As world leaders prepared to gather in Le Bourget, France for the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, concerned residents of Powell River spent last Sunday marching for change.
Beginning at Willingdon Beach, they marched to the cenotaph in Townsite before heading to a packed Patricia Theatre for an afternoon showing of This Changes Everything, a feature-length documentary film on the catastrophic effects of climate change.
More than 2,000 communities worldwide participated in climate walks the day before global leaders began their 12-day meetings in France.
The message concerned citizens wanted to relay to their leaders is that swift action is required to counteract the damage we’ve already done to the planet.
In BC, the provincial Climate Leadership Team, assembled by Premier Christy Clark, has made many recommendations for updating 2008’s climate action plan.
The recommendations released three days before the global conference focus on protecting the province’s economy, its current carbon pricing and actions to reduce emissions.
Proposed is an increase in carbon tax by 2018, expansion of carbon tax coverage by 2021, industry commitment to 100 per cent clean energy by 2025, and a 40 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030.
Stop and take another look at those dates. Do we really have that kind of time?
City of Powell River released its Integrated Community Sustainability Plan this summer, detailing the ways it will reduce its carbon footprint and greenhouse-gas emissions and began implementing those policies immediately. This is how action works.
Powell River’s largest and longest-running bastion of industry, Catalyst Paper Corporation, recently purchased a new power generator that will convert waste steam into electricity. The purchase of the generator in partnership with BC Hydro will save the company nearly $5 million a year, and that is their bottom line, but it’s a environmentally sustainable move that is happening now, not 10 or 20 years in the future.
We need government to understand that climate change isn’t about 2018 or 2021, and it definitely isn’t about 2030. Climate change is about now, before it’s too late.
If world leaders are truly acting in the best interest of humanity, they will come away from the climate conference with recommendations that make a difference today. Now.
