Canada ‘missed the boat’ on economic policies to mitigate climate change: doctor
VANCOUVER — Canada “has missed the boat” when it comes to developing renewable energy resources that would mitigate the impact of global warming and its impact on human health, a leading medical expert says.
Dr. James Orbinski, a professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, told a meeting of the Canadian Medical Association that Canada still has time to catch up with other countries or it will be left behind.
California has the fastest-growing economy in the United States despite putting a price on carbon emissions, but Canada has failed to recognize that this is not a “false choice” with a negative economic impact, Orbinski said Monday.
“For Canada, we have been stuck in this paradox,” he said. “We are lagging behind economically in terms of the kind of advances that other nations like Germany, Spain, the nations of continental Europe, the U.K., China even, the kind of policies that they’re engaging in terms of dealing with the effects of climate change.”