South Okanagan—West Kootenay MP Richard Cannings called on the Trudeau Liberals Monday to take greater action on climate change.

Cannings spoke at length during a House of Commons emergency debate on global warming spurred by a bombshell United Nations report last week on predictions of what will occur if warming is allowed to continue unchecked.

“The IPCC report states that the world would have to cut greenhouse emissions by half by 2030 and then achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 to meet the 1.5 C target that Canada so proudly proclaimed and led the world on at the Paris Agreement,” Cannings said. “We are just over the 1 C increase now and under present policies we are headed for 3 C or maybe 4 C.”

“We have already seen some of the early effects of that 1 C increase, such as more fires, more floods, more heat waves and more extreme weather of all sorts,” he added.

Cannings suggested summertime highs of 44 C in Osoyoos could become commonplace, and noted Canada’s efforts to fulfill the Paris climate targets have been ranked as “highly insufficient,” in the same category as China.

He said Canada has to “do better," instead of investing in the TransMountain pipeline, and could have spent the money on electric vehicle infrastructure and building retrofits.

Cannings called on the government to adjust its climate change targets to those in line with United Nations recommendations.

“They should have admitted, 'gee, we were wrong', that the world's scientists are telling us that we have to do this if we are to do our bit and show the world that we are at least pulling our own weight, if not showing some leadership.”

He also went after the Conservative party for fighting the carbon tax and putting political gain above “the world they will leave our children.”