Speech by Elizabeth May to the 2nd Global Greens Conference

SÃO PAULO - Bonjour, This is very emotional for me to speak following the tribute to Ingrid Betancourt. For all of us who have never met her, we have been doing what we can to keep a focus on the need for governments to do more to achieve her liberation from FARC kidnappers.. We in Canada called on the governments to act on her behalf on March 8, International Women's day. We share so much with her, as Greens, in calling for a new vision. But none of us has experienced the suffering that she has. It is difficult for me to switch to the topic of climate change after such a tribute, but we will be keeping her in our minds, in our hearts, and in our prayers, knowing that she will be free one day.
Bonjour, This is very emotional for me to speak following the tribute to Ingrid Betancourt. For all of us who have never met her, we have been doing what we can to keep a focus on the need for governments to do more to achieve her liberation from FARC kidnappers. We in Canada called on the governments to act on her behalf on March 8, International Women's day. We share so much with her, as Greens, in calling for a new vision. But none of us has experienced the suffering that she has. It is difficult for me to switch to the topic of climate change after such a tribute, but we will be keeping her in our minds, in our hearts, and in our prayers, knowing that she will be free one day.

I have been asked to review impact of climate change on communities, economies, peace and international security. This is impossible to do in fifteen minutes. Even simply listing the impacts of climate change on communities around the world—without discussing or analysing each point—would be more than the allotted time. So, let me share the impacts in Canada alone. And even this is a short and selective review.

In Canada alone, the glaciers in the Rocky Mountains, and all the way to the Yukon, are in rapid retreat—threatening future water supply, and precipitating a water crisis.

Great Lakes levels have fallen below any historic level, to the point that ships have been stranded in the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Climate change has caused an insect epidemic with severe impacts in interior British Columbia. The cold winters of British Columbia are no more. A cold snap in British Columbia was historically enough to keep the pine beetle from surviving in the B.C. forests but with warmer winters, the pine beetle reached unprecedented epidemic levels. Because of the climate crisis, an area of the forest twice the size of Sweden has been killed by the pine beetle. Now, next year, the decaying carbon of the dead lodge pole pine of B.C. forest will release as much carbon as the whole BC economy.

In Canada, we now see increased severe weather events from flooding, to crippling ice storms, to the first full force tropical hurricane to hit Canada (that hit Nova Scotia in 2003), to severe heat waves that cripple cities. These events are now the new normal.

But it is in our Far North that the impacts are most dramatic.

In the Arctic, 2 000 000 square kilometres of sea ice have disappeared. That is a 10-20% decline in summer sea ice over the last 30 years. As well, the remaining ice is thinner, placing Inuit hunters at risk and threatening their traditional way of life.

Last summer, for the first time, the legendary North-West Passage was open. Ironically, there is glee from those that see the economic opportunity for new shipping routes and the potential to develop the oil and gas that lies below the Arctic ice.

The Inuit are experiencing unheard-of weather events. When the little village of Sachs Harbour on Banks Island called the weather station in Edmonton to report a weather event, they were told, "that's not possible. It is too cold on Banks Island." But the Inuit has seen it. They witnessed the first ever Arctic thunder and lightning storm. There is no word for this in Inuktitut. There are no words for new species of birds and other forms of life that they are seeing in the Arctic for the first time.

The ground around them is collapsing. Permafrost is melting and the ground collapses. In another feedback loop, the melting permafrost releases vast quantities of methane, a powerful GHG. Inuit villages will have to relocate due to loss of permafrost.

Looking globally, I do not need to persuade a gathering of global Greens that the current levels of GHG—at more than 30% above what has ever been experienced on this planet in the last million years—represents a clear and present danger.

Twenty years ago, I worked on the first international scientific conference on the climate crisis. It was called "Our changing atmosphere – implications for global security." It took place in Toronto in the last week of June 1988. Many eminent scientists gathered, including Dr. Jose Goldemberg, from São Paulo. The consensus statement started as follows:

"Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequences are second only to global nuclear war."

There is no set end-point for this experiment. Where we end up in this potentially suicidal, indeed geo-cidal, experiment depends on when governments around the world act decisively to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

If all use of fossil fuels and all deforestation globally were to end tomorrow, we would still be coping with destabilized climate for at least a century due to what we have already emitted.

But, with adequate planning and resources (none of which have been adequately started) we could adapt to a changing climate.

But if greenhouse gas levels continue to rise, we could face "tipping point events"—"points of no return" that threaten levels of climate crisis to which we can not adapt—levels of climatic disruption that threaten our civilization and millions of species.

There are three such tipping point events which are often discussed.

• The potential for the collapse of Western Antarctic ice sheet. An extraordinary volume of 3.2 million cubic kilometres of ice is being destabilized with warmer water at its base;
• The Greenland ice sheet is also destabilizing and melting rapidly. If either the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet or the Greenland ice sheet collapses, it changes the IPCC estimate for global average sea level rise from less than a meter to 4-5 meters. If both collapse, double that;
• The third is related. The threat of the Gulf Stream stalling is a major tipping point. It is impacted by increased fresh water from melting ice. That fresh water is depressing the Gulf Stream, which is now 30% slower than 30 years ago.

These climate impacts have real impacts on global security. The US Department of Defence (the Pentagon) actually did a study researching a "plausible scenario for abrupt climate change." Its conclusions appeared in Fortune magazine in early 2004. They chose to study the stalling of the Gulf Steam in 2010.

The study concluded that the impact of that, with colder temperatures in Europe, changing rainfall patterns, causing increased drought, food insecurity, increased numbers of environmental refugees, would constitute a great threat to global security than terrorism.

What has been the response of governments to this threat? I am ashamed to admit the Canadian government is now the worst in the world. The Stephen Harper government has repudiated our legally binding Kyoto targets and is working to increase Greenhouse gases from the Athabasca tar sands.

If we take all the commitments of all the governments of the world, the impact is disastrous. According to the World Energy Outlook, published by the International Energy Agency , if all governments maintain current commitments, by 2030 emissions will be 27% higher than in 2005. Carbon concentrations in the atmosphere will double over pre-Industrial Revolution levels at 550 ppm, making it inevitable that global average temperatures will increase by 3 degrees Celsius. And it only goes up from there—3 degrees inevitably becomes 4, and 4 degrees triggers 5 degrees and so on in a run-away greenhouse effect.

We must avoid allowing levels to reach 550 ppm. To do this, according to the IEA, we must ensure that the year 2015 is that last year in which GHG emissions rise. They must peak and drop sharply from there.

The World Energy Outlook concluded with this warning: "The primary scarcity facing the planet is not natural resources or money, but time."

Addressing this threat must become the central organizing principle of all governments.

Some say it is impossible to make this transition in time.

I must believe it is possible. In the words of the founder of the German Green Party, Petra Kelly, a woman I was honoured to know, "We must in our generation accomplish the impossible. Otherwise we are condemned to experience the unthinkable."

To do the impossible is our task as Greens. Let other parties embrace politics as the art of the possible.

We must accept the challenge of doing the impossible. The alternative is unthinkable.

In the words of Ingrid Betancourt, "The future is Green." It must be and it will be!