The discussion at the last weeks Real Estate Forum in Toronto, attended by over 2,000 people, was dominated by the global financial crisis and its implications for the U.K., U.S. and Canadian economies. Throughout a three-day period, in spite of the impending Copenhagen Summit on climate change starting Monday December 7th, there was almost no mention of green buildings and sustainability.

A prominent theme of The Forum was the decoupling of the Canadian and U.S. economies particularly with respect to real estate. The superior policies and practices of the financial sector in Canada was frequently attributed with preventing an economic crisis here at the scale experienced in other parts of the World and in the U.S. in particular.

For the first time in history Canada seems to have broken free, at least temporarily, from the over bearing economic influence of the U.S. There was little discussion about ‘sleeping with the elephant’ to the south who seems to have been transformed into a far more fragile creature.

While there was a parallel green building conference at The Toronto Forum it is still surprising that climate change was barely raised. Silence on the issue prevailed despite the vast majority of individuals who believe the research pointing to a potential global environmental disaster.

Furthermore, the building sector is attributed with generating about 40% of the green house gas emissions that contribute to climate change. It is considered a sector where existing technologies can be readily applied to make significant and near term reductions in the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere.

The prominent companies represented at the real estate forum almost all have sophisticated sustainability programs. CB Richard Ellis is one of the first global companies to adopt a climate change strategy. Oxford Properties alone has one of the most admired initiatives in Canada to green its buildings and other major pension fund owned property companies have made similar commitments.

To allow the circumstances and issues of the current financial crisis to dominate the agenda with no mention of climate change issues may reflect a perilous denial of the global threat it represents. While the intangible nature of the danger makes it difficult to grapple with its enormity, and complexity of the problem and solution, avoidance is clearly not the answer.

The animal in our bed in Canada may no longer be the elephant to the south but the climate change dinosaur  – a dinosaur whose sleep we should all be aware of disturbing.