Naomi Klein slams global response to climate change at Winnipeg event

Canadian author and activist, Naomi Klein criticized global efforts to combat climate change in Winnipeg Friday night in front of a packed house at Knox United Church. The event was hosted by the Manitoba chapter of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. 

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Klein stressed if global temperature rise 2 degrees C and beyond, the effects would be catastrophic for many countries, including those in Africa, low lying Pacific Islands and regions that rely on glaciers for drinking water.

"There are human beings behind these numbers," Klein said.

December's Paris Climate Agreement—considered to be the world's first universal climate agreement—includes a commitment to keep the rise in global temperatures well below 2 C compared to pre-industrial times, while striving to limit them even more, to 1.5 C.

But Klein said in order to reach those targets, countries around the world must aggressively pursue alternative energy. If we stay on our current track world temperatures could rise 3 or even 4 degrees C, she said.

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"It means that the vast majority of known fossil fuel reserves need to stay in the ground. We have five times more carbon in our proven fossil fuel reserves than is compatible with the 2 degree temperature target," she said.

There is a worrisome gap between what the Paris agreement seeks to achieve and the nationally-determined plans to reduce emissions, Klein said.

"Our governments in their infinite wisdom have said, 'We know what we need to do and we are willing to do roughly half that,'" she said.

"What we had in Paris was a pretty good definition of safety coupled with a concrete plan for disaster."

In Canada, 90 per cent of Alberta's oil sands bitumen needs to stay in the ground to avoid dangerous degrees of warming, Klein argued.

"There is no room for expansion of the Alberta tar sands if we are going to keep these promises," she said.

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