global-warming

Most countries, especially the largest, the richest and the petro-states (which include Canada), continue to put their own national interests ahead of global concerns.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

25 November 2025

700 words

Another COP, another cop-out! As anyone who pays the slightest attention to the news must know by now, COP30 – the annual global climate change jamboree, this year in Belem, Brazil, ended, yet again, more with a whimper than a bang. The fact that the words ‘fossil fuel’ did not even appear in the final statement exemplifies that failure.

In an interview with The Guardian before COP30, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres had said “we have failed to avoid an overshooting above 1.5C in the next few years”. Said Simon Stiehl, the UN’s climate chief, after the final plenary “I’m not saying we’re winning the climate fight”, while Mr. Guterres stated “The gap between where we are and what science demands remains dangerously wide.”

COP30 was particularly embarrassing for Mark Carney and for Canada. Carney had once been the darling of the climate action community, as the UN’s Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance. But the UN-backed Net-Zero Banking Alliance, which he co-founded in 2021 and co-led, and which was supposed to find $100 trillion – yes trillion – to finance the transition away from fossil fuels, voted to shut down in October.

As for Canada, on November 18^th, at COP30, Climate Action International (CAI) awarded us the ‘Fossil of the Day’ dishonour “because the new government of Prime Minister Mark Carney has flushed years of climate policies down the drain, and is completely ‘Missing In Action’ at a COP”. Moreover, added CAI, “in addition to the backsliding on policies tackling Canada’s climate-destroying pollution, his Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin has chosen inaction and silence where leadership was urgently needed.” 

The core problem is this: The world’s leaders – whether elected, inherited, self-appointed or corporate – simply do not get any part of ‘global ecological crisis’, never mind take it seriously.

Let’s start with global. Most countries, especially the largest, the richest and the petro-states (which includes Canada), put their own national interests ahead of global concerns. In the case of Canada, it’s not unusual to hear fossil fuel apologists argue that since we are so small – only 1.5 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions – nothing we do makes much difference, so why bother.

But only 8 countries – led by China, the USA, India and Russia – emit more than 2 percent of global emissions – although admittedly they emit about 60 percent of total emissions; we are 10^th, by the way, on a par with Germany and South Korea. So if the all the other countries in the world took the view that they are too small to matter, we would fail to take action on 40 percent of emissions – not small at all.

Second, let’s think about ecological. It seems governments have trouble even thinking about ‘environment’, never mind ecological. The Carney government is a case in point. His mandate letter to his Cabinet does not identify any aspect of the environment as either a challenge for Canada or a priority for his government; indeed the letter doesn’t even mention the word. As for ecological, forget it. The environment seems to be seen largely as a resource to be exploited, something over which we exert dominion. In reality, as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) wisely put it in 2014: “Ecosystems sustain societies that create economies. It does not work any other way round.” In other words, ecosystems exert dominion over humans, a reality that is largely ignored.

Third, we are in crisis. Climate change, bad as it is, is just one of the seven (out of nine) Earth system boundaries we have already crossed. And the crossing of multiple planetary boundaries is just one of a multitude of crises that together constitute the polycrisis.

Back in 2020, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said “Humanity is waging war on nature. This is suicidal.” It seems the memo did not arrive in the minds of those who are supposed to be our leaders. Well, they are leaders, in the same way that the lemming at the front of the pack is a leader, heading over the cliff. We need to stop being lemmings. And they need to recognise we face a global ecological crisis.

© Trevor Hancock, 2025

thancock@uvic.ca

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the

University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy

Dr. Trevor Hancock

20 October 2025

701 words

Prime Minister Carney wants Canada to be an energy superpower, including in ‘conventional energy’ (read fossil fuels). Far from being the climate action champion we expected him to be, he seems to have swallowed his principles in a rush to get short term gain at the expense of long-term pain.

His “dismal” record was summed up recently by Anna Johnston, a staff lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law: “In just a few months, Carney’s government has walked back key federal climate policies, including the consumer carbon price, the electric vehicle mandate, and – alarmingly – Canada’s commitment to its 2030 emissions reduction target.”

Add to that other policies that are supportive of the continued expansion of the fossil industry and it is easy to see why Johnston concludes that for Carney’s government “climate action is no longer a priority, even as the climate crisis worsens.”

The Premiers are no better. Danielle Smith is of course in a class of her own; there isn’t a fossil fuel expansion proposal she hasn’t fallen in love with. But in general the provinces provide various forms of support for fossil fuel extraction, transportation, export and clean-up, the Winnipeg-based International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) noted in January. The IISD reported an OECD estimate that in 2023 the provinces and territories provided $4.6 billion in fossil fuel subsidies.

These subsidies are not going away. In a study released in September the IISD reported “The governments of Canada and British Columbia are set to provide more than CAD 3.93 billion in support to the [B.C.] liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry by the end of 2030.” That includes “$2.16 billion by the end of 2030 from the BC government through foregone revenue, reduced electricity rates, and investment in enabling infrastructure.”  

But there are a few inconvenient facts that Mr Carney and the premiers are either unaware of – which seems unlikely – or are choosing to ignore.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) just announced that CO2 levels increased by 3.5 parts per million (ppm) in 2024, reaching an unprecedented high of 424 ppm. This was “the largest one-year increase since modern measurements began in 1957.” Two other key greenhouse gases – methane and nitrous oxide – also reached unprecedented highs in 2024.

Unsurprisingly, The WMO reported that “the global temperature in 2024 was the highest recorded in the observational record dating back to 1850” and that “for the first time, it passed the significant 1.5 °C mark relative to the pre-industrial period.”

Three main factors drove the increase in CO2, the WMO reported: continued fossil fuel emissions, increased emissions from wildfires (themselves linked to higher global temperatures) and reduced land and ocean sinks that usually absorb a lot of the CO2 we emit.

When it comes to emissions, the September 2025 Production Gap Report found “Governments, in aggregate, still plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C.”

Those higher temperatures drive the other two factors driving higher CO2 levels. Both are examples of positive feedback loops at work; changes that are self-reinforcing. Higher temperatures bring more wildfires that create more CO2 that leads to higher temperatures. And those higher temperatures also lead to droughts that reduce the ability of forests and grasslands to absorb CO2, while warming of the oceans reduces their ability to absorb CO2.

Chillingly, the WMO reports, “There is a significant concern that terrestrial and ocean CO2 sinks are becoming less effective, which will increase the fraction of [human created] CO2 that stays in the atmosphere, thereby accelerating global warming.”

It now looks as if we are on the cusp of, if not already beyond, the first critical tipping point in climate change, according to the just-released Global Tipping Points Report. The authors have concluded that “warm-water coral reefs are crossing their thermal tipping point and experiencing unprecedented dieback . . . Polar ice sheets are approaching tipping points, committing the world to several metres of irreversible sea-level rise that will affect hundreds of millions.”

In the face of such evidence, ongoing support for expanded fossil fuel extraction and use is at best a moral collapse and at worst, the crime of ecocide.  

© Trevor Hancock, 2025

thancock@uvic.ca

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the

University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy

• Published as  “You can celebrate CO2 and ignore climate change, but it won’t stop the hurricanes”

The United Conservative Party in Alberta is falsely claiming that CO2 is ‘near the lowest level in over 1,000 years’ — an example of both ignorance and ignore-ance

Dr. Trevor Hancock

22 October 2024

698 words

My first reaction to the news that the United Conservative Party (UCP) in Alberta was to vote on a resolution to stop calling carbon dioxide a pollutant and claiming that CO2 was “near the lowest level in over 1,000 years” was that it must be April Fool’s Day. Then I remembered that this was the UCP, where every single day seems to be a fool’s day.

The resolution is just one small example of a wider phenomenon: The ability of politicians and their followers to display a combination of ignorance and ignore-ance. Of the two, ignore-ance is by far the more sinister and dangerous. Ignorance is just lack of knowledge – ‘Oh, I didn’t know that’ – but ignore-ance is the wilful ignoring of something you know.

The ignorance is clear in the assertion that CO2, currently at around 420 parts per million (ppm), is near the lowest level seen in over 1,000 years. Well, the last time it was as high as 420 ppm was 14 million years ago, according to a 7-year long study by more than 80 researchers from 16 nations, published in the prestigious journal Science in December 2023.

Moreover, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the USA notes that over “the past million years or so, atmospheric carbon dioxide never exceeded 300 ppm.” Any way you look at it, no way is CO2 near the lowest level in over 1,000 years.

So take your pick; either the authors of the UCP resolution – and the UCP policy committee that vets resolutions – were ignorant of the evidence, or they were aware of it but chose to ignore it – ignore-ance.

Nor does it end there; the resolution also wants to remove the designation of CO2 as a pollutant. Instead, they want it to be recognised as “a foundational nutrient for all life on Earth” – which it is, at the right levels, for plants, which are the base of our food chains.

Manitoba’s Department of Agriculture, for example, notes that photosynthesis in most plants will be maximised at about 1,000 ppm of CO2. Beyond that, however, performance worsens, and 10,000 ppm (1 percent) of CO2 is sufficient to cause damage and eventually death.

The same is true for humans. The US Centers for Disease Control states that the maximum level of CO2 for occupational exposure is 5,000 ppm, that 30 minutes at 50,000 ppm causes signs of intoxication, and that 70,000 – 100,000 ppm (7 – 10 percent) causes immediate unconsciousness and will result in death.

Moreover, the CO2 emitted from fossil fuel combustion is the main driver of global heating. The relationship between atmospheric CO2 levels and global heating is very clear and well understood, and was first described by Svante Arrhenius in 1886. As the past few years have made abundantly clear, climate change is already causing significant levels of death, injury and  disease, and that is only going to get a lot worse.

So yes, CO2 is a pollutant, as that word is defined by the Oxford Reference Dictionary: “Any substance, produced and released into the environment as a result of human activities, that has damaging effects on living organisms.” Clearly CO2 is released into the environment by human activity (as well as by natural processes), it is toxic to both plants and animals (at levels well below current atmospheric levels), and it is heating the atmosphere and changing the climate, thus harming people directly and indirectly. So let’s not get too carried away in celebrating CO2!

Still, at least the Alberta government has not (yet) gone to the levels of ignore-ance displayed by the Florida Legislature. In a step not unlike a little child ignoring something horrid in the hope that it will go away, they passed a Bill in May that removed all reference to climate change in state law, which does not seem to have stopped Hurricanes Helene and Milton from wreaking havoc.

In Canada’s Criminal Code, section 19 reads “Ignorance of the law by a person who commits an offence is not an excuse for committing that offence.” It is time to extend that principle to political and corporate leaders and their followers who ignore the laws of physics and nature.

© Trevor Hancock, 2024

thancock@uvic.ca

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the

University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy