As the climate debate heats up ahead of Canada's elections, its environment minister has been assigned a security detail, she said Saturday, a move practically unheard of in a capital where top officials mingle with common folk.

It is not unusual in Ottawa and other Canadian cities to spot the foreign minister cycling to a news conference or the finance minister in line at a grocery store.

However abuse against Environment Minister Catherine McKenna, ranging from online vitriol to chilling confrontations, has been so harsh that she now sometimes requires security -- although details about the new measure were not released.

"The vocal sexism and hateful comments that are directed to people who work on climate change is unacceptable," McKenna said in a statement to AFP, explaining that it makes it harder to do her job and engage with people.

McKenna, who was responsible for charting Canada's CO2 emissions cuts by 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 under the Paris Agreement, has been wished dead and subjected to hateful sexualized insults.

She has been called disparagingly "Climate Barbie," garbage and an enemy of the people.

Political rhetoric and public discourse has reached such a dizzying low in Canada that a senior bureaucrat warned lawmakers in February that "the rising tide of incitements to violence" could lead to somebody being "shot in this country during the political campaign."

Recently, according to McKenna's office, a man rolled up next to her and her children outside a movie theatre and hurled expletive-laced insults from an open car window.

Several environmental activists have also raised concerns about their safety, citing threats from oil industry proponents critical of stronger environmental assessments for pipelines and a federal carbon tax.

The rattling is not only directed at Canadians. A former foreign minister, Maxime Bernier, this week called 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg "mentally unstable," before walking back his comments.

Climate is expected to be a major ballot issue during the upcoming Canadian election in October, with the two main political parties, which are running neck-and-neck in the latest polls, taking opposite sides on the matter.

Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, seeking a second term, has cast himself as a champion in the fight against warming, while his main rival, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer has vowed to roll back the carbon tax as his first act in office, if elected.

Former Bond star Brosnan backs teenage activist Greta Thunberg
Deauville, France (AFP) Sept 7, 2019 - Former James Bond star Pierce Brosnan heaped praise Saturday on teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, but also warned that she needed to be protected.

Brosnan described Thunberg as "a magnificent young woman. I wish her every success."

But in comments to AFP on the sidelines of the Deauville film festival, the 66-year-old Irish actor added: "She has to be careful, has to be protected."

Urging people to become active locally in environmental matters, Brosnan cited the example of Thunberg. In many cases, he said, "it starts with the children.

"You can see it with Greta, who has such an influence, a powerful impact on young people," he said.

Thunberg, still only 16, has become a figurehead for the climate change movement since sitting outside the Swedish parliament in August 2018 calling for politicians to cut carbon emissions and curb global warming.

She is currently in New York for a UN summit on carbon emissions, having been offered a lift there in a racing yacht after she refused to fly there because of the carbon emissions involved in air travel.

Thunberg has come in for criticism and abuse for her uncompromising attitude.

He produced and his wife directed an award-winning documentary, "Poisoning Paradise" about the agro-chemical industry in Hawaii, where they live.

The film focuses on "the effects of GMOs, (genetically modified organisms), Monsanto, BASF, that type of farming which has a deep effect on the community," he explained.

"Unfortunately we have a president who thinks there is no climate change," Brosnan said, referring to US President Donald Trump, who the actor said was "rolling back so many envionmental movements".

Asked about British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's politics, Brosnan replied: "Between him and Trump, this world is in a sorry state. It is shameful really what's happened here to England. There could be trouble ahead."

Brosnan played James Bond four times between 1995 and 2002 before passing the baton to the current Bond, Daniel Craig.

He was in Deauville, on the north coast of France, to accept a homage to his career.

Mick Jagger blasts Trump for bad manners, lies, environment
Venice (AFP) Sept 7, 2019 - Rock legend Mick Jagger attacked US President Donald Trump for his rudeness and lies Saturday and for "tearing apart" environment controls when America should be setting the standard for the world.

The Rolling Stones singer said he was "absolutely behind" young climate change activists who had earlier occupied the red carpet at the Venice film festival, where he was starring in the psychological thriller, "The Burnt Orange Heresy".

Jagger said he deplored how politics has descended into name-calling, "including in my own country this week" -- a reference to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson comparing opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to a "big girl's blouse" and a "chlorinated chicken".

The icon, now 76, bewailed "the polarisation and incivility in public life", although the one-time bad boy of 1960s rock admitted he was "not always for civility" himself.

"But when you see it now... in so many countries, including my own this last week, but particularly the US, it's a sea change.

"It is not about manners," Jagger insisted, saying he was fearful about "where all this polarisation and rudeness and lying is going to lead us."

More worrying still, said the singer, was that what little environmental safeguards there were were being swept away across the globe.

- 'Vote them out' -

"We are in a very difficult situation at the moment, especially in the US, where all the environmental controls that were put in place -- that were just about adequate -- have been rolled back by the current administration so much that they are being wiped out," he added.

Jagger, who rarely comments on politics, said "the US should be the world leader in environmental control but now it has decided to go the other way.

"I am so glad that people feel so strongly about that that they want to protest," he said, referring to young activists from Greta Thunberg's Friday for Future movement who sprayed "Listen to your children" and "Make the red carpet green" on the festival's red carpet.

Co-star Donald Sutherland echoed his call to protest, and urged people to take to the streets and vote out Trump, Johnson and Brazil's far-right leader Jair Balsonaro.

"Mick is right, the controls (in the US) under Obama were barely adequate -- now they are being torn apart. It's the same in Brazil and they will be torn apart in England" after Brexit," he warned.

"When you are 85 years old and you have children and grandchildren, we will leave them nothing if we do not vote those people out of office in Brazil and in London and in Washington.

- 'Ruination of the world' -

"They are ensuring the ruination of the world", something that "we have all contributed to", Sutherland added.

Jagger plays an art collector in a stylish thriller where it "is never clear who is telling truth".

"This movie is about fake(ness) and truth speaks to some of that, so it is part of this modern dialogue," he told reporters.

"We are going through a very strange time. You know you are living in it but you don't know what is going to happen at the end."

The Venice film festival ends on Saturday, with Roman Polanski's controversy-hit Dreyfus Affair story "An Officer and a Spy" already bagging the top prize from international critics.

They picked out director Theo Court's "White on White", about the genocide of native people in Patagonia, for their sidebar prize.

The last two winners of Venice's Golden Lion top prize -- "Roma" and the "Shape of Water" -- have gone on to win best picture at the Oscars.

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Democrats put climate crisis at heart of 2020 race
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