This is one of the 26 segments of Guy Dauncey’s Climate Emergency: A 26-Week Transition Program for Canada. Excerpted by permission.

We face an ecological as well as a climate emergency. Because of our human influence, Earth is in the midst a mass extinction crisis: up to a million species are threatened with extinction, many within decades.

As part of this emergency, our oceans are in crisis. The ocean is absorbing 90% of the heat that is being trapped by our carbon emissions, and 20% to 30% of our human-caused carbon dioxide, making the water more acidic and more hostile to shellfish, corals, and other marine species. One in four species of sharks, rays, and skates are threatened with extinction, due primarily to overfishing. On Canada’s coasts, populations of marine fish, birds, mammals, and reptiles fell by 9% between 1970 and 2014. In Atlantic Canada, cod, mackerel, and tuna declined by 38%. Our already announced measures will contribute to the protection and restoration of land-based nature, and equal efforts are needed to restore the previous richness of Canada’s ocean wildlife and biodiversity. To this end, working with the provinces, First Nations, and others:

• At the UN Biodiversity Conference [originally scheduled for] China in October 2020 we will reaffirm our goal to protect and restore 30% of Canada’s land ecosystems by 2030, 50% by 2050. 11.8% is currently protected. Target 1 in Canada’s 2020 Biodiversity Goals and Targets is that by 2020, at least 17% of terrestrial areas and inland waters and 10% of coastal and marine areas are conserved through networks of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures. We will continue to support the Pathway Team pursuing Target 1: the Indigenous Circle of Experts, the National Advisory Panel and the National Steering Committee.
• We reaffirm our goal to establish Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to protect and restore 30% of Canada’s marine waters by 2030, 50% by 2050. Only 14% of our waters have some degree of protection, and in 2018 we erred in allowing the Northeast Newfoundland Slope marine refuge to be opened for oil and gas exploration. In light of the climate crisis, and the urgency to protect Canada’s marine waters, this decision will be reversed. MPAs protect species, habitats and ecosystems, sheltering ocean life and habitats so that they can recover from pollution or overfishing. They are off-limits to industrial uses, including oil and gas extraction, commercial fishing and seabed mining.
• We will take these commitments to the World Ocean Summit in March 2020 and the UN Ocean Conference [originally scheduled for] June 2020, and we will continue our work with our fellow members of the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy.
• We will work with other nations to protect global whale populations. Each whale absorbs an average 33 tonnes of CO2 before it dies, and when it sinks to the bottom of the ocean its carcass remains there for centuries, storing its carbon. Whales also support the production of phytoplankton, which capture as much CO2 as 1.7 trillion trees, or four Amazon forests. A 1% increase in phytoplankton productivity would capture and store the same amount of CO2 as two billion mature trees. If the world’s whales could restore their population from the current estimate of 1.7 million to four or five million, as it was before the advent of industrial whaling, they would capture 1.7 billion tonnes of CO2.
• We will develop Science-Based Protection Targets for each of Canada’s ecosystem types, from deciduous to coniferous forests, prairie grasslands to Arctic tundra, freshwater to marine ecosystems.
• We will work with the provinces, territories, Indigenous communities, scientists, industry and other stakeholders to expand the Species at Risk Act into a Species and Ecosystems at Risk Act to protect all endangered ecosystems across the country, based on the principles of conservation biology and traditional ecological knowledge.
• We will support Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas such as Tribal Parks with appropriate legislation, policies, and funding for land use planning, management and stewardship, and ecologically sustainable economic development in First Nations communities.

ª We will establish a $5-billion Endangered Habitat Acquisition Fund over 10 years to purchase and protect endangered ecosystems on private lands, and to offer conservation financing for First Nations sustainable economic development linked to the implementation of Indigenous Protected Areas and old-growth forest protection. This financing is additional to existing programs under the Habitat Stewardship Fund, the EcoAction Community Funding Program and the Canada Nature Fund. Cost: $500 million a year. (#49)

• We will seek ways to expand the Ecological Gifts Program, which enables Canadians who own ecologically sensitive land to leave a legacy for future generations protected by a conservation covenant, offering significant tax benefits. We will seek ways to make it easier and cheaper for Community Land Trusts to issue and monitor conservation covenants.
• We will establish a $10 million per year Ecological Democracy Fund to enable local organizations to engage more volunteers to protect and restore local ecosystems. Cost: $10 million per year (#50)

As announced earlier (Week 7), the Canada Youth Green Team will offer 5,000 jobs paying $30,000 a year by 2022, with a focus on climate, environment, and ecological restoration.