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Canada’s climate plan not enough, entire G7 must do more report says

Aug 22, 2019 | 11:03 AM

OTTAWA — A report card on the climate action plans of the world’s wealthiest nations suggests not one of them is on track to meet even their own stated climate goals.

The Climate Action Network, an international network of more than 1,300 climate groups, is issuing the report as the leaders of the G7 gather for their annual meeting in France this weekend.

The Paris climate change agreement signed by all G7 nations in 2015 aims to keep global warming as close to 1.5 C as possible.

The report card places Canada at the bottom of the pack with the United States and Japan, and the existing plans of all three are compatible with global warming above 4 C — a threshold that threatens to bring potentially catastrophic consequences to the planet.

France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom have plans that would see global warming exceed 3 C by the end of the century.

The report says Canada has some good policies, like ending the use of coal and maintaining a national price on pollution, but that they are nowhere near enough.

The Canadian Press