alberta will be 79 that year. I’m in a better position than she is to imagine what life will be like for her then. She won’t have her current job. She may have health issues relating to climate change or be affected directly by floods or fires. But basically she will have left the problem of pausing the support of renewable energy for a bit - as she has just done- to the current five and 22 year olds. I wonder how she will feel then.

What we generally lack is imagination and a realistic picture of human nature - the latter with its combination of strength and limitations. Politicians start with the best of intentions - to make the world the better place. After a term of office the intention becomes to stay in office. They like power after having a taste of it. Companies are good at telling us that climate change depends on us as individuals so they can keep doing what they do, which is to make a profit. They like power too.

That doesn’t mean that individual actions don’t count. I continue to recycle in the hope that at least some of my trash gets re-used. I send letters to my premier urging him to reconsider his original promise to retain the Greenbelt. Individuals matter - but governments and movements matter even more. Young people are teaching us that the law matters. What if all these elements converged? That’s a story that imagination could start to tell.

Hot Enough Yet?

We are featured today in Bill McKibben’s New Yorker Article - we being Canadians and he’s asking the question about our politicians. You can guess the answer. While the temperature breaks all records, how are we responding?

• Polls show 75% of us are anxious about climate change - and we are a liberal democracy, so that should help.

• The Arctic is warming faster than any other place and we have a front seat to watch that.

• Wildfires have burned the most forest ever.

• Air quality related to fires made ours the worst in the world.

This should result in some good political action. What is happening?

• We’re building a natural gas exporting terminal - and we may count exports as part of the carbon tax.

• Politicians say we are making progress - but we don’t want anything to change locally because that would upset too many people and mean not get re-elected.

• We’re not alone. But we are absolutely the poster child for how these things work. Will any radical solution break through even with democratic societies who suffer the least?

Dining with Senators

Not everyone gets to do this too often - if ever. But I had some interesting experience this weekend that is, in some ways, a truly Canadian story.

By a fortunate accident of fate, I acquired a nephew via marriage on my late husband’s side of the family. Though our lives have changed, we keep in touch for family events and these recent events were pleasant ones - watching his daughter conduct a master class with the Toronto Symphony and later conduct a world premiere of a new opera with triple affiliations to Tapestry, Soundstreams, and Luminato - all long part of the Toronto contemporary music scene. We were able to have dinner together in advance of the second event. The nephew is a Canadian senator - and he had invited one of his retired colleagues and his wife to join us for dinner. We met still another recently senator and his wife at the performance.

There was a bond shared by all three. They were all appointed in 2016 as independent senators and I was privileged then to also have an invitation to their initial seating, though I knew only one of them at the time. Working together through the years has created bonds of friendship for the three men that extends well beyond their official duties. But it is their individual histories that make their stories even more interesting.

One has served in all three branches of parliamentary democracy - executive, judicial and legislative. He also worked as a senior public servant in both the Ontario provincial and federal governments and as a federal court judge. His family fled Poland and came to Canada after spending time in Uzbekistan and relocated to a displaced person’s camp in Germany where he was born. They were eventually able to settle in Sydney, Nova Scotia when he was two years old.

Another earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Calcutta, a Masters in economics from University of Delhi and MBA (Finance) from UCLA Los Angeles. He has had a distinguished career in banking and prior to his senate appointment was Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Office of Scotiabank. He has made a contribution to the cultural life of Canada serving on the boards of major hospitals and arts organizations as well as being a founding member of the Sikh Foundation of Canada.

The third has worked on public policy issues related to Canada’s relations with Asian countries for more than 30 years. He is a former President and CEO of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and currently a joint chair of the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations and a member of the following Senate Standing Committees: Foreign Affairs and International Trade; Banking, Trade and Commerce; and Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament. On June 23 he will be present for the unveiling of a plaque commemorating the Chinese Exclusion Act. something most of us know nothing about and could learn more here.

He was born in Malaysia and his family moved to Singapore shortly afterwards. After early education in and Anglo-Chinese school, he attended the Canadian United World College, Lester B. Pearson, in Victoria, which provided the Canadian connection before further studies at Cambridge and the University of London and later settlement in Newfoundland.

Three interesting Canadians - serving the country and enjoying personal friendships beyond their careers from such diverse starting positions. How grateful we all need to be for our own country and all those who settle here and work hard - both to heal our past and contribute to our future.