Posted: Tuesday, 21 April 2009

Earth Day is a celebration of the Earth. It is a time of optimism and a time to fight to have Canada enact effective climate change policies at home and ensure science-based climate change targets internationally. As Canadian workers fight job losses and an inequitable EI system. Canadians are fighting for their future unsure of what it will bring, but optimistic that they can make a difference.

Meanwhile for our neighbours to the south, there is also hope. Barack Obama's administration in the United States is outspending Canada on renewable energy and green initiatives 5 to 1 on a per capita basis. These large-scale investments will lead to job creation, domestic industrial expansion and hope for the future.

Canada must follow suit. We must make every effort to invest in the already established and new green industries of tomorrow as a vital part of a package of urgent measures necessary to combat climate change, nationally and globally. We must make it possible for our existing industries to make a transition to a low carbon economy and to grow new, sustainable jobs in emerging green industries, as soon as possible.

Green technology already exists that would dramatically improve the refrigerators, TVs, washing machines, and other products that each of us use. Strong green standards in Canada alone, could have a huge climate impact. Standards that would reduce our energy bills and get Canadians back to work.

But we need to do more than get Canadians back to work. We need to save Canada and the world from catastrophic climate change. Canadians need to push our government for a strong global climate change deal in Copenhagen in December. A strong global deal is literally a matter of life and death for the world's poorest people. It is those who contributed the least to this global problem who will suffer first and hardest. Climate change affects us all. If our government continues along its current path, our economy will not rebound as quickly as it could and we will leave our children and grandchildren literally a dying planet.

Canada is not doing its fair share. On the international stage, climate change negotiations have been attended only half-heatedly. The targets Canada refuses to even support bear no relationship to the science. These weak targets are countered by both loopholes and false accounting. Nations that have succeeded in reducing their emissions have only been able to do so by outsourcing pollution and energy-intensive industries to other countries. While nations, like Canada, that completely fail to even attempt to meet their international obligations, face no sanctions. This is wrong. As Canadians, we need to fight for our own future even though we are unsure of what it will bring, but we must be optimistic that we can make a difference. We can make a difference.

It is a time for solidarity. A time to fight for our grandchildren's future, for those in the developing world, for our jobs and for our shared environment. On Earth Day take a moment to revel in the optimism that surrounds us, a moment to be hopeful for the future, then get ready to fight.