Keynote Prof. Patricia E. Perkins, York University

Canada is the world’s ninth-largest economy, and is generally ranked as one of the world’s best countries to live in. Canada’s GDP per capita is 22nd in the world. But Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions per capita and our carbon footprint per capita are among the highest in the world. From a climate justice perspective, reducing our emissions is a moral imperative.

Some Canadian academics participate in the Conferences of the Parties (COPs) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), or work with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to distil climate science, mitigation and policy research for policy-makers worldwide. Others are mobilizing for stronger and more effective climate policies here in Canada, to reduce both consumption-related and production-related emissions. Canadian scholars produce outstanding research on the diverse impacts of climate change, from melting ice, permafrost and methane releases to droughts, wildfires, floods, extreme weather events, changing biomes and habitats, food and health impacts, and climate models. Grassroots movements are laying the political-ecology groundwork for stronger public commitment to an equitable post-fossil fuel transition. Indigenous activism stopped or delayed greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to at least one-quarter of annual US and Canadian emissions between 2011 and 2021.

All this and more, within and beyond academia, is symbiotic and necessary -- especially as political chaos and economic harms draw attention away from the ongoing climate multi-crisis.

This is a hybrid event.