When it comes to climate hypocrisy, Canada's leaders have reached a new low | Bill McKibben

A territory that has 0.5% of the Earth's population plans to use up nearly a third of the planet's remaining carbon budget

Americans elected Donald Trump, who insisted climate change was a hoax - so it's no surprise that since taking office he's been all-in for the fossil fuel industry. There's no sense despairing; the energy is better spent fighting to remove him from office.

Canada, on the other hand, elected a government that believes the climate crisis is real and dangerous - and with good reason, since the nation's Arctic territories give it a front-row seat to the fastest warming on Earth. Yet the country's leaders seem likely in the next few weeks to approve a vast new tar sands mine which will pour carbon into the atmosphere through the 2060s. They know - yet they can't bring themselves to act on the knowledge. Now that is cause for despair.