Canada and global warming: a state of denial 2

I am not sure where this should go as it is not so much aout denial as a challenge to environmental progress.

There are a number of articles about hot air hand dryers vs paper. I cannot find links to all of them here but the issue is interesting.

Some speculate that the dryers blow the virus around when the paper towel, wasteful of trees and paper are more effective.

Also the heat may or may not contribute to difficulty of the skin with frequent washes and chemicals.

Also that the dryers take so long that many shake their hans and leave with wet hands and that wet hands are a greater risk for transmission.

Depending on the source of electricity, the maintenance etc. It is hard for me to understand just how environmentally friendly those machines are in the first place. Are they there to save money? Requre less maintencance in replacing the paper? or to help the environment? Not sure.

Here is just one article bringing up some but not all the issues:

https://www.wired.com/story/wash-your-hands-but-beware-the-electric-hand-dryer/

The following article demonstrates that the sexual-oriented media attacks on Greta Thunberg go well beyond Canada and  "Harrassment of women online has become a norm", especially for women 18-30, and particularly for outspoken young women who raise issues such as climate change. The failure of police to deal with the issue speaks volumes about the intersectionality of the police, government and corporate viewpoints. 

 

Climate activist Greta Thunberg has been the target of a great deal of gendered online harassment recently. PHOTOGRAPH: FABRICE COFFRINI/GETTY IMAGES

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg is 17 years old, legally a minor. Despite her age, in the past week, numerous actual adults have made her the subject of many forms of online harassment. Some say she ought to be “burnt at the stake”; others have circulated images of a sex doll that resembles Thunberg and purportedly “speaks” using recordings of her voice; still others created and distributed a cartoon that appears to depict the activist being sexually assaulted.

That last bit of harassment, which shows a nude woman with the word “Greta” tattooed across her lower back having her pigtails grabbed by two large hands, has been linked to Canadian oil company X-Site Energy Services, whose logo appears on the image. X-Site Energy Services employees reportedly turned the image into a sticker and shared it among themselves. The company’s general manager initially denied the company’s involvement, but X-Site Energy Services’ website has since been replaced with a statement committing to destroying the decals and apologizing for “the pain [they] may have caused.” In closing, the oil company promised to “do better.”

The internet didn’t create this problem, but it does amplify it. The same forces that have allowed Thunberg and her message to climb to global virality are, in the hands of those who wish to discredit the teenager, the best weapon to use against her. While these smears are especially troubling in Thunberg’s case because of her age, they mirror the kinds of targeted online harassment employed against many people and groups by those who wish to silence them. The behavior is shocking, but not a shock.

To begin with, Thunberg is a woman on the internet. While there is debate about whether men or women experience more harassment online, studies have shown the harassment women experience tends to be more personal, more gendered, more sexual, and more likelyto be intense enough to drive them off of the social media platform where they’re being harassed. “The saddest thing that has emerged from my research is that young women aged 18 to 30 have accepted harassment as part and parcel of being online,” says Jessica Vitak, who studies online privacy and security at the University of Maryland. “They have various ways of dealing with it, but they don’t include thinking, ‘This shouldn’t be happening, and I should be fighting to make it stop.’” Harassment of women online has become a norm.

The harassment is only heightened when the woman in question is, like Thunberg, a public figure. The Inter-Parliamentary Union, a global organization including the parliaments of 179 member countries, found that more than 80 percent of female parliamentarians had experienced psychological violence, the most common form being online harassment. According to Mona Lena Krook, who studies women in politics at Rutgers University, women activists like Thunberg have very similar experiences, and often in the exact form that Thunberg has been experiencing this week. “The first place people go are gender-based slurs or sexualizing tactics,” Krook says. “Photoshopped sexual images are really common. When you sexually objectify somebody, your perception of their competence and humanity changes. It’s about delegitimizing them to a broader audience.” Politicians and activists from Hillary Clinton to US representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Malala Yousafzai are frequently pornified by their critics. ...

“Like men, women are attacked for their political ideas and ideologies,” Krook says, “and they’re attacked because they’re women. It’s more about keeping a certain group of people from participating in politics. ...

The reason Thunberg’s harassment is so intense, and intensely normal, is that who she is places her at the center of multiple lines of traditional, identity-based delegitimization tactics. “This is an intersectionality issue, and it’s making her experience pretty horrible,” Vitak says. “She’s a woman, she’s young. People harped on her being autistic. It’s common historically for women and female activists to be labeled as irrational or too emotional.” Critics, including President Trump, have already dismissed Thunberg as too young to listen to, or as “mentally ill” or “very angry.” ...

Because so many of Thunberg’s harassers are older, conservative men, Vitak recommends encouraging other men to step up as more vocal allies, since harassers tend to listen only when their own cohort speaks up. A stronger response from tech companies might also help. Still, both Vitak and Krook agree the most powerful response to this kind harassment has likely come from Thunberg herself: owning it. “They are starting to get more and more desperate,” Thunberg tweeted, referring to the sexually explicit cartoon. “This shows that we are winning.” The harassment may never end, but by documenting it, denormalizing it, and mocking it, she may be able to steal its power.

https://www.wired.com/story/greta-thunberg-online-harassment/

After PEI announced it was switching to electric school buses, parents around the country, especially those in BC, began demanding their provinces do likewise for the future of their children both because of climate change and the diesel fumes current buses release. 

Electric School buses manufactured by Quebec's Lion Electric. Handout photo by Lion 

Just days after Prince Edward Island pledged to make the province’s entire school bus fleet all-electric, a network of parents has launched to convince other provincial governments to follow suit.

 

The new organization, For Our Kids, is starting in British Columbia where the provincial government is actively looking to accelerate climate action to meet its targets. 

The call for electric school buses was supported by Dr. Melissa Lem, a mother and board member of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. 

“Reducing our kids’ exposure to harmful diesel fumes is good for their lungs and the planet,” said Dr. Lem. “Children are among the most vulnerable members of society health-wise, so we should be prioritizing solutions like electric school buses.”

Paul Shore, a father of two in Whister B.C. says he got involved with For Our Kids because his family had switched to an electric car and even an electric snow blower but every school day he had to watch as the local kids were breathing diesel fumes to get to school and back.

“B.C. says it wants to be a leader on climate change so what’s the hold up? Electric buses are readily available and being adopted all over North America, from Virginia to California to Montreal."

Shore is planning a presentation to his local school board and is already in touch with parents in other regions. “Every new fossil fuelled school bus we buy from this point forward locks our children into many more years of climate pollution and negative health impacts.”

B.C's Ministry of Education issued a news release following the launch of the For Our Kids campaign. The ministry announced that, "school districts will now have the option to purchase electric school buses through the Bus Acquisition Program." ...

The statement specified that, "The 2020-21 Bus Acquisition Program provides $13 million for 31 school districts to buy 101 new buses, including up to 15 electric buses. Districts that buy electric buses will also have access to provincial funding for charging station infrastructure."

Galen Armstrong, a For Our Kids spokesperson responded that, "15 electric buses out of 101 new ones is a great start, but it also means buying 86 diesel buses that lock us into years more pollution for our kids and the climate they'll inherit. This is why we’ll keep involving parents around BC in the campaign to make all new school buses electric and to transition the existing fleet by 2030 to help BC meet its climate targets,” Armstrong said. ...

The world leader in electric bus adoption is in China where the city of Shenzhen has switched its entire transit fleet and now has over 16,000 (not a typo) e-buses in operation. Bloomberg estimatesthat, thanks mostly to China, by the end of 2019 electric buses were displacing a cumulative 270,000 barrels of diesel demand per day, "more than three times the displacement by all the world’s passenger electric vehicles." 

Several Canadian cities have tested electric buses in winter conditions and are moving forward.Following successful trials, Montreal bought 42 e-buses and has mandated 100 per cent zero emission transit by 2040. Edmonton has bought 25 and the Toronto Transit Commission will purchase only zero emission buses after 2025.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/03/09/news/next-stop-parents-rally...

Instead of ending subsidies to existing fossil fuel projects and allowing new ones, as Trudeau has done in the face of the oil price wars and the effect of COVID-19 on demand, he should be shifting government money to renewable green energy projects. Instead he is continuing to do the exact opposite despite the evidence that the oilsands are not financially viable in the long run, in addition to being environmentally catastrophic.

Oilsands mining 

In the face of an economic crisis triggered by the global spread of COVID-19 and worsened by the Saudi Arabia-Russia price war, the outlook for new projects in Alberta’s oil patch – even those already approved – is bleak.

The federal government announced a major economic aid package Wednesday, as the country “teeters on the brink of recession,” according to an economic forecast released Tuesday by the Conference Board of Canada.

In the meantime a number of oilsands projects that have already secured a greenlight could be in limbo as oil companies face plunging prices, based on a list of approved projects that are not currently operating provided to National Observer by the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER).

The list contains more than 45 projects, including projects that have been “approved but not constructed”; projects that have been “approved, constructed, then postponed or delayed”; projects that have been “approved, constructed, began operating, then suspended”; and projects that have not been constructed “but are planning to operate in the future,” according to the AER. ...

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced $82 billion in economic aid Wednesday to help lessen the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. As of Thursday morning, there were more than 735 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Canada and 34 probable cases. The Canada-U.S. border has now been closed to all non-essential travel in an effort to slow the spread of the virus.

The government’s economic response to the crisis includes $27 billion in direct support to individuals and businesses and $55 billion in tax deferrals. Targeted measures to support the oil and gas industry and other particularly affected sectors are on their way but have yet to be announced.

“We’re going to actively work with organizations in the oil and gas sector, in the airline sector in order to come up with approaches that enable them to bridge through the challenging time, that’s critical,” Morneau said. “We’re not far enough along in those discussions to identify specific measures that we will take, but we do recognize the urgency of those discussions and are proceeding with that in mind.”

For Alberta's oil and gas industry, the situation is nothing short of a crisis, one that's left the fate of multiple project uncertain.

Among those that have been approved, but not yet constructed are Suncor’s Meadow Creek projects.

Just last month – two weeks before the Alberta government gave its Meadow Creek West project the final nod – Suncor announced it was shelving both its Meadow Creek West and Meadow Creek East projects until at least 2023.

That was before the U.S. Energy Information Administration downgraded its 2020 oil price forecastfor the benchmark West Texas Intermediate to an average $38 U.S. per barrel, down from an earlier forecast of $55 per barrel this year. The WTI was above the $25.00 U.S. a barrel mark mid-day Thursday, while the price for Western Canadian Select was slightly above the $11.00 mark during the same time period. ...

Oilsands producers have been struggling under the weight of depressed prices and limited pipeline access for a number of years now. 

That reality was brought into sharp focus earlier this year when Teck Resources pulled the regulatory application for its massive Frontier oilsands mine. But even before Teck’s surprise decision, analysts were questioning the economic feasibility of such a major undertaking in the oilsands, as well as the fate of numerous other projects, approved already. ...

Capital investments in the oil patch have declined since 2014, but just a few months ago, there was some expectation that the investment picture in the oilsands would improve this year as new pipelines came online.

“Of course, that’s all changed now,” said Pedro Antunes, the chief economist at the Conference Board of Canada in an interview with National Observer.

In the wake of the price crash, oilsands companies have made dramatic cuts to capital budgets for the year ahead. On Wednesday, Canadian Natural Resources Limited announced a $1 billion-reduction to its 2020 capital spending budget, though the company noted in a release today that it “is well positioned through the current global COVID-19 challenges.” Cenovus announced it was cutting its capital spending plans by 32 per cent and “deferring final investment decision on major growth projects.”

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/03/19/news/oilsands-projects-life-...

The Citizens for Public Justice (consisting of  labour, health, environmental, faith and social justice organizations) have written an open letter to Trudeau asking that the federal government shift away from subsidizing the fossil fuel industry as it continues to massively consume the money of Canadians and help build a modernized, diversified green economy to replace our fossilized economy. A 2015 International Monetary Fund (certainly not known for environmentalism) estimated that " Canada subsidized the fossil fuel industry to the tune of almost $60 billion in 2015 — approximately $1,650 per Canadian.  ". (https://thenarwhal.ca/canadas-fossil-fuel-subsidies-amount-to-1650-per-c...)

Yet since that time the Trudeau government has only sunk many billions more into the fossil fuel industry in a futile attempt to rescue it only to see Canadian oil drop to $5 per barrel in a COVID-19 global recession (depression?) where Canada's dirty high cost oil was already not competitive as described in the last post. 

Below is a copy of the letter they sent to the Trudeau Liberal government. 

To the Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, 

Cc: Federal Cabinet Ministers 

COVID-19 is presenting real and immediate risks to people’s health and livelihoods. It is appropriate and necessary for the federal government to make major interventions to keep people safe and healthy, to keep food on our tables and roofs over our heads. What is clear in these unstable times is how much we need economic resilience. Any federal government intervention to protect health and livelihoods must build an economy that’s ready to weather any crisis. Oil and gas workers and their families, like many others across Canada, urgently need financial support. 

The conflict between Saudi Arabia and Russia was enough to devastate Canada’s oil and gas industry before COVID-19 forced the economy-wide slowdown. Now, oil prices have reached historic lows and they may never reach levels that support Canadian production again.

The federal government has the opportunity with this stimulus package to immediately and directly support workers in Alberta and across the country while also investing in what is needed to grow and support a low carbon economy, and the kind of economy that can weather storms.

Decades of the impacts of colonialism including government neglect in healthcare in Indigenous communities has led to an overall lack of pandemic preparedness. The two key public health measures recommended to prevent the spread of COVID-19 are hand-washing and social distancing. Neither can be effectively carried out in the majority of Indigenous communities with non-potable water and substandard, overcrowded housing, deepening the impact of the burden of illness at the community level. There is consistent evidence that Indigenous people in particular are at increased risk of severe outcomes and health status disparities during outbreaks, demanding equitable distribution of human and material resources.

Giving billions of dollars to failing oil and gas companies will not help workers and only prolongs our reliance on fossil fuels. Oil and gas companies are already heavily subsidized in Canada and the public cannot keep propping them up with tax breaks and direct support forever. Such measures benefit corporate bottom lines far more than they aid workers and communities facing public health and economic crises. 

We, a collection of labour organizations and health, environmental, faith and social justice organizations, representing more than 1.3 million people across Canada, are asking the Federal government, which has committed to the Just Transition Act, to put in place a recovery program with measures to hasten a just transition and protect workers as production continues to decline in the coming years. Instead of providing a bail out to oil and gas companies in the form of share purchases or loan guarantees, the Federal government must create an economic stimulus package that includes three critical measures: 

• Oil and gas workers, like all workers from all sectors, need to be able to immediately access income support in order to preserve personal and public health. This support includes increased access to employment insurance and paid emergency leave as needed for all workers, regardless of immigration status, as well as income security. This applies to migrant and undocumented workers. 

• Stimulus money should offer immediate relief directly to workers and provide opportunities for training, education and employment in existing and emerging low-carbon sectors like energy efficiency, technology, healthcare and renewable energy. A program styled on the bailout of automakers in 2008 will unfortunately put the public at similar risk of having spent billions of dollars with little to show for it in a decade.
• Money for orphan well cleanup should be administered by an independent fund with representation from Indigenous communities, local governments and landowners who can ensure it is used to reclaim wells where the company is bankrupt and its remaining assets have already been spent for this purpose. It should also be tied to regulatory change in Alberta to ensure the province puts in place a polluter-pays program so the public is not left with these liabilities in the future.

https://cpj.ca/civil-society-letter-to-pm-trudeau-re-investing-in-workers

kropotkin1951 wrote:

The time is now. I for one can not figure out how the oil barons gained so much power in our country. In the midst of this pandemic they are still building infrastructure for industries that will be noncompetitive as sources of energy.

Just watch how we will subsidize oil being sold for $10 a barrell

We could be heading for another Standing Rock Sioux Reservation type showdown, this time with Jason Kenney if his new Keystone pipeline project proceeds. 

Today Premier Jason Kenney announced he intends to spend $ US 8 billion ($11.3 billion Canadian) building the Keystone pipeline in a project that would produce 1,400 direct jobs and allegedly 5,400 indirect jobs until it is finished in 2023 (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/tc-energy-keystone-xl-pipeline-1....). 

In an email on the weekend the Kenney government cut educational funding by $128 million. That money was to be used to be "used for transportation, substitute teachers and educational assistants, all of which is being reduced while in-person classes remain cancelled", while teachers were to continue being employed for online learning during the COVID-19 crisis. (https://globalnews.ca/news/6746803/alberta-school-funding-redirected-cov...) The CBC reported that the $128 million in savings would result in 20,000 to 25,000 lost jobs. 

This makes no economic sense. In fact there are severe problems faced by the Keystone pipeline project. While Trump has approved it, the Obama administration twice rejected it, many Democratic candidates in the presidential campaign have come out against, and while Biden has nothing about it now, he came out against it in 2003. One way this might end is with the Democrats shutting it down if Biden is elected. But the problems faces many other hurdles as Kenney, like a heroin addict, can't overcome his addiction to fossil fuels, no matter what it costs to other Albertans and the world in investments, jobs and the environment. 

The New York Times reports that  Governor Bullock of Montana has already told Kenney he is concerned about 100 pipeline workers coming into Montana because of the COVID-19 crisis. In the US environmental opponents and Native American tribes are continuing to challenge the pipeline in court. There is a Montana court hearing is already scheduled for April 16th in front of a judge who has already ruled against this project.

Opposition to another pipeline, the Dakota Access Pipeline, from American Native tribes and environmentalists at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation went on for months, sometimes resulting in police violence. Even if Kenney wins all the court battles he could end up with another Standing Rock.

The camp set up by Native American activists and environmentalists to protest against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL)

A Canadian company said Tuesday it plans to start construction of the disputed Keystone XL oil sands pipeline through the U.S. Midwest in April, after lining up customers and money for a proposal that is bitterly opposed by environmentalists and some American Indian tribes. ...

Despite plunging oil prices in recent weeks, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said the province's resource-dependent economy could not afford for Keystone XL to be delayed until after the coronavirus pandemic and a global economic downturn have passed. ...

A spokeswoman for Montana Gov. Steve Bullock said he had been in contact with Kenney to raise concerns over an estimated 100 workers coming into the state for the line's construction. Bullock said that could further strain rural health systems facing the coronavirus.  “TC Energy holds a tremendous responsibility to appropriately manage or eliminate this risk and we will continue to monitor the plans for that response," Bullock spokeswoman Marissa Perry said. There was only one confirmed infection as of Friday from eastern Montana counties along the line's route, but the virus has been spreading in rural areas in recent days. ...

The pipeline was rejected twice by the administration of President Barack Obama over worries it could make climate change worse. President Donald Trump has been a strong proponent of the $8 billion project and issued it a permit that environmentalists say was illegal.

A court hearing in the permit dispute is set for April 16 before U.S. District Judge Brian Morris in Great Falls. Morris has previously ruled against the project. The company has previously said it also plans in April to begin work on camps where pipeline construction workers would live in Fallon County, Montana and Haakon County, South Dakota. ...

A representative of the Sierra Club said the decision to push forward with the project amid the coronavirus pandemic was “a shameful new low" for the company. Pipeline opponents contend workers could inadvertently spread the virus to rural areas with limited health care services. 

“By barreling forward with construction during a global pandemic, TC Energy is putting already vulnerable communities at even greater risk," said the Sierra Club's Catherine Collentine. “We will continue to fight to ensure this dangerous pipeline is never completed."

Opposition to another pipeline built through the region several years ago, the Dakota Access Pipeline, culminated in months of protests, sometimes violent, near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation that straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota state line.

Lawmakers in some states have sought to curb the possibility of similar protests against Keystone XL. ...

Another oil pipeline in TC Energy’s Keystone network in October spilled an estimated 383,000 gallons (1.4 million liters) of oil in eastern North Dakota. 

Critics have said a damaging spill from Keystone XL is inevitable given the length of the line and the many rivers and other waterways it would cross beneath.

https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2020/03/31/world/bc-cn-canada-keystone-...

The challenges facing BC's Coastal Gas pipeline grow every week. Already facing challenges from First Nations blocades, dropping LNG prices and disappearing Asian markets due to Coronavirus and American LNG production, the ever growing list of subsidies to keep it going, increasing competition from cheap solar and wind energy, there is now the a report that "LNG Canada has confirmed a case of COVID-19 in an employee who works at the site of its future export facility in Kitimat, B.C." (https://globalnews.ca/news/6766354/covid-19-case-lng-canada-site/) This also creates a substantial risk to communities in the North, where healthcare services tend to be much smaller than in Metro Vancouver. This is even more true for First Nations communities near the path of the  pipeline. 

Its time to end this project due to the environmental problems it creates,  its failure to address First Nations territorial rights, and  its lack of financial viability without ever more subsidies. 

Since early February, when the RCMP arrested Wet’suwet’en matriarchs, hereditary chiefs and their supporters — setting off nation-wide blockades of rail lines and ports and igniting a national debate about Indigenous rights and title, large resource projects and the global climate emergency — Coastal GasLink has risen from obscurity to infamy.  ...

demand has recently stalled due to milder winters and the novel coronavirus outbreak, threatening to make LNG plants around the world unprofitable.)  ...

Government press materials tout LNG Canada as a $40 billion project, calling it “the largest private-sector investment in B.C.’s history.” But LNG Canada estimates a $25 to $40 billion investment for a two-phase project. Only phase one of the project has received approval. For phase one, LNG Canada has only committed to spending between $2.5 and $4.1 billion in B.C. and acknowledges that between $7 and $11.1 billion for phase one will be spent on foreign soil. This includes the cost of construction of the export facility, which will be manufactured abroad and shipped in pieces to Kitimat. ...

According to the B.C. government, the LNG Canada project will emit four megatonnes of carbon emissions each year during its first phase — the equivalent of adding 856,531 cars to the road.   ...

If the project’s second phase goes ahead, LNG Canada will emit more than double the carbon of the cancelled Frontier oilsands mine project — 8.6 megatonnes per year in 2030, rising to 9.6 megatonnes in 2050.  That’s roughly the equivalent of putting 1.7 million new cars on the road each year.  The B.C. government’s emissions estimate includes only the first phase of the project. ...

Industry has successfully marketed gas as ‘natural’ because, like other fossil fuels, it comes from the earth. The term “natural gas” is now widely used. The majority of gas shipped through the Coastal GasLink pipeline will come from northeast B.C., where the predominant form of extraction is a process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. B.C. is the fastest-growing natural gas producer in Canada, thanks in large part to the advent of fracking. ...

Fracking uses vast amounts of fresh water. Recent frack jobs in northeast B.C. have used more than 22 million litres of water per well — enough to fill about nine Olympic-sized swimming pools. The water becomes contaminated after the fracking process and must be disposed of in tailings ponds or by being injected deep underground. The industry’s pressing need for fresh water has resulted in the construction of at least 90 unlicensed dams in northeast B.C. Fracking releases significant carbon emissions through fugitive leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. New research published in the journal Nature suggests natural gas is a much dirtier fossil fuel than previously thought, with emissions that put it on par with coal. ...

The publicly funded Site C dam, currently under construction on B.C.’s Peace River, will provide subsidized electricity for the LNG Canada project. ...

B.C.’s NDP government had an opportunity to cancel the project after it came to power in 2017 but chose to continue construction, approving another $2 billion for the dam’s escalating tab, which now stands at $10.7 billion. The Site C dam will flood traditional Treaty 8 territory, including First Nations burial grounds, trapping and hunting grounds and cultural and spiritual sites. It will eradicate some of Canada’s richest farmland, inundate protected heritage and archeological sites, destroy habitat for more than 100 species vulnerable to extinction and flood 800 hectares of carbon-storing wetlands. ...

A UBC study found the Site C project will have more significant adverse environmental effects than any project ever examined in the history of Canada’s environmental assessment act, including oilsands projects, mining projects and the Northern Gateway project, which was cancelled by the Trudeau government on the grounds that impacts on First Nations and the environment were unacceptable. ...

To attract the corporations behind LNG Canada, B.C.’s NDP government offered a smorgasbord of direct subsidies worth an initial $5.35 billion, in the form of tax reprieves, tax exemptions and discounted electricity rates.  Without government handouts the LNG Canada project, set to begin operation by 2025, would not be economical for the companies involved. ...

The list of subsidies is long but it’s your money so you might want to know how it’s spent. Grab some popcorn and settle in. Ready? Here we go. 

While British Columbians have to pay provincial sales taxes on, for example, an electric car, LNG Canada’s PST exemption means the company will not have to pay this tax during its construction period. That gives the consortium what is essentially an interest-free loan for two decades, for an annual savings of about $19 million to $21 million, according to economist Marc Lee, who has called the LNG Canada project a “carbon bomb.”

The NDP government has also eliminated the LNG income tax (a tax the B.C. NDP supported while in opposition), while a natural gas tax credit gives LNG Canada an additional three per cent corporate income tax cut.  While touting its Clean BC plan, the provincial government has at the same time exempted LNG Canada from increases in the B.C. carbon tax above $30 per tonne. 

The consortium will get a rebate that economist Lee pegs at about $62 million a year (once the carbon tax, now at $40 per tonne, rises to $50 per tonne next year).  And, even as BC Hydro customers face rate hikes totalling eight per cent from 2019 to 2024, the publicly funded Site C dam will provide subsidized electricity for LNG Canada. According to Lee, the new power supplied from Site C will cost about double what LNG Canada will pay for it — amounting to a subsidy valued at between $32 million and $59 million per year. That leaves ratepayers to make up the difference. ...

Through its “Investing in Canada Infrastructure Plan,” the federal government will contribute $83.6 million to the cost of building a new transmission line to supply B.C.’s natural gas industry with power from the Site C dam. BC Hydro, a publicly owned utility, will provide $205.4 million. If you’re a BC Hydro customer, that’s your money.  In August 2019, the B.C. and federal governments also announced a $680 million fund to support the further electrification of LNG in B.C. Details about what each level of government will pay, and when spending will occur, have not yet been announced.  Additionally, the federal government has granted a $1 billion tariff exemption for the importation of steel modules for the LNG Canada and Woodfibre LNG projects. ...

The B.C. budget released last month shows that natural gas royalties would have been $534 million this year. But after royalty credits are deducted the number drops to $153 million — a far cry, Lee points out, from gas royalties in the $1 billion to $2 billion range the province collected in the early 2000s.  Deep well credits are yet another form of subsidy for the gas industry, with the B.C. government providing $1.2 billion to fracking companies over a recent two-year period. 

There is also increasing evidence of human health issues linked to fracking. One studyfound mothers who live close to a fracking well are more likely to give birth to a less healthy child with a low birth weight.  Human health issues related to fracking were recently flagged by Dawson Creek doctors as a potential cause for concern after they saw patients with symptoms they could not explain, including nosebleeds, respiratory illnesses and rare cancers, as well as a surprising number of glioblastomas, a malignant brain cancer. ...

Even before a fracking boom gets underway for the LNG Canada project, there are more than 11,000 inactive fracking wells in B.C. that need to be decommissioned and the land restored to its previous condition. In an audit last year, B.C.’s former Auditor General Carol Bellringer found the oil and gas commission had not secured enough money from companies to cover an estimated $3 billion in cleanup costs. Bankrupt fracking companies have also left the commission — and, ultimately, taxpayers — responsible for cleaning up a burgeoning number of orphan wells, including contaminated sites and wastewater pits.

https://thenarwhal.ca/to-understand-b-c-s-push-for-the-coastal-gaslink-p...

In addition to approving more oil drilling off the coast of Newfoundland, as noted in the previous post, the Trudeau Liberals are also at work redefining away some of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions, as if they are a mere nuisance to his real goals. 

This is done by ignoring forest greenhouse gas emissions created by wildfires, insect destruction and extreme weather, which have grown enormously in recent years. Previously these were counted in greenhouse gas emissions totals. They have also changed from reporting emissions in the year wood was cut to when the wood was no longer useful to humans at some future vague date. This still left the Liberals with a major problem because as our forests rapidly disappear from logging, wildfires etc, their greenhouse gas emissions grow. So the Liberals weakened the rules governing what could be used as a carbon offset. All of this was done to try to help get Canada to reach its 2030 greenhouse emissions targets, while at the same continuing to cut Canada's forest and grow its fossil fuel industry. 

The sad thing climate change doesn't care whether the Trudeau Liberals play with the definitions of emissions and offsets, it simply grows ever larger in the great damage that it produces as the federal government tries to pretend it away.

A major climate crisis is unfolding in Canada's managed forest lands, as they tip from carbon absorbers to super-emitters. Put simply, our forests are now dying and being cut down faster than they are growing back. That's according to data in Canada's latest official National Inventory Report (NIR).

My first chart shows the overall trend. The green area means the forests are gaining carbon; the red area means they are emitting it. And the bold black line shows the net carbon balance of our managed forests.

As you can see, these forests reliably gained carbon in the past. They were critical CO2-absorbing sinks. But not anymore. Now they've flipped to emitting CO2. Lots of it. In 2017, they lost 230 million tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2)

Driving this trend is an un-natural surge in native insect outbreaks and wildfires. Humans are turbocharging both. Our relentlessly high levels of fossil fuel burning are rapidly altering the climate in favour of more insects and infernos. In addition, decades of poor land use practices have produced unfit, vulnerable, monoculture forests.

 

Logging more than grows back

As our managed forests have weakened under the strain, they are no longer replacing the amount of carbon that logging is taking out of them.

My second chart breaks this down. Canada reports forest carbon in two parts: forest growth (grey line) and harvested wood (yellow area).

Harvested wood volumes have averaged 185 MtCO2 worth per year, since 1990. In recent years, it's been around 160 MtCO2 worth.
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All that extracted forest carbon used to be replaced each year as new growth pulled even more CO2 out of the air. But our faltering forests can't keep up anymore. Now logging is pushing our forests over the edge from absorbers to emitters. And all the excess logged carbon is accumulating in our atmosphere -- just like CO2 from fossil gas, coal and oil. ...

One obvious policy option is to treat excess carbon from forestry like we treat excess carbon from fossil fuels -- putting it under the same climate target and levying the same carbon pricing on it. That would at least provide some incentives and tools to push this new emissions source back down again to safe levels. After all, the climate reacts the same to both. 

Instead, the government has been working to push the carbon bomb exploding in our managed forest off the books. Well … off the current books, anyway. And to do that they had to weaken their carbon accounting rules in three significant ways. 

Rule change #1 -- ignore most of it

The first change was to stop reporting on any forest areas that have been heavily impacted by fires, insects or extreme weather. This change pushed a quarter of Canada's managed forest lands -- and most forest emissions -- off the books. Canada's emissions inventory used to cover all managed forests. Now it only reports the healthiest forest areas called the "reported areas". The carbon balance for this subset is shown by line "A" on the chart. ...

Rule change #2 -- push gigatonnes into the future

Historically, Canada reported the carbon in harvested wood in the year the trees were cut. This is the default method approved by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) rules. Two years ago, the government switched toreporting harvested wood carbon when the wood is no longer useful to humans. This change pushed a quarter of harvested wood CO2 off the current books -- and deposited it on the future books. The light-yellow area on the chart shows how much is now being moved to the future. ...

Rule change #3 -- weaken the target

Ottawa has been wanting to use a big whack of forest carbon "offsets" to meet Canada's 2030 climate target. But our forests are collapsing so fast that even the two huge rule changes discussed above weren't enough to save any. So, the government made a third rule change to weaken the target used to claim offsets.

Historically, Canada has used the same target for all its land use sectors, which includes managed forests and the wood logged out of them. This target is zero per cent below their 2005 baseline level. My next chart shows how this applied to managed forestry. 

The bold grey line is the managed forests' 2005 baseline. Anything below that would be claimed as "carbon credits" towards meeting our climate targets (green area).

However, as the chart also shows, emissions are projected to rise above that baseline by 2030 (red dot). That means no offsets.

So, the government decided to create a new, weaker, type of climate target just for managed forests. It's called a "reference level" target and is shown by the orange dotted line on the chart. This is their guestimate for business-as-usual. Now, anything below this guestimate (orange area) will be used to "offset" emissions elsewhere. 

As you can see, this third change weakened the target so much that it turned zero credits into more than twenty million tonnes of credits.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/03/30/opinion/canadas-forests-beco...

While Canadian police have been used to hassle and arrest environmental protesters including indigenous groups the Canadian fossil fuel company Pembina Pipeline Corp. has went much further by buying its own police force through paying for the entire unit involved in protecting its project within the Coos County Sheriff's department. The unit's sole purpose is to protect Pembina's Jordan Cove project, a proposed liquid natural gas pipeline and export terminal, in Coos County Oregon. 

Many of the strongest opponents of this project are First Nations.

Having police forces directly paid by fossil fuel companies means these companies now define what the laws mean. 

Pembina was the sole funding source of a unit in the sheriff’s office dedicated to handling security concerns related to Jordan Cove — despite the fact that there is not yet any physical infrastructure in place to keep secure. The pipeline and terminal cannot begin construction without approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is scheduled to vote on whether to license the project in February. Yet between 2016 and 2020, the department’s liquid natural gas division, known as a “combined services unit,” spent at least $2 million of Pembina’s money. The energy company put the funding on hold in April 2019 but left open the possibility that the arrangement could be revived in the future. Pembina and the sheriff’s department are currently discussing how they may continue to work together, and Coos County Sheriff Craig Zanni said he expects the partnership to be renewed.

In addition to hosting the law enforcement training, the unit used Pembina’s funds to purchase riot control equipment, monitor the activities of Jordan Cove opponents, and coordinate intelligence-gathering operations with private security companies that also worked for Pembina. Local residents, environmental activists, and tribal members have staged rallies and sit-ins and participated in public hearings in opposition to the project, which they say would exacerbate the global climate crisis, damage vital waterways, and violate Indigenous sovereignty. Dozens of property owners could see their land seized via eminent domain.

Law enforcement agencies often receive funding for equipment via corporate-backed professional associations and private foundations — a practice that civil liberties groups have criticized as enabling private influence with little oversight. The arrangement between Pembina and the Coos County Sheriff’s Office was unusual, however, given the department’s scrutiny of activists engaged in First Amendment-protected speech in opposition to its corporate benefactor.

“It’s stunning. It’s the complete opposite of how the police have presented themselves in recent history — that they are neutral parties positioned above the political fray,” said Jeff Monaghan, a criminology professor at Canada’s Carleton University who studies police surveillance. “This is a public police force that has essentially opened up a private, corporately funded wing and, in doing so, is entrenching itself on one side of a very complicated political debate.” ...

The Coos County partnership is an extreme example of a trend in policing that has gained momentum across the United States — particularly since thousands of protesters from around the world gathered at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota in 2016 and 2017 in an effort to halt construction of the Dakota Access pipeline. Corporations are developing creative means to funnel millions of dollars to local law enforcement groups, and this funding has often been paired with increasingly elaborate private security and propaganda operations. ...

“Pembina and other corporations are trying to build out the infrastructure now to lock us, as a planet, into using big reserves of fossil fuel,” said Brendan McQuade, assistant professor of criminology at the University of Southern Maine and author of a recently released book on police fusion centers. “The most distressing element of these documents is that they show the police both locally and nationally lining up, in a rigid way, behind corporations carrying out fossil fuel extraction.” ...

First proposed in 2005, the Jordan Cove Energy Project has become one of the longest-running battles in the country between the fossil fuel industry and opponents of new hydrocarbon energy infrastructure. If built, the project would transport 438 billion cubic feet of natural gas per year from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, the Jonah Field in Wyoming, the Piceance Basin in Colorado, and the Uinta Basin in northern Utah. The 233-mile Pacific Connector gas pipeline would snake beneath five major rivers as it pumps natural gas to a new export terminal at Coos Bay, where the gas would be chilled and liquefied before being carried to Asian markets on massive tankers. ...

In 2016, landowners in the pipeline’s proposed path successfully lobbied the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which provides permits for the construction of natural gas infrastructure, to deny an application to build the project. The agency asserted that developers had not proven the need for it. Pembina reapplied a year later, in the wake of Donald Trump’s election. ...

Since then, Trump has appointed individuals to the five-member commission who are more in favor of fossil fuel projects than their predecessors. ...

In the meantime, grassroots environmental groups have helped rally tens of thousands of people to submit comments opposing Jordan Cove to state and federal permitting agencies. The Karuk, Yurok, Klamath, Tolowa Dee-ni’, Siletz, and Round Valley tribes have all passed resolutions opposing the project.

https://theintercept.com/2020/02/12/jordan-cove-oregon-pembina-pipeline/

Despite all the denials of global warming and the lobbying to prevent, or at least delay action on this, the evidence of climate change's impact on life around the planet continues to pile up, including in Canada. The latest data shows that the winter of 2020 was the warmest ever in the northern hemisphere. 

https://www.noaa.gov/news/january-2020-was-earth-s-hottest-january-on-re...

According to NOAA, the winter of 2019-2020 was the warmest on record across all continents north of the equator.

With an average temperature 4 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average, this winter ranks first among the warmest winters on land in the Northern Hemisphere, beating the very mild winter of 2015-2016. ...

Up until now the 2015-2016 winter was the clear winner for warmth, but now it must split that distinction with this season. When you factor in the ocean surface in addition to land temperatures, 2015-2016 still holds the record. That's because that winter, the Earth experienced a super El Niño, overheating the surface waters of the equatorial Pacific and radiating heat into the atmosphere. It's years like that where record warmth is expected. But there was no El Niño to be found this winter, and yet, at least over land, it impressively still managed to exceed a super El Niño year.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/warmest-winter-on-record-gives-way-to-extra...

The COVID-19 global pandemic provides a warning about how extremely susceptible everyone around the world is to global warming. 

 

The global high-tech society we've built over the last 100 years is actually a series of networks laid on top of one another. Zack Rosebrugh / for NBC News

We've been living in a dream. We climb into jet planes and fly across continents, never giving the accomplishment a second thought. We drive to grocery stores, assuming the shelves will be stocked with endless boxes of food. And every day we plug our devices into the wall, sure that electricity will flow from the outlet. Other than the occasional hurricane or earthquake, we have lived our whole lives taking for granted that this thing we call "civilization" was a machine that could never fail.

It's time to wake up. 

The international COVID-19 pandemic is many things, but its deepest impact may be fostering a recognition that this machine of civilization that we built is a whole lot more fragile than we thought. And that is why, in the long term, the coronavirus will one day be seen as a fire drill for climate change.

To understand the powerful connection between this pandemic and climate change, we must understand exactly what "modern civilization" means from a scientific point of view. For researchers, the global high-tech society we've built over the last 100 years is actually a series of networks laid on top of one another. ...

Modern civilization is a delicate layer cake of such networks, one stacked on top of each other. 

The transportation network — roads, trains, ships and airplanes — moves our goods around. Energy networks — electric grids, oil and natural gas pipelines — deliver power where and when it's needed. Economic networks — banks, investment firms and brokers — keep money for trade circulating. And, as we are coming to see in stark relief, there's the health care network — doctors, nurses and hospitals — that manages the endless stream of sickness and injury.

So how robust or resilient are these networks? If you kick them hard, will they still function? COVID-19 is exposing just how complacent we've been in answering that question. Health officials across the country are watching in horror and desperation as their network gets overwhelmed. The fear the pandemic has caused is already pushing on the food distribution and economic networks. ...

Suddenly all of these systems that were invisible just a month ago are standing in front of us in sharp relief. Some are even blinking red with warning. ...

So what does any of this have to do with climate change? Like this pandemic, climate change is also going to push on the networks that make up our civilization. Unlike the pandemic, its effects will be long term, and there won't be a vaccine that can save us. ...

When most of us think about climate change, we visualize changes to the planet: soaring temperatures, rising oceans, melting ice caps. That's hard enough to imagine on a global scale. But where our imaginations really fail is in asking what will happen to us, to daily human life, and that is a question about the invisible civilization networks. Climate change will mean one emergency after another, year after year, as heat waves, floods, fire and storms blow cascades of failures through our systems. ...

As with the threat of a pandemic, scientists who study climate change have been warning for decades that we are unprepared for what lies just over the horizon. Using the same kinds of mathematical tools deployed by epidemiologists, they have predicted the course of global warming, laid out its potential effects on the networks that make up civilization and told us what needs to be done to avoid calamity. ...

Examples of threats these scientists worry about range from the disruption of global supply chains due to increasingly extreme weather, to failures of food production and distribution networks as climate patterns shift, to failure of investment networks as risk assessment and getting insurance become more difficult. ...

But in response, these warnings have been politicized. Those who deny the science claim it's specious and there's no need to worry. Of course, that's what many of them said about COVID-19 just a few weeks ago. But our government had enough warning that it could have begun stockpiling essential equipment and preparing the health care system for the shock that was sure to come. ...

The pandemic has awakened us from our slumber. It is letting us see the real consequences of denial.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/coronavirus-climate-change-pandemi...

The Alberta insanity continues as its Western Canada Select oil stays below $5 a barrel, yet Kenney pushes ahead with the $7.5 billion dollar provincial investment in the Keystone XL pipeline despite the entire North American continent running out of storage space to store all its excess oil. (https://www.cfr.org/blog/oil-ground-zero-running-out-storage)

At the end of March, Premier Jason Kenney announced his Alberta government would underwrite the Keystone XL pipeline construction costs for this year, with a $1.5-billion equity investment, and $6 billion in loan guarantees for its builder TC Energy. Formerly known as TransCanada, TC Energy was certainly pleased to see Kenney -- on behalf of the citizens of Alberta -- take the risk of adding Texas to its existing Hardisty, Alberta to the U.S. pipeline network. 

In early April, you could buy a barrel of Alberta heavy crude for less than US$5. It cost about US$30 a barrel to extract it from the bitumen sands. What Keystone XL carries -- heavy oil -- can only be sold at a huge loss, so the project is an obvious loser at anywhere near current prices. 

As TC Energy has indicated, and Kenney knows full well, the permission to build Keystone XL could be revoked by a Montana court, or Joe Biden in the White House.  Opposition from the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations is strong and continuous.

After four days of video conferencing, beginning last Thursday, OPEC-plus (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries plus Russia and others) decided to reduce their oil production by 9.7 million barrels of oil per day. This may sound like a lot, but world demand, which was 98.7 million barrels a day in 2018, has declined by an estimated 30 million barrels a day because of the COVID-19 world economic slowdown.  The highly publicized production cut by OPEC-plus leaves 20 million barrels of oil per day going into storage because it cannot be sold. Downward pressure on oil prices will not go away until the world economic shutdown relents, despite the announced production cuts.

Press reports suggest that a dispute between Russia and Saudi Arabia over how to set production levels has fuelled the oil price slump that followed the COVID-19 pandemic.  ...

Russia and Saudi Arabia are two very low-cost oil producers. Saudi oil is produced at a cost of US$2.80 a barrel; the Russian production costs are in weak roubles (heavily devalued because of U.S. led sanctions) while their revenues from oil sales are in strong dollars. Even at low oil prices, Russian sales are profitable thanks to this premium dollar advantage for the oil sold. 

Producing petroleum from Alberta bitumen is a high cost operation. High costs kept development of the Alberta sands from taking place for nearly two decades after the 1948 success of the Alberta Research Council bitumen sands separation project revealed the sands had vast potential, but poor prospects for commercialization. High production costs have stymied bitumen expansion for now, and probably as long at it takes for the world to run down known conventional oil and gas reserves, which could be as much as 50 years.  ...

With low-cost Saudi Arabia and Russia squeezing high-cost producers, the Alberta government made a bad bet to subsidize building the Keystone XL pipeline.  Saudi Arabia and Russia have considerable support for providing world markets with low cost petroleum. World GDP is collapsing. Low-cost fuel oil and gasoline look very attractive to consumers, businesse, and non-petroleum producing countries.

https://rabble.ca/columnists/2020/04/jason-kenney-misses-what-geopolitic...

2020 is expected to be the warmest year on record

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/04/16/global-warming-2020-expected-warmest-year-record-noaa-said/5144767002/

Judge cancels Keystone XL pipeline permit

A district judge in Montana reportedly ruled Wednesday against the Keystone XL pipeline, canceling a key permit necessary for the project's construction.

According to The Associated Press, Judge Brian Morris ruled in favor of environmental groups who argued that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' plan to construct the pipeline over rivers did not properly take endangered species into consideration.

The setback for TC Energy, the pipeline's sponsor, comes just days after construction on the pipeline began near the U.S.-Canada border, the AP noted. Environmental groups celebrated Wednesday's court victory, with the main group behind the lawsuit calling it a "significant hurdle" the pipeline would face.

“It creates another significant hurdle for the project,” Anthony Swift, of the National Resources Defense Council, told the AP. "Regardless of whether they have the cross border segment ... Keystone XL has basically lost all of its Clean Water Act permits for water crossings.".....

Alberta's oilsands North of Fort McMurray. Photo: Louis Bockner / Sierra Club BC 

Today Trudeau announced $1.7 billion "to clean up orphan wells in Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia". (https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/financial-aid-covid19-trudeau-1.5535629) with $1 billion going to Alberta where it is expected to create 5,200 jobs. It is good that these oil wells are getting cleaned up and created 5,000 jobs for out-of-work fossil fuel workers. However, in November 2018, Vice President Rob Wadsworth of Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) , which is responsible for collecting the cleanup fees, told a private audience that it could cost $260 billion to clean up 94,000 inactive wells and 3,400 abandoned wells. (https://globalnews.ca/news/4617664/cleaning-up-albertas-oilpatch-could-c...) The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER), who is paid by the industry and therefore its captive, also warned "It may take more than 2,800 years to clean up some of the decommissioned oil and gas wells currently dotting Alberta’s landscape" (https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/06/03/investigations/exclusive-alb...)

Therefore, Trudeau's cleanup subsidy is only a token down payement on what Canadian taxpayers will end up paying for this financial and environmental total screwup.

And why are Canadian tax payers for this cleanup of the fossil fuel industry's environmental disaster when even in red-neck Republican ruled North Dakota, fossil fuel companies must at least pay some of the estimated cleanup costs in advanced of doing any drilling? " In North Dakota, a $50,000 bond is required for a well." (https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/10/18/public-paying-cleanup-fracking-boo...)

Of course this is only a small fraction of Canada's subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. "According to a new International Monetary Fund (IMF) report, Canada subsidized the fossil fuel industry to the tune of almost $60 billion in 2015 — approximately $1,650 per Canadian." (https://thenarwhal.ca/canadas-fossil-fuel-subsidies-amount-to-1650-per-c...) 

Below is a summary of Suzuki's discussion of the links between COVID-19 and climate change. He warned that people will have to take the lead in demanding moving away from fossil fuels to a green economy as governments, including all Canadians have been talking about climate change since 1988 but doing very little to address a crisis that will be worse than COVID-19.

Canada's best-known environmental activist, scientist and broadcaster was participating in a Zoom call hosted by National Observer to discuss the intersection of COVID-19 and climate change. ...

Suzuki acknowledged the burden millions of people are facing, but noted once the pandemic subsides, there is an opening to respond differently to climate change.

“This is a very, very tough time, but it’s a time when we can discover community,” he said. “It’s a huge opportunity, now, to say, ‘What the hell have we done wrong that got us into this mess, and how do we go about getting out of it?’”

And that doesn't mean trying to re-establish yesterday’s economy, but redesigning it for the future, in a way that values the common fundamentals of life such as air, water and food. The constraints and laws of the natural world are not flexible, but the economy is a human construct that can be adapted, Suzuki said. ...

Asked what he’d say to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in relation to tackling the climate crisis, Suzuki replied he’s stopped talking to Trudeau about climate.

“The COVID crisis is a crisis for human beings, but the climate crisis is a crisis for life on the planet.” David Suzuki on the importance of battling climate change. 

There was much adulation and hopefulness about Trudeau’s environmental commitment after his election and following Canada’s signing onto the Paris Agreement on climate change, he noted.

“But then he bought a pipeline,” Suzuki said.

The federal government’s $4.5-billion buyout of Kinder Morgan’s struggling Trans Mountain pipeline demonstrates politics trump the environment, even if the results have lasting reverberations for future generations, he observed.

“Even the future for his own children … that has to come second to the political reality that his highest priority is getting re-elected,” Suzuki said.

People must stop looking to political leaders to lead change when it comes to the climate crisis, he said.

Suzuki cited various examples of the Canadian government’s dismal performance in protecting the environment over the three decades since scientists first sounded the climate-change alarm at the Toronto Conference on the Changing Atmosphere in 1988. ...

“The political system cannot deal with (the climate crisis) unless civil society rises up and demands they do it,” Suzuki said. “Then, they will jump on board.”

Massive efforts on the part of the public are critical, Suzuki said, pointing to the half-million demonstrators who accompanied Greta Thunberg in the global march for climate action this past September.

“Dammit all if that isn’t a demonstration that politicians will pay attention to,” he said.

Suzuki figured if just 3.5 per cent of the global population truly committed to pushing for climate action, it would make a huge difference worldwide.

When asked why government is listening to scientists about coronavirus, but not about climate change, Suzuki cited government’s short-sightedness.

“When bodies are being carted out to the crematorium or the graveyard, you respond in a different way to something that is 10 years, 15 years down the line.” ...

Government’s measures and responses to contain the coronavirus and its effects were unimaginable before the pandemic, he said.

It demonstrates huge opportunities to stem climate change, Suzuki said.

“I think the important thing is you make the commitment to solve it,” he said. “Then, you pull out all the stops — the old rules and constraints no longer apply.”

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/04/17/news/david-suzuki-applying-c...

jerrym wrote:

One immediate effect global warming is having on climate change is a dramatic drop in greenhouse gas emissions as economies shut down to a significant extent around the world, something that all world's government promises, including Trudeau's, have not been able to accomplish. 

This provides an opportunity to start to redesign our economy away from fossil fuels to be more livable and to pay the essential workforce of food and other workers that have been underpaid for a long time but are now required to maintain life, especially in our cities.

However, the enormous drop in oil prices creates the economic pressure to move back to fossil fuels as economies recover and makes recycling financially extremely difficult as very cheap plastics will also be available. Government legislation will be needed to mandate recycling and a move away from fossil fuels.

I agree with most of this but would really like to see plastic packaging banned rather than recycling mandated. Everything we consume comes with packaging. That is what needs to change. When we talk about oil and gas we forget what plastic is made out of. Outlawing plastic based packaging will both significantly reduce our waste and the demand for oil. I for one am tired of having to deal with the plastic garbage that is attached to everything. Paper is a fine product that comes in many shapes, sizes and thicknesses and unlike plastic it can go in my garden compost pile.

In less than two years Greta Thunberg and the student-led strikes for climate change have accomplished a lot but now face new challenges in the age of COVID-19. The following articles discusses those successes and the challenges ahead as the Global Climate Strike scheduled for April 24th has been called off.  

Participants of a Fridays for Future climate demonstration parade through Hamburg, Germany on Feb. 21, 2020.

For more than a year, just about every Friday at noon, Invaliden Park in downtown Berlin was transformed into a vivacious, noisy, swarming hubbub with teenage speakers, bands, and live dance acts — as well as Germany’s top climate scientists — all sharing a makeshift stage and a microphone. ...

The happening was the weekly “school strike” in Berlin of Fridays for Future (FFF), the climate crisis movement that began in 2018 with the Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg skipping school once a week to protest her country’s half-hearted response to climate change. The movement then ricocheted across the globe, mobilizing school-age young people — in wealthy countries as well as poor — as never before. Last year, the campaign culminated in international demonstrations of millions in cities and towns from Cape Town, South Africa to Anchorage, Alaska, all with the same goal: to force their nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions and become carbon-neutral by 2050. ...

Fridays for Future can claim some significant achievements, including strongly moving public opinion in favor of climate action and helping Green parties in Europe make major gains in elections. Still, even before the coronavirus outbreak and the banning worldwide of gatherings and demonstrations, the momentum of Fridays for Future had slowed. Fewer young people were attending the weekly protests, and the movement was recalibrating its strategy and tactics, shifting to stepped-up election activities and direct-action campaigns against fossil fuel interests, with mixed success.

Now, the worsening coronavirus pandemic is forcing Thunberg and other leaders of FFF to further alter tactics. Fridays for Future in Germany and other countries has suspended all public demonstrations — until now the movement’s mainspring and source of its high-profile media image, as well as donations. “In a crisis we change our behavior,” Thunberg tweeted earlier this month, “and adapt to the new circumstances for the greater good of society.” The Global Climate Strike, an international demonstration scheduled for April 24, has been called off. ...

Thunberg’s tweets don’t hint at it, but the virus and the public lockdowns have thrown the movement — already struggling to build on its spectacular protests of 2019 — into confusion. How can it pressure governments or businesses when gatherings are banned? How can the movement attract media coverage in the midst of a global pandemic? Will ordinary people faced with children at home or sick relatives or no jobs care about the climate when the COVID-19 crisis has turned their lives upside down? And will countries now sideline climate protection in order to put all of their energy and money into fighting the pandemic? 

“Last year climate change was topic No. 1,” says Volker Quaschning, a professor of renewable energy systems at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, and one of the German scientists who had lobbied officials to take decisive steps to curb climate change. “Today it’s corona.” ...

Luisa Neubauer, the 23-year-old face of FFF in Germany, was a constant presence on talk and news shows during the height of the protests in 2019. Neubauer, who is often referred to as “Germany’s Greta,” told Yale e360 that the movement is in transition, adding, “We’re trying to figure things out now. Beating the coronavirus is the first thing we have to do, but the fight to save the climate can’t stop. It will continue in other ways and when this crisis is over the climate crisis will look different. We may even have a better chance. We know that political will, when it is there, can move mountains. We are experiencing this right now in the corona crisis.”

As for Thunberg’s call for digital activism, Neubauer admits that it can’t replace what FFF had accomplished on the streets. “But our generation and the climate movement are already digital,” she says, “and there are things we can do.” Already, the German branches of FFF have an internet learning program on YouTube for the millions of children not attending school.

FFF has unquestionably enjoyed major successes over the past year-and-a-half. The protests struck a chord with people who until then hadn’t taken climate change seriously enough to have it impact their vote or lifestyle. The movement was strongest in Europe, but even in the United States the protests caught on and helped propel the Green New Deal, a proposal for tackling the climate crisis in the U.S., high on the agenda of Democratic presidential candidates. Last September, 250,000 people across the U.S. marched in the FFF’s Global Climate Strike — the largest number ever to turn out for a U.S. climate protest. ...

Outside of the U.S., the numbers of those prioritizing global warming shot up dramatically in the wake of the FFF demonstrations, opinion polls and elections showed. Before the coronavirus, people in Europe and in China identified climate change as the foremost challenge. And many European Green parties, which had campaigned for rigorous climate policies for years, have doubled their vote tallies in local, national, and European Union elections — a result also of the extreme weather in 2018 and 2019 that brought record droughts, heat, and floods.

The FFF demonstrations “changed the whole landscape of the climate movement and the way ordinary people think about the climate crisis,” says Insa Vries of the German anti-coal group Ende Gelände, which had been occupying coal production facilities since 2015. “They were able to get through to much larger swaths of the population than we ever could, including unions, established NGOs, older people, and the world of pop culture.” ...

Despite these achievements, the outbreak of the coronavirus has found Fridays for Future in a period of soul searching and experimentation. The group’s leaders were growing disappointed with FFF’s concrete results, most notably that the protests had not prodded governments to respond with the resolute, far-reaching measures that would enable them to meet the goals of the 2015 UN Paris Agreement, which would hold global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius below pre-industrial levels.

A seminal moment for the German FFF movement came on September 20, 2019, when in the largest climate demonstration of the year, tens of thousands of protestors clogged Berlin’s city center, and more than a million more took to the streets in 500 other German cities and towns. As the Berlin demonstration unfolded, just a stone’s throw away at the offices of German Chancellor Angela Merkel the government announced its long-awaited climate policies package. But the proposals fell far short of the students’ demands, which were that Germany set policies that would end coal use by 2030 and generate 100 percent of the country’s electricity with renewable energy by 2035. The activists had also demanded a tax as high as 180 euros-per-ton of CO2.

“It was bizarre, scandalous, how bad it was,” says Neubauer about the German climate protection package, which proposed a mere 10 euros-a-ton tax on CO2. “Despite all of the demonstrations and lobbying, what came out wasn’t even an attempt to meet the Paris Agreement. ...

The Germans weren’t the only climate activists rethinking things in the face of tepid government action. “We concluded that school strikes alone aren’t going to make governments change anything,” explains Vipulan Puvaneswaran of France’s Youth for Climate, the French ally of Fridays for Future. “We need a more radical change — the system has to change — and for that we need more radical protest forms.” In February, the group briefly occupied the Paris offices of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, covering its walls with graffiti.

The Germans, too, shifted course, moving away from school strikes to the targeting of businesses and intervening in election campaigns. “Businesses are more flexible, they can change faster than states,” says Neubauer. “They have to step up and help us make governments change.” ...

FFF Germany set its sights on the multinational giant Siemens, which had recently invested in a new Australian coal mine — a small investment for Siemens, but a tempting target for the climate activists. ... 

Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser, who met one-on-one with Neubauer. Media coverage was intensive for a week, but in the end Siemens opted to proceed with the project.

“FFF has managed to mobilize enormous numbers of people and create a big buzz,” says Vries of Ende Gelände, “but we come out in the end empty-handed. Maybe we have to rethink how we pick our fights.” ...

FFF has enjoyed more success in targeting elections, which has greatly benefitted Europe’s Green parties. “Green parties across Northern Europe have been given an unbelievable push,” says Ellen Ueberschär of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung, a German foundation close to the Green Party. In polls, Germany’s Greens have tripled their tally since the 2017 general election, turning the Greens into the country’s second-largest party.

Now, however, FFF’s path forward is unclear. If the movement is denied street demonstrations for months, it may find its resources drying up and activists demoralized. “I’m worried that their anger and frustration, which had generated so much positive energy, will turn into hopelessness,” says Ueberschär. “At best, what can happen,” says Neubauer, “is that we turn the crisis experience into a crisis management experience. Because we are now tackling [the coronavirus] collectively, in solidarity and sustainably, we can learn how to cope with others. This can be helpful for the climate crisis.”

https://grist.org/climate/shifting-gears-the-climate-protest-movement-in...

The Trudeau Liberal government's latest report to the United Nations on greenhouse gas emissions for 2018, the latest year of publicly available data, shows Canada's overall emissions and those of many provinces have grown once again despite both federal and provincial plans to reduce emissions. Environment and Climate Change Minister Jonathan Wilkinson argued since the data was from 2018 it “does not fully reflect the emissions reductions impact of the federal price on pollution and the impact of many other key initiatives in the current climate plan.” The trouble this is the same story that has been going on since the federal Liberals, helped along by their provincial counterparts, first promised to reduce emissions in 1993.

The newest edition of Canada’s National Inventory Report released Wednesday says that B.C.'s carbon emissions grew to 66 million tonnes, or megatonnes (Mt) in 2018 compared to 63 Mt in 2017. 

Other provinces also saw significant increases during this period: Ontario’s carbon pollution climbed from 155 Mt to 165 Mt, while Quebec’s grew from 80 Mt to 83 Mt. The rest of Canada's provinces and territories stayed the same or had minor fluctuations of one Mt or less.

 

A breakdown of carbon pollution from different sectors in Canada in 2018. Canada's National Inventory Report screenshot

Canada's carbon pollution up 15 million tonnes

The inventory report shows that the oilsands, a region in Alberta and Saskatchewan that represents 166 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, was responsible for 84 Mt. Emissions from the oilsands, which are deposits of a heavy, tar-like oil beneath the Western Canadian boreal forest, have grown every year since 2013.

Oilsands emissions continued to grow because crude oil production continued to climb through 2018. From 1990 to 2018, crude oil production shot up by 170 per cent, almost entirely driven by oilsands operations, according to the report. ...

Alberta’s emissions have grown by 41 Mt, or 18 per cent, since 2005, “primarily as a result of the expansion of oil and gas operations,” the report stated. Canada has the world's third-largest proven oil reserves after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. Canada’s oil and gas sector was responsible for the largest portion of the country's carbon pollution in 2018, at 193 Mt, or 26 per cent, up by five Mt from 2017. 

Overall, Canada emitted a total of 729 Mt of carbon pollution in 2018, up 15 Mt from 2017. This is almost the same amount of pollution as Canada emitted in 2005, at 730 Mt. The year 2005 is the baseline year for Canada’s Paris Agreement commitment, which promises to cut emissions 30 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.

Canadian government scientists have concluded that the country and the rest of the world must reduce its carbon pollution to "near zero" by 2050 in order to avoid the more extreme effects of climate change, ranging from floods to wildfires, loss of fresh water and damage to coasts and ecosystems.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Jonathan Wilkinson argued Wednesday that because the inventory report contained data up to 2018, it “does not fully reflect the emissions reductions impact of the federal price on pollution and the impact of many other key initiatives in the current climate plan.” ...

The Liberals have promised to “exceed” the 2030 Paris target and have also said they will ensure Canada’s emissions will drop to “net zero” by 2050, meaning any pollution emitted would be cancelled out by other initiatives that pull emissions out of the atmosphere.

The inventory report said Canada’s 15 Mt increase from 2017 to 2018 was due to the combined effect of factors such as higher production levels of oil and gas, more fossil fuels used in industry, more emissions from heating due to a colder winter, and more fuel consumed by vehicles.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/04/15/news/carbon-pollution-bc-cli...

Spring flooding has forced the evacuation of 13,000 people from Fort McMurray, as well as killing one man on the nearby Fort McKay First Nations reserve where many homes have also been flooded, as well as the Tallcree First Nation at Beaver Ranch. 

Don Scott, mayor of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo which includes Fort McMurray, said "This is the one-in-a-100-year flood that people talk about when they're doing planning." Just another one-in-a-100-year flood that couldn't have anything to do with climate change causing the rapid warming of frozen water in the spring that is occurring repeatedly across Canada every year now. It's just like the ever growing number and intensity of wildfires that also destroyed a large part of McMurray and other places in Canada and Australia in recent years, have nothing to do with climate change. Not when we have to keep growing our fossil fuel industry. 

Fort McMurray flooding 2020

Some 13,000 people, mostly from Fort McMurray, have been evacuated from their homes because of flooding caused by ice jams on the Athabasca, Clearwater and Peace rivers. ...

Don Scott, mayor of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, told Tuesday's news conference he had consulted with Premier Jason Kenney Monday about the possibility of military intervention to help break up the ice, even using CF18 jet fighters and explosives. But those thoughts were ruled out, Scott said. ...

The entire lower townsite in Fort McMurray, with the exception of a single neighbourhood and the community's only hospital, has been placed under mandatory evacuation. Access to the downtown was closed on Monday, and residents who left the area were prohibited from returning. ...

"This is the one-in-a-100-year flood that people talk about when they're doing planning. It's just unfortunately this year on top of the COVID pandemic."

More than 200 rescue operations were performed yesterday and additional calls came in overnight, said Scott Davis, the municipality's Director of Emergency Management.

Anyone who travels into restricted areas put themselves and first responders at risk, he said. "This is a critical situation at a critical time," Davis said Tuesday. "Everyone needs to take it seriously. Water levels on the Clearwater are still rising. What some don't realize is that there are electrical [hazards] and contaminated waters that can threaten your safety." 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/fort-mcmurray-wood-buffalo-flood...

A Fort McKay First Nation man is dead after being injured in the Athabasca River during major flooding that forced thousands of people from their homes in and around Fort McMurray, Alta. ...

The RCMP said two men were on ATVs on a trail when water levels suddenly rose and they ended up in the Athabasca River. The men held on to a submerged log and were able to phone for help, the RCMP said in a statement Wednesday evening. 

One man was taken to the Northern Lights Regional Health Centre by helicopter in critical condition, while the other was taken by ambulance. The first man was later pronounced dead at the hospital, RCMP said. 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/fort-mcmurray-wood-buffalo-flood...

The world is facing a global oil glut because of Covid-19 and the oil price war triggered by Russia and Saudi Arabia that threatens to leave North American oil uncompetitive not just in the short-term, but in the long-term. Yet we see no concrete plans by Canada to move away from fossi  fuels for economic and/or environmental reasons. 

The record volume of stranded crude cargo illustrates a deepening crisis in the global oil industry. Demand for oil has fallen so severely, and at such pace, that there is little space left on land to store the crude made redundant by the coronavirus crisis. At least 160 million barrels are now stored at sea,outside global shipping ports from Singapore to Suffolk and along the US gulf coast as oil traders brace for storage facilities to reach capacity imminently.

Market forecasts suggest that the world’s conventional oil storage – which can hold about 3.4 billion barrels – will be filled to its limits within the next month. In the meantime, oil traders are turning to alternative storage options: supergiant tankers, rail freight carriages and even underground salt caverns have become sought-after havens to stash millions of barrels of surplus crude. ...

In the US and Canada, where the cost of transporting oil from landlocked oilfields is higher than in regions with offshore rigs, oil producers have taken the difficult decision to shutter their wells.

There are heavy costs involved in shutting down production, and there is a chance that a forced shutdown could cause irreversible damage to oil wells, which may not produce the same volumes once they are restarted. The risk of a sudden shutdown must be weighed against the risk of continuing to pump crude.

Against this backdrop, the oil market may have already passed a tipping point, according to analysts.

A major shock is brewing … unless there is a firmer response, we will soon be discussing the greatest energy crisis in history. ...

“As we see it, a wave of shut-ins is inevitable for the oil market to come closer to a balance. Not having enough storage is not only a theoretical problem but a practical one. Unless more production shuts down, the extracted oil will literally have nowhere else to be stored,” says Bjørnar Tonhaugen, the head of oil markets at Rystad Energy, a Norwegian consultancy. “This is not something the industry has ever seen or ever been prepared for; maybe that is why we see a slow reaction. A major shock is brewing for producers and unless there is a firmer response from their side to voluntarily slash output, we will soon be discussing the greatest energy crisis in history.”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/25/oil-market-storage-cris...

In BC, environmental organizations are concerned that the provincial government has allowed logging companies to cut down untouched forest, not just waste wood, to make wood pellets to be used as fuel because "ecologically important primary forests do not represent a renewable resource since they take a long time to regrow, while pellets release carbon pollution into the atmosphere instantly when burned." The government says that only 'inferior' trees will be cut and that the government position has 'evolved' over time, but many environmentalists fear at least some of these 'inferior trees' will be old growth, trees whose cutting will greatly disturb the natural ecosystem and greatly increase the release of greenhouse gases stored in these trees. 

The companies in some areas are cutting down trees using the pretext that they are pine beetle invested in areas where there is no pine beetle infestation.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/04/30/news/bc-says-firms-can-chop-...

Environmental groups say this photo shows a logging truck entering a pellet plant in Prince George, B.C.

Companies can cut down whole trees to be ground into pellets for fuel if they are “inferior,” says British Columbia’s natural resources ministry, a position that has led to concerns the government is "rebranding" old growth forests as low-quality in order to justify logging them.

B.C.’s Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development told National Observer on April 27 that “timber harvesting has evolved over time” and that the industry is now focusing on sending “high-quality” lumber to sawmills.

Other whole trees, the ministry said, can get sent to plants that manufacture wood pellets, a type of biomass fuel that is burned for heating or electricity and is made by compacting together wood material. ...

That’s a disturbing change from how the provincial government has portrayed the wood pellet industry in the past, argued Michelle Connolly, director of the volunteer-run community group Conservation North, and Tegan Hansen, forest campaigner for the non-profit environmental organization Stand.earth. They say that in past communications, the B.C. government has talked more about using “waste” wood or “residuals” from logging or sawmills, like dead timber, tree branches or sawdust, to manufacture pellets, a growing industry in Canada that exports over three million tonnes a year. ...

“The B.C. government appears to be rebranding primary and old growth forests as ‘waste,’ ‘inferior’ or ‘low-quality’ in order to justify allowing companies to level them and grind them into pellets,” said Connolly. “Keeping natural forests intact, in particular old forests, is actually one of our best hopes for addressing climate change. Exploiting forests for bioenergy will make climate change worse, not better.”

Hansen agreed: “it seems like the province is calling ecologically rich, primary forests ‘inferior’ in order to justify logging them for pellets. That is deeply concerning,” she said. “From what I've seen, the province's communications are potentially misleading the public about the sector's impacts on forests and the climate.” ...

Environmental groups have long pointed to evidence that untouched forest, not just waste wood, is being cut down to feed the global pellet industry, and that ecologically important primary forests do not represent a renewable resource since they take a long time to regrow, while pellets release carbon pollution into the atmosphere instantly when burned. ...

Conservation North and Stand.earth released a report April 23 that said companies are clear-cutting in the B.C. Interior “under the pretence of harvesting insect-infested trees” and pellet plants have obtained wood harvest due to “apparent spruce beetle infestation” despite a 2019 investigation turning up little evidence of a beetle attack. It also says burning wood pellets for power generation is worse than coal at the smokestack. The report singles out the two wood pellet companies highlighted by Horgan and Kahlon, Pacific BioEnergy and Pinnacle Renewable Energy, as using whole trees in their pellet production.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/04/30/news/bc-says-firms-can-chop-...

The following article examines the history of climate change litigation and its increasing prospects of success, including the January 2020 UN Human Rights Committee recognising "the right for refugee claims on the grounds of climate change for the first time" and also and emphasizing "that it is unlawful for governments to return people when their life will be at risk due to the climate risks in their home countries".

World map of climate change lawsuits

 

 

Globally, 2019 saw a strong rise in climate related litigation. As at January 2020, the total number of climate change cases filed to date has reached approximately 1,4441, up from 1,302 since our update in March last year. Cases have now been filed in at least 33 countries, in addition to cases brought in regional or international courts or commissions. The vast majority of these cases continue to be commenced in the United States (US), followed by Australia, United Kingdom, European Union, New Zealand, Canada and Spain.

Claimants are increasingly relying on constitutional and human rights laws in their attempts to hold governments accountable for addressing climate change. This is likely to continue following the landmark Urgenda ruling in December 2019, discussed below, which according to the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelete, “provides a clear path forward for concerned individuals in Europe – and around the world – to undertake climate litigation in order to protect human rights.”

The nature of the claims against corporations has also diversified beyond the unsuccessful tort and public nuisance actions pursued predominately in the US in the 2000s and early 2010s.4 This comes as corporations, and their shareholders, increasingly acknowledge the threat of climate change to their bottom line. Meanwhile the growing demand from consumers for environmentally sustainable goods and services is prompting ever increasing scrutiny from consumer advocates and regulators into misleading and fraudulent corporate climate claims or commitments.   

Climate attribution science

Developments in climate litigation are being influenced by advancements in the scientific understanding of climate change. Climate attribution science aims to establish the relationship between anthropogenic emissions and specific extreme weather events. Progress in this field is allowing claimants to better pinpoint and quantify the environmental impact of projects, policies and laws. 

As the scientific consensus that humans are at least partly responsible for climate change is now firmly established, disputes are increasingly revolving around proving causation, allocating responsibility and jurisdictional arguments as to the role of the courts in ‘regulating’ climate change. Climate attribution science is essential in resolving such issues, especially as many of the recent studies aim to develop methodologies that link harmful environmental impacts to specific emitters.

In January 2020 the UN Human Rights Committee considered the case of Ioane Teitiota who had unsuccessfully sought protection from New Zealand due to rising sea levels threatening his life in the Republic of Kiribati. The Committee rejected Mr Teitiota’s claim because the likely timeframe for sea level rises rendering Kiribati uninhabitable is 10 to 15 years and therefore he did not face immediate danger. This timeframe allowed the Republic to take affirmative measures to protect and if required, relocate its population. However, the Committee recognised the right for refugee claims on the grounds of climate change and emphasised that it is unlawful for governments to return people when their life will be at risk due to the climate risks in their home countries. ...

In December 2019, the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines announced that the world’s biggest carbon polluters could be held liable for their role in contributing to climate change. The announcement was preceded by a 3-year investigation into whether 47 major fossil fuel firms, including Shell, BP, ExxonMobil and Chevron, should be accountable for the human rights harms caused to Filipino citizens as a result of climate change. The petition prompting the investigation was submitted by Greenpeace Southeast Asia as well as a number of other individuals and organisations.

The Commission ruled that whilst legal responsibility for climate change is not addressed by current international human rights law, major fossil fuel companies are morally obligated to respect human rights, as enunciated in the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. These companies are also obligated to invest in clean energy. Further, under the laws of Philippines, the Commission considered that the existing civil and criminal laws of the Philippines provided grounds for action against these companies. ...

In May 2019, a group of eight Torres Strait Islanders lodged a complaint with the UN Human Rights Committee against the Australian government for breaching human rights obligations owed under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). It is argued that the Australian government’s failure to take sufficient action to curb emissions and implement adaptation measures has violated the right to culture, right to a family and right to life under the ICCPR. The complaint is yet to be reviewed by the Committee.

https://www.nortonrosefulbright.com/en/knowledge/publications/7d58ae66/c...