‘It’s happening right now’: World leaders in B.C. for climate change meeting

globalnews.ca:

Politicians and environmental leaders from more than 180 countries have been in Vancouver, B.C., this week, with many pledging to accelerate action on climate change and biodiversity loss at the assembly of the Global Environment Facility.

The organization manages a series of funds aimed at helping developing countries meet their climate goals, such as those established by the Paris Agreement, which sets a target of limiting global heating to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels.

Facility CEO Carlos Manuel Rodriguez said the need to accelerate action is more urgent than ever, as disasters linked to global heating devastate communities worldwide, including wildfires ravaging British Columbia and the Northwest Territories.

“The climate and biodiversity crisis is not something that is going to happen later this century, in 25 years,” Rodriguez said in an interview ahead of the assembly, the seventh since his organization launched in 1991.

“It’s happening right now. Look outside your window,” he said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed the assembly ahead of its close Friday, saying Canada is experiencing its worst-ever wildfire season and “climate change is key to the story.”

“No one country, no one people can pretend anymore that what happens or doesn’t happen on the other side of the world doesn’t matter to them,” Trudeau said. “And not just ‘doesn’t matter’ even in an abstract way, but ‘doesn’t matter’ in a concrete, affect-your-daily-lives way.”

Canada’s minister of environment and climate change, Steven Guilbeault, likewise said the wildfires that have forced tens of thousands of people from their homes serve as an “unwanted reminder of the need to act together with urgency.”

The minister made