Elizabeth May calls out Canadian leaders who still refuse to act on climate change: "History will judge them"

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      Green party leader Elizabeth May had some harsh words today (May 13) for right-wing politicians who still refuse to take the climate crisis seriously.

      "History will judge them,” she told CBC’s the Current. “History will look back on these politicians as inexplicably reckless, even criminal, in the way they're using climate crisis as a political football. They will not be judged well.”

      May singled out a few politicians by name: Alberta premier Jason Kenney, Ontario premier Doug Ford, and Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe.

      She said they’ve “fail what's required of responsible leadership”.

      Kenney, Ford, and Moe have all opposed the federal government’s efforts to see carbon taxes implemented in each province and territory across the country.

      During the interview with the Current's Anna Maria Tremonti, May also called out federal Conservative party leader Andrew Scheer, arguing that he is “unfit to govern”.

      “He hasn't shown any understanding of climate science,” she said. “I don't know that he understands climate science, so let's put Scheer to the side.”

      May gave Prime Minister Justin Trudeau credit for “understands climate science” but then described the Liberal government’s climate policies as “massively disappointing”.

      “They're refusing to take action on it because of short-term political concerns,” she explained. “Going from saying, 'We're going to be climate leaders,' to 'We're buying a pipeline and we're going to continue to subsidize fossil fuels even though we promised we wouldn't.' [That] was more directed by the short-term political considerations.”

      Yesterday (May 13), Jagmeet Singh, leader of the federal NDP and the MP for Burnaby South, called on Trudeau’s government to declare an “environment and climate emergency”.

      “#ClimateChange is the single greatest threat we face & Cdns are already paying the price,” Singh wrote on social media. “With extreme weather events & increased pollution, Canada must declare an environment & climate emergency and commit to bold action – it's time to act with the urgency this crisis requires.”

      Last month, a report commissioned by Environment and Climate Change Canada warned that Canada will experience the negative effects of climate change more severely than most other regions of the globe.

      "Canada's climate has warmed and will warm further in the future, driven by human influence,” it reads. “Both past and future warming in Canada is, on average, about double the magnitude of global warming.

      "Scenarios with limited warming will only occur if Canada and the rest of the world reduce carbon emissions to near zero early in the second half of the century,” the report concludes.

      Six months earlier, in October 2018, a United Nations report stated that many nations are already feeling the effects of climate change.

      “Limiting warming to 1.5ºC is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics but doing so would require unprecedented changes," Jim Skea, co-chair of UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group III, said quoted in an accompanying media release.

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