What do you mean by a climate emergency?

• Date: 01 December 2019
• Author: Robinson, David

Great. Canada has declared a climate emergency.

So have Toronto, Sudbury, Vancouver, Kingston, Kenora, Ottawa, Peterborough, Chatham-Kent, and Canmore in Alberta. So far, 468 Canadian jurisdictions have passed binding resolutions. This is more than the U.K. and proportionally much more than the U.S. Strange to say, Canada seems to be a leader in saying the sky is falling.

That is not to say the sky isn't falling. Scientists agree we have an emergency, and so do most Canadians. As voters, Canadians overwhelmingly went for parties that seemed committed to slowing global warming. The real question is, if most Canadians agree there is a climate emergency, what should we be doing?

The Kingston city council has already laid out a list of actions. According to Coun. Robert Kiley, "We committed to electrifying our city transit fleet. We committed that all city buildings will have deep energy retrofits and move toward renewable energy and efficiencies. That allows us to...