Canada and global warming: a state of denial 2

Young activists and students around the world are back demanding action on global warmimg with strikes in 3,500 places in 150 countries around the globe. 

 There were strikes and protests in major cities in India, including New Delhi.

Supporters of the school strike movement Fridays For Future gather in Berlin, Germany, on Friday. Photograph: Filip Singer/EPA

School pupils, youth activists and communities around the world have turned out for a day of climate strikes, intended to underscore the urgency of the climate crisis even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

Social distancing and other Covid-19 control measures dampened the protests, but thousands of activists posted on social media and took to the streets to protest against the lack of climate action from world leaders. Strikes were scheduled in at least 3,500 locations around the globe.

Friday’s strikes – some in the form of mostly socially distanced physical marches on the streets, and some purely online meetings – were on a smaller scale and far more subdued than last year’s September week of action, in which at least 6 million people around the world were estimated to have taken part.

Greta Thunberg led a strike in Sweden, which was limited to 50 people by the country’s lockdown laws – “so we adapt”, she tweeted, with a picture showing strikers more than 2 metres apart. The day of action also marked the 110th week of her own school strike, which began in August 2018. ...

One innovation brought on by Covid restrictions was a 24-hour Zoom call, featuring people from across the world speaking about the issues in their region, interspersed with activism-related activities for callers.

Fridays for Future, the global youth movement that coalesced after Thunberg’s pioneering strike, said demonstrations were planned in at least 150 countries.

Protesters gathered on the lawns of Australia’s parliament in Canberra, with posters calling on politicians to “fund our future – not gas”, and recalling the catastrophic bushfiresthat raged through the region earlier this year.

In the Philippines, marchers and banners linked the strike to concerns over terror laws being used to outlaw protests, and to the plight of developing countries ignored by the rich world. Mitzi Jonelle Tan, an activist, said: “We Filipinos are among the most impacted, ranking second in the latest global climate risk index, yet our contributions to greenhouse gas emissions are so little. The least affected are often those who have contributed the most to the climate crisis – and what are they doing now? Nothing. It is time for world leaders to wake up to the truth of the climate crisis.”

There were strikes and protests in major cities in India, with placards complaining that “it’s getting hot in here”, reflecting predictions that hundreds of thousands of people could die each year from heatwaves in India in coming decades, if global heating continues to rise at current rates.

“Countries like India are already experiencing a climate crisis,” said the activist Disha A Ravi. “We are not just fighting for our future, we are fighting for our present. We, the people from the most affected are going to change the conversation in climate negotiations and lead a just recovery plan that benefits people and not the pockets of our government.”...

Strikes in Bangladesh drew attention to the threat to the country from rising sea levels, as tens of thousands of people are already refugees after their homes were inundated. ...

Hundreds of people marched through Pretoria, in South Africa, calling for the government to declare a climate emergency. Across Africa, protesters gathered in the streets and on the steps of public buildings to call for political action. Hilda Flavia Nakabuye, a Fridays for Future activist in Uganda, contrasted the action taken to control the coronavirus with the far weaker progress on the climate.

“In order to fight the Covid-19 pandemic, governments have taken strong and bold measures, pulling on the brakes, deciding on a long lockdown. We’ve stopped striking temporarily – but we know that the only way we can contain climate change is by our actions. That’s why we are striking again today, and will keep on mobilising in the future,” she said.

The most northerly strike was at the edge of the Arctic ice, north of the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, where Mya-Rose Craig, an 18-year-old ornithologist known as Birdgirl, was with the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise.

“I’m here because I want to see for myself what’s at stake as this crucial protector of the planet, the Arctic Ocean, melts away at a terrifying rate,” she said. “Fridays for Future activists from all over the world are standing up to call for urgent action against climate breakdown.” ...

China surprised the rest of the world by announcing a new goal to become carbon neutral by 2060, and to cause its greenhouse gas emissions to peak and then decline before 2030. The Climate Action Tracker thinktank estimated that the commitments, if followed through, would reduce global temperature rises by between 0.2C and 0.3C.

If borne out, that would go a long way to keeping within reach the Paris agreement target of holding temperature rises to well below 2C, with an aspiration of a 1.5C limit.

Ahead of the asssembly meeting, the EU also announced a strengthened target, of cutting greenhouse gases by 55% compared with 1990 levels by 2030. That would be the strongest commitment of any major economy, though green campaigners pointed out that the new target was looser than the old as it takes into account the impact of increasing carbon sinks such as forests.

The US, the world’s second biggest emitter, is scheduled to withdraw from the Paris agreement this year, and under a second term of Donald Trump as president would hold to that timetable. ...

The UK, which is to host the next UN climate summit – called Cop26 – in November 2021, has also stepped up its diplomatic push. The prime minister, Boris Johnson, and the UN secretary general, António Guterres, will convene an interim summit of the world leaders from major economies this December, on the fifth anniversary of the Paris agreement.

At that interim meeting, all countries will be expected to come forward with their national plans – called nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, in the UN jargon – to strengthen their carbon-cutting efforts, as required under the 2015 accord. Current commitments would result in temperature rises of 3C, which would wreak devastation and extreme weather over swathes of the globe.

Youth activists in the Fridays for Future movement are planning their own mock Cop26 conference this November, when Cop26 was originally scheduled before its delay owing to coronavirus. School strikers from around the world want to contrast the urgency they feel with the slow progress in international forums.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/25/young-people-resume-...

Climate strikes also started up again in Canada on Friday. They also called out the Trudeau Liberal government for their abysmal climate change action proposals in the Speech from the Throne. 

Toronto climate strike September 25th 2020.

On Friday, students and workers across the country took to the streets to protest the federal government’s inaction on earlier green promises, such as curbing greenhouse gas emissions and planting two billion trees, which have been put on the backburner due to the outbreak.

Protests, walkouts, and sit-ins took place in several Canadian cities, including Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary, Saskatoon, Ottawa, Montreal, and Halifax, on Friday to mark the return of the global Fridays for Future movement led by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. ...

“We are scared of bringing up another crisis in 2020. That’s not what people want to hear. And yet, it is absolutely what we need to talk about,” climate activist Allie Rougeot, a coordinator of Fridays for Future Toronto, told CTV’s Your Morning on Friday. “We have to say, ‘We are not going back to the system that is allowing the climate crisis.’ So after COVID, we need a new normal that has also climate in mind.”

That doesn’t mean, however, the young demonstrators will be throwing caution to the wind and ignoring public health guidance related to the outbreak as they gather on Friday, Rougeot explained. The 20-year-old activist said she and her fellow organizers for the downtown Toronto event have been planning for participants to physically distance from each other during the three-hour demonstration. ...

In a statement released on Friday morning, the national network Climate Strike Canadacalled the throne speech “abysmally inadequate” and called on youth to mobilize across the country in reaction to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s failed green promises.

“A year ago Trudeau committed to planting two billion trees. They’re nowhere to be seen,” the group said. “This gap between promise and reality is the lens through which young people heard his speech. Moreover, even if his promises were fulfilled, they would remain woefully insufficient. And so we march and shout and protest, because our lives depend on it.”

In the speech, the minority government vowed to plant all two billion trees, present legislation formalizing their goal of hitting net-zero emissions by 2050, and move forward with their 2021 ban on single-use plastics.

While Rougeot acknowledged the usefulness of single-use plastics to prevent further spread of COVID-19 during the pandemic, she reminded people to think about where that plastic is coming from and what could be used as alternatives in the future.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/fridays-for-future-canadian-activists-wa...

Below is a list of youth led climate strikes that occurred around Canada on September 25th and 26th, 2020.

Merci Canada. 65 #FightClimateInjustice verified. Regardez la carte canadienne interactive.
https://fridaysforfuture.ca/event-map/ 
We exist to curate & connect Canadians strikers accurately. BIG WEEK NEXT WEEK Confidence vote in the House of Commons & possible election.

https://www.facebook.com/pg/fridaysforfutureCA/posts/

Stop Funding Tar Sands

Tar sands is one of the dirtiest, most carbon-intensive fossil fuels on our planet.

Pipelines like Keystone XL, Line 3, and Trans Mountain are disastrous for people and the planet. They’re built on Indigenous lands without consent, endanger the safety of Indigenous women, and poison nearby communities.

Join us Friday, October 2nd from 2-330 EST / 11-1230 PST for a digital rally to hold the funders of tar sands accountable.

Here is some more information on why petitioning to stop the sponsorship of UN climate conferences described in the last post is important. 

In 2000 BP redesigned its logo as part of a company rebrand to signify supposed diversification away from fossil fuels. Guess what happened?

 From oil and gas majors like BP and Shell to tech giants like Microsoft and Apple, to food behemoths like Unilever, the number of companies that have made or strengthened promises to reduce their climate impacts to zero by 2050 in the past eight months is unprecedented. ... 

However, it’s important to keep in mind that the calculus is a bit slippery, and the aforementioned pledges all mean slightly different things.

This whole trend of going “net-zero” is tied to the Paris Agreement, which was reached at COP21 in 2015. While the agreement doesn’t set specific emissions reduction goals, it does require nations to do their darndest to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F). In 2018, a groundbreaking report from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that the only chance in hell the world has of doing that is by achieving net-zero emissions by around 2050. That’s why net-zero by 2050 became the de facto deadline to decarbonize. ...

But the weird thing was that back in Paris in 2015, when delegates were shaking hands and agreeing to cut carbon emissions, they were doing it surrounded by banners and billboards bearing the logos of the conference’s corporate sponsors — some of which were fossil fuel companies. There was Engie, a French electric utility company and the country’s largest importer of natural gas, and EDF, another electric utility heavily invested in coal. BNP Paribas, a major bankroller of coal mines and coal-fired power plants, was also a sponsor.

Coal was king at the conference in 2018, when it took place in Poland and was sponsored by three Polish coal companies. The host city of Katowice operated a booth that was constructed with chunks of coal and featured an array of products also made from coal, like soap. One of the three sponsors, JSW, organized its own expert panels during the conference. Last year the trend continued in Madrid, where the conference was sponsored by Endresa and Iberdrola, two major Spanish energy companies and large greenhouse gas emitters.

In addition to allowing these companies to plaster their branding on the conference, many have criticized conference organizers for giving fossil fuel companies and trade groups an invite to send representatives to the annual climate talks since they began in 1995. Advocacy groups say their presence is the reason little progress has been made in advancing global climate action since 2015. Fossil fuel influence at the talks is no secret — in 2018, Shell executive David Hone said that the company put together a straw proposal that made it into the Paris Agreement regarding cap-and-trade systems.

The U.K.’s new rule won’t keep trade groups and lobbyists out of the hallowed halls of the conference, but it may keep fossil fuel companies off the banners. Climate Home News reported this week that the U.K.’s requirements for sponsorship mean it is effectively banning fossil fuel partners. But a spokesperson for COP26 declined to confirm whether that interpretation was accurate. ...

If the conference does consider fossil fuel sponsors, BP could be an enticing contender — the British company has arguably a more ambitious plan to reduce its emissions than of any of its peers, and it recently said it expects to cut oil production by 40 percent in the next 10 years. That could potentially meet the “short term action plan” part of the requirements. However, both Carbon Tracker, a financial think tank, and the Transition Pathway Initiative, a global investor group, have found that BP’s emissions targets are not, in fact, aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

https://grist.org/climate/will-fossil-fuel-sponsors-be-allowed-at-the-ne...

There is another petition demanding that the UN not allow fossil fuel companies not be allowed to sponsor UN climate change conferences with a longer explanation of why this is so important. You can sign it at the url below. 

Demand that Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Refuse Funding From Fossil Fuel Corporations For COP26!

We no longer have time for fruitless conferences so that world leaders and fossil fuel executives can speak empty words without commiting to measurable action plans. In 1896,  Nobel Prize winning Swedish scientist, Svante Arrhenius, first described how carbon dioxide influences the climate. And so, since 1896, (over 130 years) humanity's capacity to warm the climate with our industrial carbon emissions has been understood. However, based on the trajectory first-world governments are on, resources are running out and no urgent action is being taken to prevent fossil fuel industries from drilling into the earth's surface. It is imperative to acknowledge that in order for a just transition to occur we must first call out the systems of power that have allowed for the continued exploitation of resources for centuries. It is no coincidence that these same systems of power are also allowing fossil fuel to have the most substantial and influential seats in the most significant gatherings in the world. That is the legacy of our present economic systems. We refuse to accept extinction as human fate. 

Millions of students took to the streets in the past few months alone. People raised billions of dollars in an attempt to reach politicians and policy makers. We signed innumerable petitions and online forms. We’ve pointed governments to the science. Wildfires, super storms, famine and drought torment the global south, Australia and California.  Food supplies and fresh water are disappearing. We the people, have attended panels, have been tossed around like trophies, been sources of inspiration and yet no serious action has been taken. That is because behind every major conference, progessive plan, and resolution is a fossil fuel company influencing and preventing change. It is time for us to rise against the fractured systems which have put profits and monetary gain over sustainable economic and social systems. Where the climate summits have failed us, we will give the platform back to the people. Where they refused to take action, we will make amends. Where they let suffering continue, we will do all that is in our power to help stop it. We demand just transition that prioritizes the most vulnerable people and repairs the effects of ongoing ecocide to maintain a livable, just planet. In order to do that we need to kick polluters out, once and for all.

I oppose all financing from fossil fuel corporations to fund, sponsor or influence the plans, negotiations and outcomes of COP26. I oppose the monopolization of green energy by these companies without being held accountable for the global catastrophe they have caused. The concerns put forward by billionaire executives do not represent me. Under the UN law, their interests should not have more weight than the people. I demand that the UNFCCC no longer permits executives, representatives, and officers of the fossil fuel industry to partake in negotiations and discussions with world leaders at the Conference of the Parties.

https://pollutersout.org/our-petition

Beware of climate delay, masquerading as climate action

As political leaders face growing calls for climate action, we must be careful to understand where investments in technological development are, in fact, a form of climate delay, masquerading as action. 

A set of recent announcements around the development of a hyperloop train between Calgary and Edmonton and small modular reactors (SMRs) in Alberta were framed as a step forward in climate action.

But a closer consideration of the technologies involved, and the gap in the deployment of other, more realistic technologies, shows it's better understood as a form of climate delayism. 

Unlike outright climate denial, "climate delay" acknowledges the reality of a changing climate and the role of carbon emissions from human activity in climate change. But instead of actively working to deal with the issue, it seeks to create a debate about what should be done, who is responsible, and how we should allocate costs and benefits.

The end goal is to significantly delay action to reduce emissions. 

It is an effective strategy. Slow-walking action on climate has almost the same impact as outright denial. Ensuring we remain bogged down in discussion means little actually happens, while leaders can claim they are taking action on climate. 

There are four primary types of climate delay, all of which can be found in the Canadian debate.

• Redirect responsibility — The focus is put on the importance of individual action, while excusing collective action. An example is the idea that it's consumption, rather than production, that matters. Another variety argues that small contributions from a given country or industry on the global scale are immaterial.
• Emphasize the downside — This pushes the fallacy that the cost of action is higher than the downside risk of climate change. In many cases this argument includes an appeal to social justice, such as emphasizing the costs of action borne by disadvantaged groups, when in fact the downside risks of inaction faced by these groups are typically highest, while the costs can be mitigated through policy design.
• Surrender — This is a form of climate doomerism, claiming falsely that we can't possibly make changes to reduce the impacts of climate change, therefore the only thing to do is focus on adaptation.
• Focus on non-transformative solutions — This involves taking actions and making investments in technology that won't result in transformative change, including technologies far from market, focusing on carrots rather than sticks. It also relies heavily on technological optimism to solve problems within a narrow solutions space.

A Dutch Supreme Court decision imposing a minimum 25% reduction in greenhouse gases by the end of 2020 from 1990 levels could have an impact on four Canadian cases making their way through the courts. The fact that Canada is emitting far more greenhouse gases per capita and is one of the ten largers emitters in the world could also play a role in these court cases. 

ETA: Unfortunately, unlike the Netherlands, thanks to both Liberal and Conservative governments have increased greenhouse gas emissions by 20.9% between 1990 and 2018 (the last year for which data is available). Between 1990 and the economic crash of 2008 under Liberal except for the last two years, there was a 24.1% increase that fell off for a few years due to the global economic downturn. (https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/environment...)

Under the Trudeau Liberals and the Paris Agreement, this sad record has continued causing the auditor general in March 2018  to conclude  the Trudeau Liberal government "is likely to miss the 2020 Copenhagen target as well". (http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/parl_otp_201803_e_42883.html) In April 2019 Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand concluded "Canada is not on track to hit its 2030 target,". These targets were actually those of the Conservative Harper government that Trudeau adopted despite proclaiming himself the climate change candidate in the 2015 and 2019 elections. (https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/environment-commissioner-julie-gelfand-...)

This pathetic failure to meet any standards strongly forewarns that the same will happen, even under a Canadian Supreme Court order to reduce emissions. 

Some of the young people who are part of the lawsuit filed against the federal government, seen at a press conference in Vancouver, B.C., in October 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

The case, The Netherlands vs. Urgenda, established that a country’s inadequate action on climate change can violate human rights. For the first time, a court imposed a legally binding target and deadline for a government to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, by at least 25 per cent from 1990 levels by the end of 2020. 

Urgenda was a major victory for climate justice activists, who have launched human rights lawsuits attempting to require governments to take more substantial and timely action against climate change. This landmark decision could prove influential in Canada, where similar cases will be decided. ...

There are now at least four pending Canadian climate cases invoking human rights, including La Rose et al vs. Canada, in which the federal government’s effort to have the lawsuit stopped before it goes to trial was argued last week. ...

Past Canadian climate cases based on other grounds have failed. But Urgenda may be particularly relevant to current litigation because it is based on human rights and some of the federal government’s arguments in La Rose reflect the Netherlands’ unsuccessful arguments. 

For example, Canada acknowledges the threat of climate change, but maintains that a court cannot order it to take action because climate change policies are for elected politicians — not judges — to decide. The government also argues that climate change is a global problem that Canada alone cannot solve. ...

The pending Canadian cases will require our courts to decide similar issues as Urgenda, including: 

1. Does the right to life under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms require the government to take specific action on climate change? 

2. Is it appropriate for courts to review climate change policies?

3. Does the concept of an individual but shared global responsibility overcome the “de minimis contribution” defence?

Other issues have been raised in these cases that are not addressed here, including equality rights for young people and Indigenous Peoples. ...

In Urgenda, the court concluded climate change poses a “real and immediate” threat to the right to life, which the Netherlands has a legal obligation to address under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). While this convention is not binding in Canada, Section 7 of the charter protects the right to life. Canada is also bound by international treaties recognizing the right to life. ...

The interplay between international and domestic law is complicated, but the Supreme Court of Canada has established that charter rights should provide at least as much protection as corresponding rights under binding human rights treaties. It has also held that other sources of international human rights law — including cases interpreting the ECHR — may be considered in charter litigation. Finally, Canadian courts often canvass relevant foreign decisions. 

These principles open the door for our courts to consider Urgenda relevant. And, if our judges think the approach to similar issues in Urgenda is persuasive, they could follow it. ...

That being said, Canadian plaintiffs still face significant obstacles due to how the the right to life under the charter has been interpreted. 

For example, the courts would need to adopt a broader understanding of a “real or imminent” threat, and to recognize that the government must take action to protect the right to life. As the law currently stands, the government is not required to take action to address indirect threats. ...

In addition, the UN Human Rights Committee has more recently concluded (in a different context) that the right to life under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights — a binding international treaty — can impose positive obligations on Canada. These decisions may leave room for climate plaintiffs to argue that our courts’ approach to the right to life is too restrictive and is falling below international standards. ...

In La Rose, Canada argues that the plaintiffs are asking the court to “step outside its judicial function” and become involved in “crafting a policy response to global climate change.”

This argument failed in Urgenda. In the Dutch Supreme Court’s view, an order to reduce GHG emissions was within its authority because it is the court’s role to review the reasonableness of laws and policies and the legislature remained free to determine what laws and policies to implement to meet the Netherlands’ obligations.

Canadian courts also often review the reasonableness of laws and policies. So, if climate change is considered a threat to charter rights that Canada must address, Canadian courts could follow the same approach as Urgenda. While the government’s obligation to meet an emissions target would be new, elected officials would still decide relevant laws and policies. ...

In the Dutch Supreme Court’s view, the shared global responsibility for climate change necessarily entails an individual responsibility on each country to do its fair share. And the court concluded that the Netherlands was not doing its part. ...

If Canadian courts accept the premise of individual responsibility, they would similarly assess whether Canada is doing its fair share, and the statistics could be on the side of the plaintiffs. 

Canada emits more GHG per capita and in total than the Netherlands. Its emissions target under the Paris Agreement is lower than the Netherlands for 2030 (a 30 per cent reduction from 2005 levels compared to 40 per cent — and Canada is not on track to meet it). And it has been argued that Canada ought to be able to “reduce its GHG [emissions] without major economic repercussions.” 

Our courts may also find it compelling that, even though Canada’s emissions amount to 1.6 per cent of global emissions, “Canada is still among the top ten global emitters … on an absolute basis, and in the top three on a per capita basis.” ...

As Urgenda shows, human rights cases could force leaders to listen — and act. If Canada continues to not do its fair share and if Urgenda marks the beginning of domestic and international decisions requiring countries to take specific action against climate change, it may only be a matter of time until Canadian climate justice plaintiffs prevail. 

https://theconversation.com/what-a-dutch-supreme-court-decision-on-clima...

"Joe Biden will not ban fracking. That is a fact."

https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1314019248344305664

The people living in the southwest region of Alberta are fighting back against the invasion of the Australian mining companies. In addition to generating more greenhouse gas emissions than any other fossil fuel, coal mining creates numerous other environmental problems. 

We know Kenney is already in the Australian mining companies hip pockets. The silence on this from the Trudeau Liberals is deafening. 

Montem - Tent Mountain (20 sq km)

Montem -Chinook Project (100 sq km)

Atrum/Elan - Isolation South, Elan South (230 sq km)

Impact of Mountain Top Removal Mining on the Region

Teck Coal Mine near Sparwood, which is just across the BC border from the six proposed mines in Alberta shows the damage that strip mining does.                   photo/Narwhal

The Livingstone Landowners Group (LLG) represents landowners and supporters of the Livingstone-Porcupine Hills area in southwest Alberta, some of the most biodiverse and sensitive ecosystems in the province. ...

Alberta’s vulnerable South Eastern Slopes and the heart of southern Alberta’s water supply are being offered up to international coal firms intent on mountain top removal mining of the area’s metallurgical coal.

An Alberta government decision to rescind the Coal Policy protections that have been in place since the 1970s has opened the door to intensive coal development in the region. Coal leases cover an area greater than 500 sq kms (50,000 ha) of public and private lands from the Castle Park boundary north to Chain Lakes.  Significant exploration activity has already been completed and more is underway. ...

Three large Australian-owned coal mining companies are in various stages of regulatory approval for six extensive mountain top removal coal mines. If approved, these mines could blanket the region south and north of Crowsnest Pass with a series of 40-50 kilometre long swaths of industrial destruction.

Several of the proposed Alberta mine locations (by Riversdale Resources and Elan Coal) are only about 30 km east of Teck Resource’s massive mines in the Elk Valley of B.C. These Teck mines have had a devastating impact on the Fording River and the Elk River waterways. ...

Impact of Mountain Top Removal Mining on the Region The Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains in southwest Alberta have been flagged for decades as an area that should be protected. Land use plans have identified multiple key wildlife and biodiversity zones.  The area between the Alberta/B.C. border and the Livingstone Range provides sensitive habitat for at risk and endangered species and is a popular region for backcountry recreation (camping, fishing, hunting, hiking, exploring). Cattle grazing lease operations have co-existed in the area for a century. ...

Mountain top coal mining is extremely invasive, stripping the soil, vegetation and rock from thousands of hectares of land, dumping the waste rock into the valleys, leaching toxins into natural waterways and destroying or severely disrupting native wildlife.

Independent research over many decades has identified serious issues with mountain top removal mining, including human health risks, environmental risks related to water volumes and quality and destruction and fragmentation of critical habitat for plant and animal species relying on these unique ecosystems for survival. Open pit coal mines are intensive water consumers and generate a range of toxic waste from the coal mining processing and from the leaching of dangerous chemicals from the massive piles of waste rock dumped on the valley floor.

Selenium Poisoning Release of elements like selenium are notoriously difficult to control and often result in fish deformities and deaths.  This can prove devastating to an area renowned for its fly fishing, pristine mountain rivers and outstanding recreation and tourism potential. 

Water Supply and User Impacts Water from the Oldman River headwaters (located in the heart of the newly targeted mining area in Alberta) provides the bulk of southern Alberta’s water supply, supporting communities with drinking water and water for irrigation.  The Oldman River watershed supplies water to 40% of the irrigated land in Alberta and all of the water used by the City of Lethbridge. The watershed is already under tremendous pressure with declining flow rates, highly variable water flows and increasing demand.  Multiple mines diverting water for their operation and dust-suppression could prove to be devastating for downstream users.

Air-borne Contaminants The frequent and extreme wind conditions of the region also create high risk for air borne contaminants to affect residents and communities long distances from the actual mine sites. Mining activities provide multiple pathways for the generation and distribution of mineral dusts that are readily transported by the wind over large distances. Airborne contaminants pose human health risks.

Summary The South Eastern Slopes are an important landscape. They provide for biodiversity, water supply, agricultural industry and recreation use.

Please contact your MLA, your MP and provincial and federal government ministers if you are concerned about the direction of policy that appears to be supporting foreign coal companies instead of the public’s best interest.  

https://www.livingstonelandowners.net/coal-mining

Here's a look at solar energy market and jobs. With 4,261 jobs out 3.8 million globally we have 0.1% of the jobs even though we are 0.5% of the world's population and have a high income economy. The article focuses first on BC but also looks at the rest of the country. 

A solar installation in Oliver, B.C. Terratek Energy Photo / Facebook

Solar energy businesses in British Columbia believe their market is at a tipping point following years of niche status, as costs come down, governments demand greener buildings and residents offset rising utility bills from power-hungry electric cars. Industry leaders also said the Canadian playing field has become more level after Alberta and Ontario ended government rebates on solar energy upgrades. ...

Scott Fleenor, principal at Terratek Energy Solutions, said he was doubling his capacity next year, thanks to rising demand. He predicted the industry would likely double in the province over the next few years. “Until now, we’ve been working with early adopters,” he said. “Now we’re starting to get into the mass market.” ...

There are just 4,261 jobs in solar photovoltaic (PV) across all of Canada, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).  Recently released figures from the agency show that the solar energy sector has a 3.8-million strong global workforce — but most of those jobs, 83 per cent, are in Asia. China dominates the field, with 59 per cent of all solar PV jobs. But other countries such as Japan, the United States, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brazil, Germany and the Philippines also play big roles in solar employment.

B.C. has not had a direct government rebate program that might have created a boom in business early on, argued Rob Baxter, principal at Vancouver Renewable Energy. In B.C., there is a provincial sales tax exemption, as well as a commercial incentive for businesses to add panels. ...

“In the last few years, the industry has been growing more in Alberta and Saskatchewan, and before that it was Ontario. So a lot of the jobs that were created were in those areas,” Baxter said. “In Ontario, they had some really good government incentives — that’s the reason why the market there was growing. In Alberta there were also some incentives, and they also have more expensive and dirtier electricity. Here in B.C., it’s just that we have relatively low electricity rates.” Under the former Ontario Liberal government of Kathleen Wynne, the province offered thousands of dollars in rebates for solar installations and other green upgrades such as smart thermometers. ...

The Progressive Conservative government of Premier Doug Ford pulled Ontario out of the cap-and-trade market after it came to power in 2018, and wound down the green rebate program.

The former Alberta NDP government of Rachel Notley had also offered rebates on solar power and other green upgrades in that province, which covered up to 30 per cent of a system’s initial cost. It, too, was paid for by a provincial carbon tax, and that rebate program and the carbon pricing that funded it was also ended by the United Conservative government of Premier Jason Kenney, after it came to power in 2019. ...

Baxter said the price of solar energy has come down, making the product more attractive to consumers looking to invest. “About five years ago we did more business in one year than we did the previous 10 years combined, and then last year it was even higher. So yeah, definitely a growing market here,” he said.

Another issue is the push toward “net-zero” buildings in B.C. John Horgan, the BC NDP leader who is currently on the campaign trail, has promised to legislate net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 if re-elected. Henrikson said new tenders coming out at the municipal level are more likely to have solar integrated into the designs now — everything from schools to aquatic centres and ice rinks. 

Sales of electric vehicles in B.C., which does have a provincial incentive program of its own, could help drive solar adoption as well, he said. Solar can help offset the higher electricity costs that come from home car charging. ...

“If you get an electric car, you’re basically paying an extra 40 per cent always when you’re charging at your house,” Henrikson said. “If you add, say, 10 solar panels on your roof, you can basically keep out of that Step 2 — or, your hydro will never go up, even though you’re charging your car.”

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/10/02/news/solar-energy-firms-bc-s...

A record 16 global warming disasters, each costing more than $1 billion have hit the US already this year. 

 Firefighting resources have been stretched to the limit by the scale and extent of the wildfires IMAGE COPYRIGHTGETTY IMAGES

The number of climate change-driven disasters and extreme weather events costing in excess of a billion dollars, has beaten the annual US record in the first nine months of 2020 - with another two months of wildfire and hurricane season still to come. 

The price tag of the disasters was totted up by scientists at the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), part of the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Six of those events - unprecedented wildfires in the American West, a drought and heatwave across the west and central belt, a Midwest derecho, then Hurricanes Sally, Laura and Isaias - have all happened in the past three months.

The first nine months of 2020 are already tied with the annual record of 16 events that occurred in 2011 and 2017. 

In September alone:

• Wildfires wreaked havoc across California: Since mid-August, more than 4 million acres have burned across California, breaking the statewide burn record set in 2018 by more than 2 million acres. Five of the top six largest wildfires on record in California (dating to 1932) burned between August and the end of September.

• The tropics were very active: The Atlantic hurricane season continued at a record pace last month. In September alone, 10 named storms formed — Nana, Omar, Paulette, Rene, Sally, Teddy, Vicky, Wilfred, Alpha and Beta. For the first time since 1971, five named storms churned in the Atlantic Basin at the same time.

• Drought got worse: According to the U.S. Drought Monitor report, 42.6% of the contiguous U.S. was in drought, up about 3 percentage points from the beginning of September. Drought conditions expanded or intensified across much of the Northeast and the western half of the contiguous U.S.

https://www.noaa.gov/news/us-hit-by-16-billion-dollar-disasters-year-so-far

The following video, titled "Climate change in Russia: Can Siberia's permafrost be saved?", discusses the risk of Siberia's tundra frost disappearin. Of course the same question can be asked in Canada. The caption notes "In parts of Siberia, the permafrost is thawing. That endangers not only roads and buildings but also underground cold-storage facilities. Cracks are appearing in more and more of them."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoIG08fDV5k

In half a century, global warming has widened the Batagay in Siberia megaslump from a small gully to a yawning pit more than 900 meters wide. KATIE ORLINSKY/NATGEO IMAGE COLLECTION 

Global warming is inflicting wounds across Siberia. Outbursts of pent-up methane gas in thawing permafrost have pocked Russia’s desolate Yamal and Gydan peninsulas with holes tens of meters across. Apartment buildings are listing and collapsing on the unsteady ground, causing about $2 billion of damage per year to the Russian economy. Forest fires during the past three summers have torched millions of hectares across Siberia, blanketing the land with dark soot and charcoal that absorb heat and accelerate melting.

Intensifying this year’s fires was a heat wave that baked Siberia for the first half of 2020. On 20 June, the town of Verkhoyansk, just 75 kilometers from Batagay and one of the coldest inhabited places on Earth, reached 38°C, the hottest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic. The record-breaking heat “would have been effectively impossible without human-induced climate change,” said the authors of a 15 July study by World Weather Attribution, a collaboration of meteorologists who analyze the possible influence of climate change on extreme weather events.

An abiding question is how much carbon the thawing soil will release to the atmosphere, and whether the lusher growth of Arctic plants in the warming climate will absorb enough carbon to offset the release. The Arctic may already have reached a tipping point: Based on observations at 100 field sites, northern permafrost released on average about 600 million tons more carbon than vegetation absorbed each year from 2003 to 2017, scientists estimated in October 2019.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/siberia-s-gateway-underworld-gro...

ETA: Human Rights Watch is warning today that global warming is threatening First Nations food supply in remote Canadian First Nations communities. At the end of the article are statements from a variety of First Nations communities describing how climate change is impacting their lives. 

• Climate change is taking a growing toll on First Nations in Canada, depleting food sources and affecting health.
• Canada is contributing to the climate crisis, which acutely affects Indigenous peoples who live off the land.
• Canada should urgently scale up its efforts to reduce emissions, and provide financial and technical support to First Nations dealing with the effects.

(Ottawa) – Climate change is taking a growing toll on First Nations in Canada, depleting food sources and affecting health, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Canadian government is not adequately supporting First Nations’ efforts to adapt to the mounting crisis and is failing to do its part to reduce the global greenhouse gas emissions that are driving it. 

The 120-page report, “‘My Fear is Losing Everything’: The Climate Crisis and First Nations’ Right to Food in Canada,” documents how climate change is reducing First Nations’ traditional food sources, driving up the cost of imported alternatives, and contributing to a growing problem of food insecurity and related negative health impacts. Canada is warming at more than twice the global rate, and northern Canada at about three times the global rate. Despite its relatively small population, Canada is still a top 10 greenhouse gas emitter, with per capita emissions 3 to 4 times the global average. 

• Climate change is taking a growing toll on First Nations in Canada, depleting food sources and affecting health.
• Canada is contributing to the climate crisis, which acutely affects Indigenous peoples who live off the land.
• Canada should urgently scale up its efforts to reduce emissions, and provide financial and technical support to First Nations dealing with the effects.

“Climate change is pushing increasingly dangerous levels of food poverty in First Nations,” said Katharina Rall, senior environment researcher at Human Rights Watch. “By flouting its emissions-reduction commitments, Canada is contributing to the global climate crisis that, within its borders, is being felt most acutely by Indigenous people who live off the land.”

Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 120 people, including residents, chiefs, and council members in First Nations in Yukon, northwestern British Columbia, and northern Ontario, as well as medical providers, educators, and environment and health experts, including Indigenous mental health counsellors and staff of Indigenous representative organizations. Human Rights Watch also reviewed academic research and peer-reviewed scientific studies documenting and projecting the impact of climate change in the areas studied, and contacted federal, provincial, and territorial government officials about the issues.

In the three geographic locations studied, residents reported drastic reductions in the quantity of food they are able to harvest, and increased difficulty and danger associated with harvesting food from the land. These changes are being driven in significant part by climate change impacts on wildlife habitat, including changing ice and permafrost conditions, more and increasingly intense wildfires, warming water temperatures, changes in precipitation and water levels, and unpredictable weather.Interview: 

Life is getting harder for First Nations in some of the most remote stretches of Canada. Senior environment researcher Katharina Rall visited communities to learn how the climate crisis is impacting food, health, and land like never before, and how they are fighting back.

Households must supplement their traditional diet with more purchased food. But grocery stores are often remote and the prices for nutritious foods prohibitive. As a result, people said, they tend to eat more affordable but less nutritious foods, compounding existing health conditions resulting from historic marginalization and poor access to health care in rural and remote Indigenous communities. Children, older people, and people with chronic diseases are particularly affected. Some children go to school hungry, and some older people cut down on their food. People with chronic diseases often cannot afford to follow medically recommended diets. Access to adequate and sufficient food corresponding to cultural traditions is an essential component of the human rights to food and health.

Across the country, First Nations are working to address the impact of the climate crisis. Some maintain strong traditional food sharing networks, while others have created monitoring systems for climate change impacts on their environment. Yet, all these efforts require resources and capacity, which many communities lack, and the federal and provincial governments are not doing enough to support them, Human Rights Watch found.

Federal climate change policies have largely ignored the real impact of climate change on First Nations. While climate change is already exacerbating historic inequalities experienced by First Nations, most existing policies fail to monitor – let alone address – current human rights impacts in these settings.

Subsidies, health resources, and other resources needed to respond are often not available, insufficient, or do not reach those who need them most. The federal government’s Nutrition North program subsidizes transporting nutritious foods from registered southern retailers, but healthy store-bought food options remain financially out of reach for many in remote and northern communities.

Canada is also not doing its part to advance global efforts to address climate change. Canada has not set adequately ambitious carbon emissions reduction targets consistent with the goal of keeping global temperature rise below 1.5°C, in line with the Paris Agreement, and the government is not even on track to meet its own targets.

The federal government acknowledged that food security is a critical issue and that more work is needed to cut emissions and meet First Nations food security needs. But it has not clarified how it will curb emissions or concretely address climate-exacerbated food insecurity.

Weenusk First Nation member, Mike Wabano, sets up camp for caribou hunting on a frozen river near Peawanuck, December 14, 2019. As a result of warming temperatures, ice and snow cover is often thinner and more unstable.  © 2019 Daron Donahue

Provincial and territorial government responses varied. The Yukon territorial government has committed to monitoring and tracking food insecurity and acknowledged the need to address the unique impact on Indigenous peoples. Ontario’s government, by contrast, has cancelled numerous climate adaptation and mitigation programs that benefited First Nations.

British Columbia has collaborated with First Nations to develop a climate adaptation strategy but did not respond to requests for further information on the details of this strategy, due to be released this year. Neither Yukon, Ontario, nor British Columbia have made any significant progress in reducing their emissions.

“If Canada does not urgently scale up its efforts to reduce emissions, it will continue to fuel the global climate crisis that is already having an outsized impact on First Nations,” Rall said. “The government should also urgently provide financial and technical support to First Nations already facing the devastating impacts of climate change.”

Selected Community Accounts

Areas where Human Rights Watch conducted interviews. © 2020 John Emerson for Human Rights Watch

“Climate change is really affecting First Nations right now. There is no food for animals to eat. The animals won’t be there for us to hunt.” – Chief Madeek, Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief, Skeena River watershed, British Columbia 

“I am concerned about the caribou. Already now there is less caribou [nearby].... They might have changed the route because of the wildfires.” – Elizabeth Kyikavichik, childcare worker, Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, Yukon

“My biggest fear of climate change [is] losing everything. Losing our tradition over the weathers, over melting ice. [I]f we lose what we have now, what will we have to show our children in the future?” – Kyle Linklater, father, hunter, and resident of Weenusk First Nation, Ontario

“There [are] a lot of kids who do not eat on the weekends. We have programs here where kids take food home for the weekend. Lots of schools have lunch programs but they do not offer traditional food.” – Teacher in Smithers, Skeena River watershed, British Columbia

“First Nations peoples know what is wrong, and what is needed. Most are plagued with over-crowding, high unemployment rates, health issues such as diabetes. Any real solution to address the climate crisis and food poverty must protect First Nations’ traditional territories and traditional food sources. Canada needs to fund climate change adaptation projects so families can grow their own food and plan ahead for the future.” – Sam Hunter, community climate monitor, Weenusk First Nation, Ontario

https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/10/21/canada-climate-crisis-toll-first-nat...

Another warning sign that impact of climate change is growing with every passing month: we now going to have the latest freezeup of Arctic ice in history, which has major ramifications for the world, including a speeding up of the melting of the Greenland glaciers and sea level rise, and an even greater impact on Arctic countries, including Canada. 

 A delayed freeze in the Laptev Sea could have knock-on effects across the polar region, scientists say. Photo by Tapio Haaja on Unsplash.

For the first time since records began, the main nursery of Arctic sea ice in Siberia has yet to start freezing in late October. The delayed annual freeze in the Laptev Sea has been caused by freakishly protracted warmth in northern Russia and the intrusion of Atlantic waters, say climate scientists who warn of possible knock-on effects across the polar region. Ocean temperatures in the area recently climbed to more than 5 C above average, following a record breaking heat wave and the unusually early decline of last winter’s sea ice. ...

“The lack of freeze-up so far this fall is unprecedented in the Siberian Arctic region,” said Zachary Labe, a postdoctoral researcher at Colorado State University. He says this is in line with the expected impact of human-driven climate change. "2020 is another year that is consistent with a rapidly changing Arctic. Without a systematic reduction in greenhouse gases, the likelihood of our first ‘ice-free’ summer will continue to increase by the mid-21st century,’ he wrote in an email to the Guardian.

This year’s Siberian heat wave was made at least 600 times more likely by industrial and agricultural emissions, according to an earlier study. The warmer air temperature is not the only factor slowing the formation of ice. Climate change is also pushing more balmy Atlantic currents into the Arctic and breaking up the usual stratification between warm deep waters and the cool surface. This also makes it difficult for ice to form....

“This continues a streak of very low extents. The last 14 years, 2007 to 2020, are the lowest 14 years in the satellite record starting in 1979,” said Walt Meier, senior research scientist at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center. He said much of the old ice in the Arctic is now disappearing, leaving thinner seasonal ice. Overall the average thickness is half what it was in the 1980s.

The downward trend is likely to continue until the Arctic has its first ice-free summer, said Meier. The data and models suggest this will occur between 2030 and 2050. “It’s a matter of when, not if,” he added.

Scientists are concerned the delayed freeze could amplify feedbacks that accelerate the decline of the ice cap. It is already well known that a smaller ice sheet means less of a white area to reflect the sun’s heat back into space. But this is not the only reason the Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as the global average. ...

If ice forms late in the Laptev, it will be thinner and thus more likely to melt before it reaches the Fram Strait. This could mean fewer nutrients for Arctic plankton, which will then have a reduced capacity to draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

More open sea also means more turbulence in the upper layer of the Arctic ocean, which draws up more warm water from the depths.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/10/23/news/arctic-sea-ice-unfrozen...

Only one day after declaring a climate emergency, the Trudeau Liberals used their parliamentary majority to approve the expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline that it bought for $4.4 billion, saying the expansion would have a $7.4 billion construction cost. The construction cost has now ballooned to $12.6 billion, giving a total price of $17.0 billion for a project that more and more studies now say is not needed. Money wasted that could have used to start building a green energy economy. 

Trans Mountain pipeline construction continues during COVID-19 pandemic: Safety and environmental concerns by many groups persist for a pipeline that studies show is not needed

 

Emissions caps, new and expanded pipelines to the U.S., higher transportation costs and lower prices in Asia all lead to the conclusion that a twinned Trans Mountain pipeline is not needed.

That’s the conclusion of a report authored by David Hughes for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). The latest report, published Thursday, builds on one Hughes authored in 2017 for the CCPA that made some similar arguments.

Since his last report in 2017, however, Hughes notes that a number of new pipelines, expansions or pipeline reversals to the U.S. have been announced or sanctioned that render the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion unnecessary. They include the Enbridge mainline, and the Aurora-Rangeland, Keystone XL and Express pipelines.

Hughes also notes an emissions cap of 100 tonnes of CO2 for Alberta’s oil sector that may constrain future expansions of bitumen production.

The Canadian Energy Regulator (CER), Alberta Energy Regulator (AER), Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) and International Energy Agency (IEA) have all made estimates on Alberta’s potential to increase oil sands production in the future. All could be met with existing, new or expanded pipelines or rail access, Hughes argues.

https://biv.com/article/2020/10/another-report-questions-economic-case-p...

The UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has warned that the "The global average temperature is set to rise to at least 1.2 to 1.3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels over the next five years". It could could reach 1.5 degrees above, thereby reaching the the 2015 Paris Agreement breaking the goal of keeping the temperature belwo the cap on the  the global temperature rise at 1.5 degrees that it set. Yet  the Trudeau Liberal federal government and most provincial governments keep on subsidizing the fossil fuel industry. 

A thermometer mounted on the headquarters of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Bonn Germany shows a temperature of 42 degrees Celsius—107 degrees Fahrenheit—in July 2019. (Reuters Pictures / Wolfgang Rattay)

The global average temperature is set to rise to at least 1.2 to 1.3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels over the next five years, a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) official said on Monday, close to a limit adopted in a global treaty. ...

The agreement, adopted by almost 200 nations, set a goal of limiting warming to "well below" a rise of 2 C above pre-industrial times while "pursuing efforts" for the tougher 1.5 C goal. A rise of 2 C is expected to wipe out more than 99 per cent of  coral reefs and melt most of the sea ice in the Arctic.

"Basically we are on track to reach at least 1.2 to 1.3 degrees centigrade [above pre-industrial levels] over the next five years," Omar Baddour, WMO senior scientific officer, said in response to a Reuters question at a Geneva news conference. "It needs drastic actions," he added. ...

"Not only are these statistics alarming they dispel any false sense of security that maybe we will muddle through this," said Maxx Dilley, director of the climate prediction and adaptation division of the WMO, told journalists.

"There is going to have to be a dramatic scale up in the level of ambition and as well as in the level of actual follow through on the current policies that are intending to address this," he added.

The WMO report also showed record carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere recorded over the same period, with the pace of carbon dioxide growth up 20 per cent versus the last five-year assessment.

There is a lag in the period that the world's climate responds to carbon dioxide and other gasses, meaning that the emissions produced today can affect temperatures 20 years later, Dilley added, locking in the warming trend.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/global-temperatures-wmo-1.5293624

The rapidly increasing emissions from Canada's forests is another problem that the Trudeau Liberals are failing to deal with when it comes to global warming and have shifted from being a carbon sink absorbing large carbon dioxide to being a great emitter of this greenhouse gas. Canada's forests were being counted on to act as carbon offsets for our fossil fuel industry. Instead they are now the opposite.

Canada's vast managed forest lands used to be critical allies in our climate fight and efforts to build a sustainable, carbon neutral forestry economy. That's because these forests used to be healthy enough to absorb the huge amounts of CO2 created by the logging industry's harvests — plus lots more.

This huge forest carbon sink benefited us in many ways in addition to climate safety.
 The logging industry benefited because it allowed them to promote their wood products as both sustainable and carbon neutral. But now they find themselves cutting more than is growing back — putting both their economic advantages and social licence at risk. Other carbon-intensive industries, like oil and gas and aviation, have been counting on a large and enduring forest carbon sink to supply carbon offsets to meet climate targets. Without millions of tonnes of these hoped-for Canadian forest carbon offsets, these industries face faster, deeper and more expensive cuts to their own climate pollution.

Unfortunately for all of us, our forests' deep and valuable carbon sink has nearly dried up. Decades of human abuses — from climate disruption to clearcutting — have left them too battered and weakened to even keep up with business-as-usual logging. Put simply: Our continent-spanning managed forests are now being cut down faster than they are growing back. The result has been a rising flood of CO2 pouring out of our managed forests and accumulating in our atmosphere — worsening both the climate and ocean acidification crises. ...

The rising black line shows the cumulative CO2 emitted by the logging industry's harvested wood over the last 10 years. These logging emissions added up to more than 1,200 million tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2).

Now compare those emissions to what our managed forests were absorbing over those same years. That's the faltering lower dashed line. The forests absorbed less than 100 MtCO2 — not even one-tenth of what the logging industry emitted.

The remaining 90 per cent of those logging emissions, shown by the red area, have been accumulating in our atmosphere, intensifying climate disruption. The decision to keep cutting more than is growing back has resulted in more than a billion tonnes of excess CO2 emissions — so far. And, as we will see in detail below, the long-term trend lines show the problem growing increasingly worse. ...

Ottawa continues to exempt one of our largest sources of climate pollution — the roughly 155 MtCO2 per year emitted by the logging industry's harvests. ...

In addition, Ottawa also exempts logging emissions from our other emission-reduction policies and targets. For example, under Canada's 2030 Paris Agreement pledge, the target for all other sectors is a 30 per cent emissions cut. But Ottawa created a separate target just for these logging emissions that allows them to rise, not fall. ...

Efforts in Canada to push this clear and growing threat off our books with creative accounting simply allows the crisis to spiral out of control. What we need instead are new policies from Ottawa to address this threat.

The climate-safest new policy option would be to require logging emissions to not exceed what our managed forests absorb. That would stop the CO2 flood and return the forests to net zero. Doing this would require a lot of government support for the impacted forestry workers and forestry economy. But it could also have significant long-term economic benefits compared to the current path of not acting.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/11/02/opinion/co2-forestry-Canada-...

The day after the election, November 4th, Donald Trump fulfilled his promise to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement, making America the only country to do so. If Biden wins, it has the potential to increase the pressure on Canada to shift away from fossil fuels to renewabales, if Biden shuts down the Keystone pipeline, diminishing Canada's opportunities to export oil. 

The United States on Wednesday officially became the only country in the world refusing to participate in global climate efforts, with the fate of the crisis hanging on the still uncalled presidential election.

Donald Trump as of Wednesday has withdrawn the US from the Paris climate agreement, an international pact to try to avert dangerous temperature increases that are already leading to more extreme weather and threaten to shrink world food supplies, force millions to flee their homes and deprive many of basic human rights. Trump’s administration set the US exit in motion a year ago, but it didn’t automatically take effect until 4 November. ...

The deal was meant to keep temperatures from rising more than 1.5C to 2C above the average before industrialization. Already, the Earth is more than 1C hotter than it was before industrialization, largely because of humans burning fossil fuels. This last year has demonstrated how the climate crisis will touch the lives of every American, with more heatwaves, intense wildfires, record hurricanes, rising seas, floods and droughts.

Trump’s challenger, Joe Biden, would immediately rejoin the agreement and push lawmakers to spend big on green infrastructure to try to reverse the economic downturn from the pandemic. Should he win, however, Biden’s ambitions may well be stunted by the US Senate, which as of Wednesday morning appeared to be leaning towards remaining in Republican control. 

Trump would intensify his quest to expand fossil fuels, undermine climate science and rescind environmental protections. A second Trump term would be a stunning loss to the climate movement and would reverberate around the world. A Trump win would be a “huge uphill battle” for US climate action, said Kate Larsen, a director at the independent research firm the Rhodium Group. ...

Pete Betts, the former lead climate negotiator for the EU and the UK, said global action will continue, albeit at a slower pace without the US. ...

A re-engaged US, however, could pressure allies like Japan, Canada and Australia to step up, Betts said. A Biden administration could work with the EU and China to agree on bigger targets. Last month, China announced it would try to zero out its climate emissions by 2060. While China is the biggest current emitter, the US has contributed more climate pollution historically than any other country.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/04/us-paris-climate-agreeme...

Biden's election has important implications for the dealing with climate change, the Paris Agreement, the United States and Canada. Let's look at the implications of Biden's win for the Paris Agreement, which he could rejoin without Senate approval. However, he could carry out some executive actions to reduce emissions, but not nearly enough to meet the targets science dictates are necessary to avoid catastrophic impacts from global warming.  

​

Representatives of the UN Member States sit in attendance in General Assembly Hall for the climate agreement opening ceremony, April 22, 2016.

The day after a nail-biter of a historic election, the United States became the only country to back out of the Paris climate change agreement. After the required waiting period, on Wednesday, President Donald Trump officially followed through on a threat he has been making since his first campaign to pull the United States out of the accord. This is a big deal: The Paris agreement marked a breakthrough in bringing rapidly growing nations like China and India under the same terms as the historically worst polluters, like the United States and Europe, as time is running out to contain global warming.

One silver lining: Not a single country has followed the United States’ lead yet to exit the agreement. In fact, 38 more countries have joined since Trump’s announcement in 2017. Yet many of the ominous predictions experts made when Trump first announced his intention to withdraw three years ago are holding up. I wrote then that Trump had no sense for the backlash in store for the United States for his isolationist foreign policy:

Two factors will especially hurt the US: First, the world has been dealing with the US as an unreliable partner on climate change for more than two decades, and leaders still well remember the other times the US reversed course on its promises; second, the world has never been more aligned in favor of action, making climate change a much bigger factor in the US relationship with its allies in non-climate related issues—from trade to defense to immigration—than it once was.

In a New York Times op-ed in 2017, George Shultz, a former Cabinet member of the Reagan and Nixon administrations, and Climate Leadership Council’s Ted Halstead begged Trump to remain in the accord. They predicted that Trump would create a power vacuum with global-level consequences. “If America fails to honor a global agreement that it helped forge,” they wrote, “the repercussions will undercut our diplomatic priorities across the globe, not to mention the country’s global standing and the market access of our firms.”

That has proven accurate: Without Trump, countries have forged ahead with domestic climate action. European nations and China have sought to fill the vacuum left by the United States. Now, China, India, and Europe have shown their appetite for strengthening their initial clean energy goals, while Trump has continued to talk about reviving the fast-declining coal industry. ...

[Biden] has promised to re-enter Paris on Jan. 20th next year, which will take effect one month later. Then, things get complicated.

“Rejoining Paris—that would be the easy part,” Alden Meyer, an independent expert who has 30 years of experience in international climate policy and science. “The harder part would be delivering the goods.” After joining Paris again, Biden would have to resubmit a new emissions target, which experts expect would initially look modestly similar to where Obama’s targets once were. But the United States needs to go even further to prove it’s serious about permanent changes to create a low-carbon economy. Biden would also need to put money where his mouth is by finally delivering on the United States’ $3 billion commitment to the Green Climate Fund, an international pot of money to help developing countries counter climate change. His first task would be to come up with the remaining $2 billion that Trump reneged on. ...

The president can pressure other countries to reduce foreign investments and exports in coal, and he can use the Environmental Protection Agency’s existing powers to slash carbon emissions. But the most ambitious, fastest timeline for doing anything requires laws passed by Congress. 

“The Senate matters a lot because all the analyses shows that using existing authority under the Clean Air Act and energy legislation with executive agency action, you get the United States somewhere maybe in the 30 to 32 reduction range [by 2030],” Meyer says. “But to get closer to the 40 to 50 percent range that science and equity at a minimum demands, it would be hard for the United States to get past that benchmark through executive action alone.” 

Congress matters for another reason, too: The world has understandably lost faith in the continuity of US politics on climate change. Congressional action on climate would provide some assurance, Meyer says, that “we’re not going to be on a rollercoaster of policy changes administration to administration.” 

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2020/11/trump-paris-exit/

Does 'Green Finance' Offer a Solution to Climate Change? (podcast)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csz7y1

"Big names in finance [Mark Carney] think they can reverse capitalism's effect on the planet."

Or get richer selling that to us?

The Liberal 25 year history of promising to deal with global warming has been one long series of promises followed by actions that always fail to meet their greenhouse emissions reduction targets and often result in an increase in emissions. This week the Trudeau Liberals announced they will soon release a new plan for zero missions by 2050 with reduced emissions targets for 2030, of course well after Trudeau is highly likely to be gone from office and when the global crisis is likely to be in full bloom. 

If this sounds vaguely familiar, here's the Liberal track record under Chretien and Martin:

“Canada has missed two separate emission reduction targets (the 1992 Rio target and the 2005 Kyoto target) and is likely to miss the 2020 Copenhagen target as well. In fact, emissions in 2020 are expected to be nearly 20 per cent above the target.” (https://www.cpacanada.ca/en/news/canada/2018-09-18-canada-failing-to-red...) 

And here's how  Trudeau's own government agencies have assessed his performance: 

How many more broken climate change promises will there be?

In March 2018 the auditor general concluded  the Trudeau Liberal government "is likely to miss the 2020 Copenhagen target as well". (http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/parl_otp_201803_e_42883.html)

In April 2019 Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand concluded "Canada is not on track to hit its 2030 target,". These targets were actually those of the Conservative Harper government. (https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/environment-commissioner-julie-gelfand-...)

Now let's take a look at what we know about the new Trudeau proposal, keeping in mind that in the same week they announced this Trudeau was phoning Biden to not stop the Keystone pipeline so Canada can export more tarsands oil. The Liberals have also allowed oil companies to drill exploratory oil wells off Newfoundland that have already hit oil twice, are in the process of redefining what a fossil fuel emission is it appears lower than under the previous definition, bought and are building the Trans Mountain pipeline, have allowed the completion of a pipeline to Manitoba that will deliver more oil to the US Midwest next year: 

 Trudeau pledged more than a year ago that his government would set “legally binding” five-year targets to make sure Canada can slash its way to its ultimate goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. 

Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson’s office is being tight-lipped about the upcoming bill, declining to comment Monday even on the intent of such legislation.It would only point to last year’s platform pledge that vowed to set five-year “milestones” for emissions reductions and appoint an advisory panel of experts “to recommend the best path to get to net-zero.” 

But opposition parties and climate activists are stepping into the silence, urging the minority government to ensure this legislation helps make it possible for Canada to do what it has never done: fulfil a pledge to slash greenhouse gas pollution. ...

“Canada has been making and missing climate targets since the early 1990s. There is clearly something off about the way that we take action on climate change,” said Catherine Abreu, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada, referencing every pledge this country has made to slash emissions since the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992. “We keep making these promises and letting the world down,” she said. “We need to figure out how we are going to keep our promises when it comes to climate change in the future.”

Other countries have already implemented national climate accountability regimes, including Germany, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. ...

For the NDP’s Laurel Collins, the MP for Victoria who is the party’s environment critic, the legislation must have strong obligations to report progress, with a “third party” of experts to set Canada’s targets outside the arena of partisan politics. “Missing our climate targets is not a small thing, and we’ve been doing that again and again,” she said. “We need more ambitious targets, we need mechanisms to make sure the government is on track to meet those, and we need to see the plan.”

https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2020/11/16/canada-hasnt-hit-a-c...

Trump is planning to sell off drilling rights in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge in an attempt to foil Biden from protecting the area, which borders the Yukon, when he takes office on January 20th. So a spill could have a major impact on Canada as well, to say nothing of its impact on greenhouse gas emissions.

Alaskan natives have long fought to preserve the reserve (https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/alaska-natives-mount-resistance-la...). 

Caribou migrate onto the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Alaska. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via AP)

Since Joe Biden's victory in the Nov. 3 election, a group of environmentalists and environmentally conscious investors has been putting pressure on corporations to oppose drilling in that pristine habitat home to polar bears, Arctic foxes and other wildlife. 

At the same time, President Trump's team is hurrying to ensure Wall Street keeps money flowing toward arduous efforts to drill in that chilly corner of northeast Alaska.  ...

The latest salvo is a new Trump administration regulation aiming at blocking banks from restricting financing for Arctic drilling. 

Under a rule proposed Friday by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, big banks would not be allowed to refuse lending to entire business categories that don't break the law. 

Five banking behemoths — Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo — have said they will restrict lending to Arctic drilling projects after facing pressure from green groups and activist investors.

The administration's proposal came after complaints from both the fossil-fuel sector and Alaska's all-Republican congressional delegation that banks weren't willing to finance the projects. It was issued to ensure “fair access to financial services, credit, and capital [that] are essential to our economy,” according to acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian P. Brooks. ...

Graham Steele, director of the Corporations and Society Initiative at Stanford Graduate School of Business, said banks are thinking twice about such lending because many of them are inherently financially risky as a result of the volatility of oil prices and difficulty of getting pipelines approved, among other factors.

The proposed rule, said Steele, formerly a Democratic staffer on the Senate Banking Committee, “starts from the premise that they are doing this solely for political reasons… when there are a whole bunch of economic factors.”

Environmentalists, meanwhile, have been turning up the heat on corporations to oppose drilling in the Arctic animal habitat. 

In the past week alone, a coalition of Native Alaskans, activist investors and green groups asked AIG, Allianz and other insurance companies to stop supporting any oil and gas projects in the refuge, while Trillium Asset Management filed a shareholder resolution with Bank of America demanding it explain why it hasn't joined other Wall Street banks in refusing to finance Arctic drilling. 

Both moves are designed to plug the flow of financial support to working in the refuge, even as the Trump administration moves forward with plans for an auction of drilling rights or leases.

Many oil companies have tried keep their heads down on the hot-button issue — by either saying flatly they will not place bids or by not disclosing whether they plan to do so. One exception is Chevron, which told the Bureau of Land Management in March that it thinks “industry can safely develop” inside the wildlife refuge.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/23/energy-202-last-big-e...

Despite Covid-19's slowing of greenhouse gas emissions, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continue to grow, having already reached a reached 410 parts per million in 2019, the last year for which data is available. 

The global average atmospheric carbon dioxide in 2019 was 409.8 parts per million (ppm for short), with a range of uncertainty of plus or minus 0.1 ppm. Carbon dioxide levels today are higher than at any point in at least the past 800,000 years.

Global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations (CO2) in parts per million (ppm) for the past 800,000 years. The peaks and valleys track ice ages (low CO2) and warmer interglacials (higher CO2). During these cycles, CO2was never higher than 300 ppm. On the geologic time scale, the increase (orange dashed line) looks virtually instantaneous.

“We breached the global threshold of 400 parts per million in 2015. And just four years later, we crossed 410 ppm. Such a rate of increase has never been seen in the history of our records. The lockdown-related fall in emissions is just a tiny blip on the long-term graph. We need a sustained flattening of the curve”, WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement.  

Reduced activity associated with COVID-19 lockdowns is expected to cut carbon emissions by 4-7 per cent this year, Professor Taalas said.    

Oksana Tarasova, WMO Chief of Atmospheric and Environment Research Division, told a news conference in Geneva that although it looked like the pandemic had brought the world to a standstill, carbon emissions had continued almost unabated because lockdowns only reduced mobility, not overall energy consumption.    ...

“The CO2 which we have now in the atmosphere is accumulated since 1750, so it's every single bit which we put in the atmosphere since that time that actually forms the current concentration. It's not what happened today or yesterday, it’s the whole history of the human economic and human development, which actually leads us to this global level of 410”, Dr. Tarasova said.  

CO2 levels rose by 2.6 ppm in 2019, faster than the average rate for the last ten years, which was 2.37 ppm, and are now 48 per cent higher than the pre-industrial level.   

Professor Taalas said that in order to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, in which governments pledged to try to stop temperatures rising by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the world needed to switch from coal, oil and gas-fired energy towards solar, wind, hydropower and nuclear power, as well as adopting less-polluting modes of transport, including electric vehicles, biofuels, hydrogen and bicycles.  

https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/11/1078322

In facing a climate change emergency, we need to undertake an emergency mindset, as Canada did during WWII and the current Covid-19 crisis. The four markers for when you know that a government has shifted into emergency mode are:

• It spends what it takes to win;
• It creates new economic institutions to get the job done;
• It shifts from voluntary and incentive-based policies to mandatory measures;
• It tells the truth about the severity of the crisis and communicates a sense of urgency about the measures necessary to combat it.

Spend what it takes to win The benefit of an emergency mindset is that it forces governments out of any previous austerity thinking. ...

When C.D. Howe, the then-minister of munitions and supply, was pressed about government spending, he famously replied, “If we lose the war, nothing will matter… if we win the war, the cost will still have been of no consequence and will have been forgotten.” ...

As a result of increased spending on pandemic relief measures, the Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates that the federal government will run a deficit of about $328.5 billion, and the debt-to-GDP ratio will end the 2020-21 fiscal year at 47.9 per cent. ...

However, federal spending on climate action and green infrastructure pales in comparison. In October, the government announced new climate-infrastructure spending amounting to a meager $2 billion per year – to be cumbersomely administered through the Canada Infrastructure Bank, rather than be nimbly financed through the Bank of Canada. Compare this to the climate plan of U.S. president-elect Joe Biden, who proposes spending US$2 trillion over four years on climate action, or US$500 US billion a year, which divided by 10 (to make it equivalent to the Canadian economy) amounts to US$50 billion a year, or about $65 billion Cdn. ...

Create new economic institutions to get the job done During the Second World War, starting from a military production base of virtually nothing, the Canadian economy and its labour force pumped out planes, military vehicles, ships and armaments at a speed and scale that is still simply jaw-dropping. Remarkably, the Canadian government (under the leadership of C.D. Howe) established 28 Crown corporations to meet the requirements of the war effort. ...

Similarly, during the pandemic, we have witnessed the federal government creating audacious new economic programs, like the Canada Emergency Response Benefit and the Canadian Emergency Wage Subsidy, with a speed that few would have predicted.

But in response to the climate emergency, we have seen nothing of this sort. In contrast to C.D. Howe’s wartime creations, the Trudeau government has established two new Crown corporations during its time in office – the Canada Infrastructure Bank (which has thus far accomplished very little), and the Trans Mountain Corporation. ...

Shift from voluntary and incentive-based policies to mandatory measures The Second World War saw rationing of core goods and all manner of other edicts under the War Measures Act. The pandemic has seen our governments issue health orders and take strong actions to shut down non-essential parts of the economy when needed. ...

Where it matters most — actual GHG emissions — we have accomplished precious little. Why? A major reason is that actions taken to date have been almost entirely voluntary. ...

Tell the truth about the severity of the crisis In frequency and tone, in words and in action, emergencies need to look and sound and feel like emergencies. The leaders we remember best from the Second World War, such as Winston Churchill or Franklin Delano Roosevelt, were outstanding communicators and orators who walked a careful line. They were forthright about the gravity of the crisis, yet still managed to impart hope. ...

None of this consistency and coherence, however, is present with respect to the climate emergency. When our governments do not act as if the situation is an emergency – or when they send contradictory messages by approving new fossil-fuel infrastructure – they are effectively communicating to the public that it is not an emergency. Where are the regular media briefings on how the climate emergency response is going? Where is the government advertising to boost the level of public “climate literacy” and to explain their policies? Where are the daily media climate emergency reports, telling us how this fight for our lives is unfolding at home and abroad? Most importantly, where are the federal or provincial political leaders who should be forthrightly telling the truth – that the health and stability of all of us, of our economy, of our planet requires that the fossil-fuel industry be wound down in a carefully managed way over the next two decades? We need these kinds of leaders, with the courage to tell us the truth, and then lead us through the critical years ahead.

https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/november-2020/canada-must-adopt...