Climate news & insights

New global, national and provincial commitments make 2024 a stand-out year for generational fairness. This Global Intergenerational Fairness Day, young and old Canadians alike should take pride in the progress we’ve made. Join us in marking the day on November 16.

Generation Squeeze had a unique opportunity this week to join world leaders at the United Nations in New York for a global milestone event — the adoption of the first ever Declaration on Future Generations. The Declaration affirms the responsibilities we collectively hold today to those who follow, calling on governments at all levels to “safeguard the needs and interests of future generations.”

Generation Squeeze is bringing our generational fairness solutions to the first-ever United Nations' Summit of the Future in New York this September. Canada will join other world leaders to stand in solidarity with current and future generations by agreeing on a Pact for the Future and a Declaration for Future Generations.

Canada’s ‘Fairness for Every Generation’ budget is inspiring others in our global movement. Leaders from the Berkley Institute for Young Americans in California are calling on their state to look to Ottawa for inspiration.

Those opposed to the federal carbon price promise to save us money. Generally they won’t, because research shows the carbon price contributes less than 1% to our major costs of living, such as rent and food. There are better ways to improve affordability, such as policies to reduce housing, child care and other major costs of living.

Gen Squeeze Founder Paul Kershaw was on Parliament Hill this week to remind Canadians why most of us supported paying for our pollution in the first place: “[W]e pay for our pollution because we love our kids, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. We have a duty to pay for our pollution for them… because there’s absolutely no escaping that we put our kid’s health, safety, air, drinking water, and food at risk when we pollute.”

Whether to pay for pollution isn’t about consumer preferences. It’s a duty we owe to our kids. We need our politicians to recognize as much if they are to identify real solutions to the affordability crisis, and to reduce risks from extreme weather.

Federal parties have misdiagnosed the biggest changes in 2023 Fall Economic Statement. Canada needs a federal task force on generational fairness to correct these misperceptions of federal finances.

Nobody likes to be challenged about whether they earned all that they have. Some get defensive when I talk about winning the “lottery of timing” by becoming a homeowner years ago, or when I raise concerns that younger Canadians inherit unaffordability and climate problems in which I’m partly implicated. Breaking through this defensiveness is necessary if Canada is to work once again for young and old alike.

Today, November 16, 2023, is the first global Intergenerational Fairness Day. The urgent need to reverse the deteriorating well-being of younger and future generations stretches beyond Canada. Voices from the US, Germany, UK, Netherlands, Japan, Nigeria, and Australia as well as United Nations Foundation Next Generation Fellows have joined together to call on governments to preserve what is sacred – a healthy childhood, home, and planet – so that we can all be proud of the legacy we leave for those who follow.