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Poelzer in Globe and Mail: Canada's climate policy frozen in time

This editorial by Greg Poelzer (Department of Political Studies) appeared in the Sept. 2, 2015 edition of the Globe and Mail.

Canada’s climate policy is frozen in time

By Greg Poelzer

Former Saudi Arabian oil minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani famously warned his fellow oil producers in June, 2000: “Thirty years from now, there will be a huge amount of oil – and no buyers. … The Stone Age came to an end, not because we had a lack of stones, and the oil age will come to an end not because we have a lack of oil.”

Anyone attending U.S. President Barack Obama’s GLACIER Conference (Global Leadership in the Arctic: Co-operation, Innovation, Engagement and Resilience) left with the profound sense that Sheik Yamani may well be right. The driver is the emerging political consensus among the leading economies of the world that we must address global climate change and dramatically reduce greenhouse-gas emissions – not later, but now.

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