En réaction à l’étude publiée par l’Institut Pembina et la Fondation David Suzuki sur les façons de réduire substantiellement les émissions canadiennes de gaz à effet de serre, le Globe and Mail d’hier explique à ses lecteurs qu’on ne peut pas « disloquer la structure économique canadienne » en imposant trop lourdement le secteur pétrolier. Dans une réplique claire et forte, le Haut-Commissaire britannique au Canada, Anthony Cary, indique qu’on ne peut pas négocier avec le climat. À lire pour la force de l’argument.

We can’t talk to the atmosphere

Your editorial on climate-change policy (Targets Set Without A Plan, And Costs That Are Perilous – Oct. 29) recognizes the significance of the Pembina Institute/David Suzuki Foundation study, offering ways in which Canada might start to limit greenhouse-gas emissions after years of inexorable growth. Yet, you baulk at the “transformative changes the study says are needed to meet the government’s target.” That seems to me an extraordinarily timid and unimaginative conclusion.

Your alternative suggestion is that it may be “time for new targets.” It would be great if we could negotiate with the atmosphere, but we cannot. The targets are scientifically based and internationally agreed. Transformative changes are exactly what is needed, in North America as in Europe and Asia.

You say that Canada “must not, in the service of international obligations, allow itself to be immolated by a government policy of such wrenching dislocation.” Should you not rather be urging your government to press on with its transition to a low carbon economy both in fulfilment of its international obligations and in its own long-term national interest?

Anthony Cary, British High Commissioner to Canada, Ottawa