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So much carbon; so little time. It is true globally and it is true for Canada.

From Canada’s early entry as a climate action leader – hosting the world’s first international scientific climate conference in 1988 – until today, most governments have played for time. Stalling tactics and procrastination, two steps forward and one step back, have typified climate strategies. True, most countries in the European Union have met and exceeded their Kyoto targets. But Kyoto targets were understood at the time, back in 1997, to be only a down payment on future action. And shamefully for the last 10 years, Canada has provided cover for other countries to do less, knowing that its aggressive sabotage would excuse its own shrinking ambitions.

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That can change on March 3, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sits down with the First Ministers to talk about climate change.

But meanwhile, scientific evidence is mounting that the rapidly accelerating threat of climate destabilization exceeds terrorism as a threat to global security. That global understanding – that failure to act to limit global average temperature increase to no more than 1.5 degree Celsius above what it was prior to the Industrial Revolution could spell the end of human civilization – drove 195 governments to negotiate a binding legal treaty in December 2015 at the Paris climate talks.