Jonathan Wilkinson
Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson
Member of Parliament for North Vancouver
Column | An open letter to our next generations
October 20, 2021

I write this to you, the young people of North Vancouver, within days of my anticipated departure to represent our country at what may be the most consequential international climate conference of our time.

It’s being held in Glasgow - called ‘COP26.’ British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in a recent speech to an international gathering of youth, said it has the potential to launch “the beginning of the end of climate change.”

Your generation understands well the devastating impacts of uncontrolled climate change on our collective future. Some of you are so alarmed you say you will never have children.  Many of you have channeled your profound worry into constructive ideas and political action.     

I understand your sense of betrayal and anger… of feeling abandoned to live with the consequences of insufficient action by those you trusted to protect you and our world. When I was younger, the words of a song by the band Ten Years After spoke to the frustration that spurred me to eventually take political action on climate change: “I’d love to change the world. But I don’t know what to do. So, I’ll leave it up to you.”

The fact is, the world now knows what to do about climate change and has the technologies required to do it. We are increasingly going in the right direction as a global community - but not nearly fast enough. What is lacking is sufficient will and ambition at the global level.

You have proven that by raising your voices you can be catalysts to help lift the collective ambition of nations around the world.  We need you to continue to push for countries to go further and to move faster. We need you, through your conversations with older Canadians, to help them see the future through your eyes – to strengthen the political consensus in Canada and elsewhere that will enable sustained, ambitious climate action.   

 Those of us in government must build better avenues for your voices to be heard.  And act on what we’re hearing. In this regard, the number of young people in the Canadian delegation going to COP26 is equivalent to the number of representatives from business, labour and environmental organizations.

 The Paris climate conference in 2015 was about promises. Glasgow is about raising ambition and building trust. On both those fronts, Canada is well-positioned internationally to influence through example.

In the six years since Paris, Canadians have worked hard to put in place many of the key fundamentals to permanently change our carbon trajectory - including phasing out coal-fired electricity, implementing an effective carbon pricing strategy, reducing methane emissions, enshrining Canada’s climate targets into law, and implementing a concrete and detailed blueprint for how those targets will be met.

One key to building the trust among nations at COP26, which is a precondition to collective action, is to fulfil a promise made by the developed world to developing nations to raise $100 billion a year to help mitigate and adapt to climate change. Canada and Germany, at the request of the President of COP26, have led the international effort to try to ensure those funds are secured - and we have been working very hard in recent months to ensure that promise is kept.

COP26 is also a moment to build trust among generations. It is an opportunity to rise above despair and cynicism by demonstrating meaningful action, speaking truth, and listening deeply to the voices and solutions of those with the most at stake – you.

My generation is counting on you just much as you are depending on us. My commitment to you is to keep doing everything that we can to listen and to act, so that we can leave behind a planet that is in better shape than we found it.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Wilkinson

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