because Canada is cold.
Even though we love our outdoor winter activities (hockey, skiing, snowshoeing, etc.), winter is tough, and the cold often makes life miserable enough that we'll just wistfully forget about those winter activities and accept the warmth. (Weird, That feels a lot like Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)
We're not going to suffer like the rest of the world, at least at not at first, so we're not going to put a lot of pressure on our politicians to stop the world from overheating. The rest of the world is going to have to do that. Yes, Canada has always thought of itself as a 'do the right thing' kind of country, and there's some merit to that, but in this case, we're not going to do anything, at least not soon enough.
Below the fold for why this is, in addition to 'it's cold here':
1. Even though the majority of Canadians think we should do something, and even though we think of ourselves as a 'do the right thing' nation, we're stuck with an antiquated voting system that makes it hard to exert pressure. Most Canadians are centre (currently Liberal) or left (currently NDP), while our government is very conservative. Our system is first-past-the-post and it allows Conservatives to maintain majority power with less than 40% of the vote, with only 50% of voters actually voting. This happens when the votes in a riding are split fairly evenly between Conservative, Liberal, and NDP, allowing the Conservative candidate to win with less than 40% of the vote. Meaning that many ridings where the majority of voters are not Conservative leaning get a Conservative MP as their representative.
2. Our leaders appear to be welcoming global warming. They certainly seem to be since they are working hard to promote Alberta Oil Sands, and working hard to NOT do anything to slow emissions. Those are facts. We don't know WHY they would be actively scuppering the fight against global warming. Speculatively: they actually believe the denier misinformation, possibly because they mostly hail from Alberta where the oil is. And, speculatively: large extractive industry companies (mining, oil, and gas) are going to get rich from all the resources that will get thawed out in our arctic. (I'd like to say that Canadians will get wealthy, but we'll just get jobs, the wealth will go to the corporations.) Our leaders are apparently ok with rest of the planet dying off.
So, it'll be a while before we elect a government with the fortitude to do the right thing and start spending money on renewable energy instead of on promoting Albert Oil Sands. And by a while, I mean at least 1 or 2 more terms, so by a while, I mean way too fucking late to save the planet.
I wish there was a plan for Canada to do something to help, but there isn't, so don't count on us for any.