OTTAWA — Meghan Fandrich's voice shakes as she recalls grabbing her five-year-old daughter and fleeing their home as flames descended on the village of Lytton, B.C., in 2021.
Darryl Tedjuk is quiet as he relates the reality that his hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk in Northwest Territories is slowly being washed away by the Beaufort Sea.
They are among a growing class of Canadians for whom climate change is not an abstract but a lived reality.
The two are in Ottawa today to plead with parliamentarians to take climate change more seriously and do whatever it takes to slow global warming.
Scientists from the European Union's earth monitoring arm Copernicus reported this week that last month was the warmest May ever recorded globally, with an average temperature 1.52 C higher than the pre-industrial average.
The Canadians who brought their own stories of climate survival to Ottawa today say more needs to be done to lower emissions both in Canada and around the world.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 6, 2024.
The Canadian Press
