If you read the newspaper or watch the news, or even if you spend time talking about the environment or politics with those around you, you will likely have heard arguments about climate change. Whether it is real (it is), whether humans are exacerbating it (they are) and what we need to about it (lower GHG emissions). It is rare to find anyone who hasn’t heard something about climate change – or ‘global warming’ as it is often called – and doesn’t have their own opinion. Climate change is in the news almost every single day and is changing our world as we speak.
More than 97% of all actively publishing climate scientists agree that the earth is warming and that changing climate trends over the past century are likely due to human activity.[1] These scientists have been publishing research regarding climate change for decades and as time goes on it has become harder and harder for everyone else to deny. Global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now and is a growing threat to both our global society and our ecological world.[2] Unfortunately, despite all this evidence, not everyone has been convinced and there is still a lot of work to be done to ensure that countries around the world, including Canada, take their climate change obligations seriously.
The following section will focus on climate change both in Canada and internationally. We will introduce you to some of the laws and regulations being implemented to address climate change and will explain how science-based climate change interacts with environmental law.
So, what exactly is climate change? >> |
[1] Global Climate Change Vital Signs of the Planet, “Scientific Consensus: Earth’s Climate is Warming” NASA online: https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/.
[2] Global Climate Change Vital Signs of the Planet, “Scientific Consensus: Earth’s Climate is Warming.”
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