Climate change debate 30 years overdue, Canadian Inuit leader says

A view of the Greenland ice sheet in 2012. (NOAA HANDOUT PHOTO)

When members of the House of Commons held an emergency debate on the impact of climate change last Monday night, they were 30 years too late, the president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council-Canada said yesterday in a statement.

“Inuit have been bringing warnings about global warming to the international community as far back as the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992,” said Monica Ell-Kanayuk, the president of ICC-Canada.

Ell-Kanayuk, a former broadcaster at CBC Iqaluit, said she’s been familiar with the issue for years.

“I recall doing story after story about how the Arctic regions were suffering from the effects of climate change when I was at CBC radio for 18 years.”

Politicians in all parties should support “drastic action” to limit global warming to an increase of only 1.5 C over pre-industrial levels, she said.

The emergency debate in the House of Commons had been sparked by the release on Oct. 8 of a grim report by the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change.

The IPCC report found that an average global temperature increase greater than 1.5 C over pre-industrial levels would produce devastating effects, such as the irreversible loss of the Greenland ice sheet.

That, in turn, would produce a multi-metre rise in global sea levels in the future, the IPCC report found.

But in the Arctic, global warming would inflict a more devastating impact, with average temperature increases of up to 8 C in some land regions.

And if the average global temperature increase exceeds 2 C, the Arctic is very likely to be ice-free all summer, with habitat loss for multiple species.

The Arctic could also see a complete collapse of permafrost, which would release even more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the IPCC said.

“The chronic loss of Arctic sea ice, the melting of the permafrost, and the carbon dioxide and methane released from the oceans have unleashed runaway global warming, which we cannot stop even if we end all of our own emissions. These findings are not surprising to Inuit,” Ell-Kanayuk said.

In the Paris agreement, struck in December 2015, nation states agreed to actions that would limit global warming to no more than 2 C above pre-industrial levels. Global temperatures have already increased by 1 C since 1850.

So at the next United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be held at Katowice, Poland, Inuit will push for measures that will limit global warming to a 1.5 C increase, Ell-Kanayuk said.

“Inuit are witnessing the global impact first-hand. Rising temperatures are leading to dramatic irreversible effects on Arctic communities,” Ell-Kanayuk said.