Canada and the climate crisis: a state of denial 3

Here are some highlights from the 118 environmental and citizens' groups to the Trudeau Liberal government demanding that the Bay du Nord project in offshore Newfoundland waters be cancelled. The url below has the full letter. 

Reject Bay du Nord and focus on a fair transition for Newfoundland and Labrador

We write to you today with grave concern over the proposed Bay du Nord (BdN) offshore oil project, owned by Equinor and Husky Energy, and currently under review by Cabinet. This project is incompatible with Canada’s domestic and global climate commitments, contradicts Canada’s commitment to capping emissions from the oil and gas sector, is based on a seriously flawed Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), and does not provide Newfoundland and Labrador the support needed to transition workers to a prosperous, clean economy. 

We ask that the Federal Government of Canada reject this project and immediately work with the province of Newfoundland and Labrador to build a fair and just transition away from fossil fuels. 

Incompatible with Canada’s Climate Commitments

The Bay du Nord (BdN) project, if built, will produce up to 73 million barrels per year for 30 years.  Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas emissions would be equivalent to adding 7-10 million fossil fuel cars to the road or building 8-10 new coal power plants. This is in direct opposition to recommendations in the International Energy Agency’s (IEA)  groundbreaking Roadmap to Net Zero(link is external) and 1.5°C World Energy Outlook scenario to stop(link is external) the expansion of oil, gas and coal production and infrastructure and escalate the global transition away from fossil fuel dependence and toward renewable energy. 

Canada has committed to reducing emissions by 40-45% below 2005 levels by 2030 and getting to net zero by 2050. We often hear the challenges the government is having in meeting these targets. Approving BdN, which is expected to operate well beyond 2050, will only set Canada back in its attempts to reach net zero. Canada is not in a meaningful transition if we continue to grow the problem.

The time to stop the expansion of oil and gas production is now. Eleven countries and subnational governments have launched Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance(link is external), committing to no new expansion of oil and gas. In addition, 2800 scientists, 101 Nobel Laureates as well as 170 parliamentarians from 33 countries(link is external), including many from Canada, have endorsed the principles of a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty(link is external). And at COP 26, Canada joined almost 40 countries in committing to end international public financing for fossil fuels(link is external), putting the future of the industry further at risk. ...

This project was reviewed under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act 2012 and not the updated Impact Assessment Act (IAA). While the IAA process has flaws, it requires all projects to assess how they impact Canada’s climate commitments. As noted above, this project seriously hampers Canada’s climate commitments, but those were not taken into account in the Environmental Assessment (EA). 

The EA for BdN was conducted for an estimated production of 300 million barrels of oil: more recent estimates are over triple this value, with projections ballooning to 1-1.3 billion barrels. This increase will affect upstream and downstream GHG emissions associated with the project, and will also change the scale of predicted impacts on marine life from the project.

The Environmental Assessment for the BdN project states that it will achieve a 50 per cent reduction in operating emissions compared with the four other drilling rigs offshore of NL. However, no evidence was provided to support this claim beyond standard measures for offshore drilling rigs (flaring, high efficiency burners, etc.). 

https://www.sierraclub.ca/en/2022-03-02/letter-cabinet-reject-bay-du-nor...

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Canada needs to commit to supporting the people that Russia is attacking. Coast Gas and TMX cannot come on line quick enough. Frack BC and send tar sands gunk to Gulf refineries now!!! Support the freedom loving Europeans by replacing Russian gas and oil with our far filthier products. If you leave aside the ridiculous indigenous claims we know that our oil and gas oligarchs are morale and need to be supported in their war with the evil Russians.

I get your sarcasm. I agree with it. As I noted in the previous thread , because of the war in Ukraine, there has been a movement in the West to eliminate Russia's oil and gas supplies to Europe but instead of using this as an opportunity to shift away from fossil fuels to renewables, we see the same old pursuit of western fossil fuel projects as replacements for Russian fossil fuel projects being proposed instead of dealing with the biggest war man will ever face. That is, the war against climate change that the latest UN report warns is well down the road to killing many more people than anything short of a nuclear war, and, in the latter case, climate change may even beat out nuclear war over time because it will last for centuries.
The odds of the Ukraine war leading to any shift away from fossil fuels are extremely low as even during Covid, the world invested $1.5 trillion in fossil fuels from 2019 to 2021 during Covid when fossil fuel demand was down(https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/15/climate-research-shows-how-banks-investo...), with Canada being one of the big six in pouring money into fossil fuels (the others are the US, China, India, the UK, and Japan).
Canadian banks pension funds and insurance companies have been pouring hundreds of millions into Russia's fossil fuel companies, but no one can match Londongrad in terms of floating in both financing and hiding the money of Russia's oligarchs. Even now with the Johnson government threatening sanctions against Russian oligarchs with English assets, there are complaints that the government is giving time to move or sell their assets, including the several billion dollar Chelsea soccer club. Even in war one nation's oligarchs protects the other's oligarchs while (wink, wink) people, in this needless war its mostly Ukranians, die.
There is also a lot of Russian money in Canadian fossil fuel projects as the world's global playboys play their fossil fuel games including financing the Russian military buildup since 40% of the Russian economy is fossil fuel sales primarily to Europe, and proclaiming a shift toward renewable energy while financing an industry that is used to build the brutal toys of war games on both sides. Not unrelatedly, the carbon footprints of the world's billionaires, whether Russian or Western, dwarf those of ordinary people. "The wealthy own yachts, planes and multiple mansions, all of which contribute greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. For example, "a superyacht with a permanent crew, helicopter pad, submarines and pools emits about 7,020 tons of CO2 a year, according to our calculations, making it by the far worst asset to own from an environmental standpoint." (https://theconversation.com/private-planes-mansions-and-superyachts-what...)

The war in Ukraine has once again highlighted the links between war, fossil fuels, global warming and Canada's own push to sell more oil and gas by Jason Kenney and Trudeau and the federal Conservatives to ship more fossil fuels and send more planes to the war.  

Warplanes are both carbon intensive and extremely expensive, costing an estimated $76.8 billion over their lifespan. Credit: UX Gun / Unsplash

In 2021, Russia earned over USD $110 billion from oil exports, USD $54.2 billion from natural gas exports and USD $7.6 billion from liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. About 2.5 million barrels per day of Russian oil is shipped to Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria. ...

Svitlana Krakovska, Ukraine’s leading climate scientist, has further highlighted: “[There are] parallels between climate change and this war and it’s clear that the roots of both these threats to humanity are found in fossil fuels.” Krakovska comments: “Burning oil, gas and coal is causing warming and impacts we need to adapt to. And Russia sells these resources and uses the money to buy weapons. This is a fossil fuel war.”

But rather than this war prompting the world to take bold action to rapidly decarbonize – to both avert financing war and driving climate catastrophe – the jostling is already underway to sell more Canadian oil and gas.

Alberta premier Jason Kenney says: “I think there is a degree of vindication. I feel like what we have been saying for years is now understood to be true. And that is, the world needs more liberal democratic energy and less conflict energy.” Kenney’s comment sidesteps the reality that “liberal democratic energy” often violates Indigenous sovereignty and the millions of dollars spent on armed interventions on Wet’suwet’en territory to push through the Coastal GasLink pipeline qualifies that fracked gas as “conflict energy.”

While meaningful reductions in fossil fuel subsidies and carbon emissions have not occurred despite the climate crisis, the response to this fossil fuel financed war appears to be that Canada should buy new warplanes.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has already announced Canada will soon be deploying six CF-18 fighter jets to Romania, but Conservative national defence critic Kerry-Lynne Findlay saysCanada needs to do more and buy F-35s.

This call for Canada to purchase Lockheed Martin F-35 warplanes has recently been echoed by Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, retired Canadian naval intelligence officer Andrew Chester, and Canada’s former chief of defence staff Tom Lawson. These warplanes are both carbon intensive and extremely expensive, costing an estimated $76.8 billion over their lifespan. This is money that could otherwise be used to finance a just transition away from fossil fuels.

Putin’s war on Ukraine has already been financed by oil and gas exports. Climate action years ago could have helped avert that.

https://rabble.ca/politics/world-politics/war-in-ukraine-should-lead-to-...

Despite Doug Ford's announcing support for Honda's electric car production facility in Ontario, he has a love-hate relationship with electric vehicle's as the following Narwahl December article illustrates. 

 

Since coming into power in 2018, the government scrapped an existing buyer incentive program, which provided up to $14,000 on the purchase of an electric vehicle. (For comparison, buyer incentives exist in eight provinces and territories.) Ford also removed a $2.5 million incentive program that helped homeowners install their own charging equipment. The government also deleted electric vehicle charging station requirements in Ontario’s building code and ripped out a couple dozen public electric vehicle charging stations that had already been installed. 

“It only benefitted millionaires who could afford Teslas,” Premier Doug Ford said at the time. ...

The vacuum of electric vehicle policies and provincial investment dollars has had rippling impacts across Ontario. To start, the Canadian arm of Tesla took the government to court, claiming it was treated unfairly in the cancellation of the electric vehicle incentive program, and was arbitrarily exempted from a program that allowed customers of other cheaper electric vehicle brands to continue receiving rebates during a transition period. Tesla won the court challenge. 

In the absence of dedicated policies, sales of electric vehicles in Ontario dropped by over 50 per cent in 2019. 

According to data from Statistics Canada, electric vehicles represented 1.8 per cent of new light duty vehicle sales in Ontario in 2020, which was below the global average of 2.7 per cent and well behind the Canadian national average of 3.5 per cent. In the third quarter of 2021, according to data from IHS Markit, electric vehicles represented 3.1 per cent of new vehicle registrations in Ontario, compared to 13 per cent in B.C., which has a $3,000 incentive, and 9.9 per cent in Quebec, which has an $8,000 incentive. Last year, there were more electric vehicles registered in Vancouver than in all of Ontario. 

But then a series of industry shifts happened that forced the Ford government to take the future of electric vehicles in Ontario more seriously. 

Sometime in the summer of 2020, Ford called Magna founder Frank Stronach, an automotive tycoon who has twice donated to the Progressive Conservatives in 2021 and met with Ford once before in 2019. The premier was seeking advice on how to create jobs in the auto industry. Two years earlier, on the campaign trail, Ford vowed to bring back 300,000 manufacturing jobs he said the province had lost under Liberal governments. According to a report by The Auroran, Stronach came up with a solution: Focus on electric vehicles at home. ...

As both Ferguson of OPG and Vines of Ivy note, Ontario is in an ideal position to reap the benefits of electric vehicles. The province has a largely clean electricity system so the best way for it to further reduce its greenhouse gas emissions is to focus on the highest-emitting sector: transportation. OPG and Hydro One, along with many other utilities across the province, are leading the way, Ferguson says.  ...

Automakers are also taking note. Ontario is the only jurisdiction in North America where five major automakers build vehicles: Stellantis, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, Honda and Toyota. In 2020, three of those companies — General Motors, Ford and Stellantis — announced billion-dollar electric vehicle manufacturing investments. Stellantis’ Windsor assembly plant will transform to build more electric models, with plug-in and electric vehicle battery manufacturing starting in 2024. General Motors will invest nearly $1 billion to bring the production of the BrightDrop EV600 electric vehicle to its manufacturing plant in Oshawa. The government of Ontario and the federal government each committed $295 million toward the renovation of Ford’s Oakville assembly plant, which will exclusively build electric vehicles.  ...

Government data shows that electric vehicle manufacturing is already an economic win — in 2019, it contributed $13.9 billion to Ontario’s GDP.  And there’s a burgeoning market: global sales of electric vehicles in 2030 are expected to be 15 times what they were in 2020. Last month, the Ford government released Phase Two of its Driving Prosperity plan, which puts an emphasis on manufacturing electric vehicles in Ontario. ...

The plan states the government’s goal is to see 400,000 electric vehicles manufactured in the province in the same time frame and also establish a new electric vehicle and hybrid assembly plant. It cites industry projections that by 2030, one out of every three vehicles sold globally will be electric and that the market volume will be 31.1 million vehicles. It’s estimated that there will be half a million electric vehicles in Ontario by then. ...

The battery aspect is an economic opportunity, albeit a complicated one. In 2019 alone, Ontario produced more than $10 billion worth of minerals, accounting for almost 25 per cent of Canada’s total mineral production. At the top of the list of naturally occurring minerals in Ontario are graphite, lithium, nickel and cobalt — all crucial raw materials in the production of batteries for electric vehicles, and many of which are found on First Nations land. Ontario’s Driving Prosperity plan is heavily reliant on taking advantage of critical minerals found in the Ring of Fire, with Ford and several ministers promising to work in concert with First Nations communities in the region to build an electric vehicle mining hub that will benefit all. ...

Earlier this year, three First Nations communities in northwestern Ontario —  Neskantaga, Attawapiskat and Fort Albany — declared a moratorium on Ring of Fire development until further study has been done to ensure environmental risks are mitigated and First Nations are fairly consulted. Their concern is that communities will be “seriously and permanently desecrated by massive-scale mining in the Ring of Fire.” ...

Wilf Steimle, president of the Electric Vehicle Society, says there are four pillars that the government needs to address: supply, charging, demand and education. Right now, the government is only focusing on the first two, he says. “There has been very little spent on any government to do broad comprehensive education to make sure everyone understands this technology and why it will save you money and is better for the environment.The dialogue doesn’t stop at manufacturing,” Steimle says.

https://thenarwhal.ca/ontario-electric-vehicle-policy/

Of course Doug Ford's government record on global warming would be a joke if it wasn't so trajic. 

Upon arriving in government the Doug Ford PCs immediately end Ontario's cap and trade program. But that was the beginning of his attack on climate change measures. 

Four days into his job as premier, Doug Ford announced the end of Ontario’s $3 billion cap-and-trade climate program as his government’s first policy decision. Since then, the Progressive Conservatives have made dramatic changes to the province’s environmental policy. The changes affect everything from endangered species to renewable energy to development, and critics say most are harmful to wildlife and natural spaces, as well as counterintuitive given the scale of the climate crisis. ...

1. The Progressive Conservatives prevented Ontarians from weighing in on policy by failing to follow the Environmental Bill of Rights

For three years in a row, the Ford government has come under fire from Ontario’s Auditor General for not following the province’s Environmental Bill of Rights, a law that requires the government to be transparent about environmental changes and gives citizens the right to weigh in. In November 2021, Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk took her criticism one step further and accused the government of “deliberately” undermining its own rules. Lysyk pointed to the Ford government’s decision to temporarily suspend key sections of the Environmental Bill of Rights during the first wave of COVID-19, saying it led to “less transparency and accountability.” The province also failed to abide by the Environmental Bill of Rights when it passed changes to environmental assessments without consulting the public. ...

2. Doug Ford’s government slashed funding for Indigenous conservation efforts and other environmental initiatives

The Ford government’s first year in office was marked by its dramatic cuts to spending for, well, pretty much everything. But the Progressive Conservatives made some of their largest cuts to environmental initiatives.

One huge move was to eliminate about 70 per cent of provincial funding for the Anishinabek/Ontario Fisheries Resource Centre, a non-profit that helps more than three dozen Indigenous communities protect endangered wildlife and natural resources. And as part of broader cuts to legal aid clinics, the government dropped its funding to the Canadian Environmental Law Association by 30 per cent. The association is a non-profit, public-interest law group. In 2019, the Progressive Conservatives also ended all financial supportfor the Ontario Biodiversity Council, a group of volunteer stakeholders and scientists who report to the public about the state of biodiversity in the province.

The Ford government also slashed the budget of the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks by about a third in 2019. Those cuts resulted in the Environment Ministry cutting the staff responsible for inspections and enforcement for hazardous spills by nine per cent, Ontario’s Auditor General found in November 2021. 

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, which also oversees some aspects of the environment, lost 14 per cent of its funding. ...

3. Accelerated plans for two highways through Ontario’s protected Greenbelt

The Ford government has revived two major highway proposals that would carve through the protected forests, farmlands and wetlands of the Greenbelt. Both are old ideas that were dropped by previous governments.

Highway 413, which would connect the Toronto suburbs of Milton and Vaughan, is the most controversial. Also called the GTA West Corridor, it would harm 2,000 acres of farmland, cut through 85 waterways, damage 220 wetlands and disrupt the habitats of 10 species-at-risk. The former Liberal government axed the idea after a study showed the new highway would save drivers less than a minute. (The Ford government disputes this and said it would save drivers half an hour, but hasn’t shared any data to back up the figure.)

The other highway is the Bradford Bypass, which would connect Highways 400 and 404 north of Toronto. It would run through the Holland Marsh, a portion of the Greenbelt known for its sensitive wetlands and fertile soil.  ...

Critics point to decades of research showing that new roads actually don’t resolve traffic problems in the long run, instead attracting new cars. In May 2021, after being asked by environmentalists, the federal government announced that it would do its own assessment of the Highway 413 proposal. ...

4. Disempowered and then rebuilt Ontario’s conservation authorities 

In August 2019, without any warning, notice or consultation, the Ford government ordered the province’s 36 conservation authorities to “wind down” all activities that did not relate to their “core mandate,” though exactly what that meant was unspecified.  Unique to Ontario, conservation authorities manage local watersheds with the goal of protecting communities against flooding and erosion, and intervene in controversial development cases that propose to pave over wetlands and other natural habitats. The order to “wind down” came after the government cut provincial funding for natural hazard management by 50 per cent months earlier. The government said it would do a full review of all legislation that gave powers to these authorities with the intention of giving greater control to individual municipalities on issues of conservation.

The proposed legislation was tabled over a year after the order and passed in December 2019. It would gut conservation authorities’ ability to protect crucial waterways and wetlands, some of which run through the protected Greenbelt area around Toronto. The bill would shift the power of approval for development applications from local conservation authorities to the Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry. In response, seven members of the Greenbelt Council resigned, including chair David Crombie, a former Progressive Conservative MP and Toronto mayor. ...

5. Doug Ford appointed a Greenbelt Council chair who voted against the Greenbelt 

After the Ford government’s move to take powers away from conservation authoritiesresulted in the resignation of seven members of Ontario’s Greenbelt Council in protest, the province needed to appoint a new chair. The man for the job, the Ford government decided, was retired Progressive Conservative MPP Norm Sterling. It was a controversial move — not least because in 2005, Sterling voted against the creation of the Greenbelt. An environment minister in the PC government led by Mike Harris, Sterling was an MPP for 30 years, and has a nuanced legacy. He was resistant to implementing climate measures in the Kyoto Protocol and oversaw cuts to the environment ministry that were later found to have contributed to the Walkerton E. coli outbreak in 2000.  

6. Scrapped the Drive Clean program

On April 1, 2019,  the federal government’s carbon price came into effect. That same day, the Ontario government cancelled what it described as the “outdated, ineffective” Drive Clean program. Introduced in 1999, this was a mandatory emissions test for light-duty passenger vehicles meant to identify and repair cars and trucks that polluted excessively. It was considered an important tool in curbing emissions from transportation vehicles, which account for over a third of the province’s greenhouse gas emissions. The program is credited with preventing 400,000 tonnes of pollutants, but as industry standards for vehicles improved, the Drive Clean program became less relevant, with a steady annual decrease in the number of vehicles that failed the test. ...

7. Repealed the Toxics Reduction Act

As of December 31, 2021, the Toxics Reduction Act will no longer be in place. Along with the federal National Pollutant Release Inventory Program, the 2009 legislation was designed to curb the use, creation and release of toxic substances in specific sectors to voluntarily develop toxics reduction plans and report yearly. 

According to the Ford government, the Toxics Reduction Act was “ineffective and has not achieved meaningful reductions.” That’s not true: according to a 2017 Minister of Environment and Energy report on Toxics Reductions, between 2015 and 2016 the legislation contributed to a seven per cent decrease in the use of toxic substances, a nine per cent decrease in the amount of toxic substances contained in products between 2015 and 2016, and a two per cent reduction of toxic substances released in the environment. ...

8. Cancelled the 50 Million Tree Program 

Another casualty of the Ford government’s 2019 budget was $4.7 million in annual funding  allotted to the 50 Million Tree Program run by the non-profit Forests Ontario. The goal of the program was to plant 50 million trees by 2025. ...

9. Doug Ford ripped out, and then re-introduced, electric vehicle policies

After coming into power in 2018, the Ford government scrapped an existing buyer incentive program, which provided up to $14,000 on the purchase of an electric vehicle. (For comparison, buyer incentives exist in eight provinces and territories.) Ford also removed a $2.5 million incentive program that helped homeowners install their own charging equipment. The government also deleted electric vehicle charging station requirements in Ontario’s building code and ripped out a couple dozen public electric vehicle charging stations that had already been installed. 

Since November 2020, the government has shifted gears — pressured by a series of industry shifts including charging station projects from provincial power companies and utilities and efforts by major automakers to retool assembly plants to exclusively build electric vehicles. ...

10. Doug Ford dismantled Ontario’s cap-and-trade program

Right after taking office in the summer of 2018, Ford sent out a press release announcing the end of cap-and-trade: he inaccurately deemed it “government cash grabs,” when, in fact, the funds collected were largely earmarked for other climate-related projects. The program allowed companies to buy and sell credits to pollute, the idea being that the added cost would incentivize businesses to pollute less. Nobel-prize winning economists William Nordhaus and Paul Romer, as well as much scientific research, tout the cap-and-trade program as the most cost-effective and efficient way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global heating. The emissions-trading scheme has often been mischaracterized as a “carbon tax” by members of the Ford government. ...

11. Ford weakened clean energy programs and investments

A week after ending the cap-and-trade program, the Ford government cancelled 758 renewable energy contracts, including hydroelectric, solar and wind farms that were mid-construction. The first to be axed was the White Pines Wind Project in Milford, Ont., which was 10 years in the making and characterized by Ford as “those terrible, terrible wind turbines.” The second was the Nation Rise wind farm in North Stormont, Ont. In May 2020, a court overturned the province’s decision and allowed construction of the project to resume. The complete list also included solar rooftops on schools, libraries, community and municipal buildings. ...

12. The Progressive Conservatives bought Ontario gas plants

Most of Ontario’s electricity comes from emissions-free hydro-electric and nuclear power, which makes for a relatively clean system — the province does use some natural gas, but the fossil fuel makes up a small portion of the mix. In 2020, however, the province spent $2.8 billion to buy three natural gas plants that the Ford government is planning to fire up more often over the next decade as nuclear plants go offline for refurbishment — a move that could erase a third of the emissions reductions Ontario achieved by phasing out coal. ...

13. Doug Ford’s government axed the environmental commissioner

In the fall of 2018, on the 25th anniversary of the creation of the position, the Ford government eliminated the office of the environmental commissioner, an independent provincial watchdog that held the government accountable on its environmental actions or inactions. The position was created under the Environmental Bill of Rights, and tasked with monitoring the government’s compliance with environmental laws and reporting annually on the government’s progress on its greenhouse gas reduction targets. ...

The bill of rights also allowed any two Ontario residents to apply to the commissioner’s office to ask it to review any law, regulation or decision by the government pertaining to the protection of the environment. That accountability mechanism was stripped, just as the Ford government was enacting one environmental cut after another. Now, those appeals go directly to the Minister of Environment, Conservation and Parks and some of the accountability work of the environment commissioner’s office has been folded into the office of the auditor general. ...

14. Weakened protections for endangered species in Ontario

The Ford government has watered down protections for endangered species twice. The first set of changes, included in the omnibus Bill 108 — dubbed the More Homes, More Choice Act — were aimed at making it easier for the development industry to pursue projects even if they would likely harm species at risk. The legislation, passed in May 2019, allows the province to delay protecting endangered species, weakens protections for species with populations outside of Ontario, opened up the chance for non-scientific experts to join the provincial committee that classifies species at risk, and eliminated a requirement that the environment minister consult an independent expert on how certain actions could affect endangered species.  It also created a “pay to slay” fund, officially known as the Species at Risk Conservation Trust, that would allow developers to destroy key habitats if they pay fees, which are meant to be used to help the species recover elsewhere. ...

15. Doug Ford fired Ontario’s first chief scientist

In another move that happened a matter of days after he was sworn in, Ford fired Ontario’s first chief scientist. Dr. Molly Shoichet, a biomedical engineer who teaches at the University of Toronto, had been in the role for six months. The previous Liberal government had meant for the chief scientist to advise the government, and to make sure all of its relevant policy decisions were rooted in science.  At the time, Ford’s office said it was seeking a “suitable and qualified replacement.” Shoichet told The Globe and Mail she believed it wasn’t about her, “but rather an out-with-the-old and in-with-the-new” decision. As of Oct. 2021, the role has not been filled. ...

16. The Ford government overhauled Ontario’senvironmental assessments

In July 2020, the Ford government passed Bill 197, legislation meant to facilitate economic recovery from the devastation of COVID-19. Buried in the bill was a major overhaul to Ontario’s environmental assessment law. Environmental assessments are pivotal to development proposals, helping the government determine whether a project might have negative impacts on surrounding green space, wildlife and watersheds. At the time, Ford said “we aren’t going to dodge” the process, but make it “quicker and smarter.”  Critics say the bill actually made the regime tremendously weaker. Public-sector projects used to be subject to environmental assessments automatically — now proposals only need one if the government decides it should take place. Citizens also used to have a mechanism to ask the environment minister to conduct a full assessment on projects that would otherwise be exempt, but Bill 197 eliminated that possibility.  ...

17. Fast-tracked development, including in Ontario’s Greenbelt

As the first wave of COVID-19 took hold in Ontario, the Ford government dramatically ramped up its use of a special land zoning power called an MZO, or minister’s zoning order. The directives allow the ministry of municipal affairs, now headed by Steve Clark, to decide how a piece of land can be used, overriding the local planning process and any existing zoning to clear the way for a project to go ahead. The orders cannot be appealed. Up until 2018, governments tended to use them for emergency situations: in 2012, when the Liberal government headed by Dalton McGuinty used an MZO to relocate a grocery store in Elliot Lake, Ont. when the town’s only one was destroyed by the collapse of a mall roof. Ford’s government used five in 2019 — which Clark followed up by issuing 32 of the orders in 2020, more than twice the number the previous Liberal government issued over its 15 years in power. He’s issued 19 so far in 2021.

18. Doug Ford is dilly-dallying on cutting heat-trapping pollution

Ontario isn’t taking its 2030 climate targets seriously enough, Lysyk warned in Nov. 2020. In an audit, her office found that the Ford government had not made emissions reduction a “cross-government priority” and is not reducing emissions from fossil fuel-use in buildings, the province’s third-largest source of greenhouse gases. Under the Paris Agreement, Ontario must reduce its emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by the end of the decade. 

https://thenarwhal.ca/doug-ford-ontario-environment-explainer/

The Amazon rainforest, "the lungs of the world" that plays a vital role in producing oxygen and storing carbon, is getting close to a point of no return as the jungle is cut down for agriculture, mining and fossil fuel extraction. The release of carbon from the Amazon under such exploitation is a major contributor to global warming. Not even Covid, which slowed down nearly all economic activity globally, slowed down the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, turning it from a carbon dioxide sink to a carbon dioxide emitter, much like forestry is doing to Canadian forests, with no Canadian government taking action to slow it down. 

Overflight during inspection operation against deforestation in Novo Progresso, Pará. IBAMA supports anti-deforestation of the Amazon. Photo by Vinícius Mendonça-IBAMA/Flickr

IN 2020, THE Covid pandemic slowed down just about everything—save for deforestation of the Amazon. That year, Brazil lost almost 15 square miles of vegetation per day, equal to 24 trees every second. That’s largely thanks to ranchers and farmers, who clear-cut the forest and burn the detritus to make way for crops and cattle. The burns can also ignite peat, concentrated organic matter in the soil that releases extraordinary amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. The Amazon is transforming from an enormous sink where CO2 is sequestered into a source of the planet-heating gas.

“The Amazon now is in an emergency situation,” says Luciana Vanni Gatti, who studies the rainforest at Brazil’s National Institute of Space Research. “Deforestation is increasing year by year: 2020 was worse than 2019, 2021 was worse than 2020, and we are sure 2022 will be worse yet.”

Now scientists are racing to figure out if and when the Amazon might reach a dreaded tipping point, a sort of point of no return when the greatest rainforest on earth could dry out and turn into a sprawling savanna. The end result will be the loss of an irreplaceable ecosystem and major player in global climate dynamics.

A paper published today in the journal Nature Climate Change aims to provide more clarity on that tipping point, which may be rapidly approaching. While prior research used complicated modeling to predict how the decline might unfold, this new research is based on satellite data that shows 75 percent of the Amazon has become less resilient to disturbances like drought. ...

Because they had data going back to 1991, they could watch how long it took for a given plot of the Amazon to recover by growing its biomass back after a disturbance. This regrowth is resilience. And the Amazon is losing it. The researchers broke the rainforest up into an imaginary grid, allowing them to keep track of vegetation within the cells and to correlate that with stressors like droughts or nearby land development. They found that the vegetation in over three-quarters of the Amazon has been losing resilience since the early 2000s. ...

The Amazon is also taking longer to recover from perturbations like weather events, which unfold over weeks or months, as well as the longer time frames of drought. “That suggests that the system is slowing down,” says climate scientist Chris Boulton of the University of Exeter, lead author of the new paper. “It's taking longer to recover from the short-term fluctuations that are perturbing it away from its happy place.”  ...

Another major threat is logging, including a kind that’s done by thinning selected trees but leaving others. But even if loggers don’t completely raze an area, they can still destabilize the forest. “What is concerning is in addition to deforestation, which is relatively easy to monitor and keep track of, we're seeing a big increase in what is called forest degradation, where biomass is extracted from the forest,” says environmental scientist Pontus Olofsson, who studies the Amazon but wasn’t involved in the new work. ...

Ranchers, too, contribute to a more subtle weakening of the landscape. They may fell trees but leave a patch of forest standing. Because the animals left inside that little patch are now surrounded by barren land, they don’t dare leave their island. Even birds won’t risk trying to make the journey out of the patch. At the same time, the edges of that rainforest are now exposed to open air, and they rapidly degrade. A rainforest is supposed to be wet, but now its edges are baking in the sun. Over time, rainforest vegetation dies off, and savanna-style grasses creep inward. ...

The dried-out husk of a rainforest also burns more easily, so it releases more carbon into the atmosphere. If the forest keeps losing water and transitions into a savanna, it will be a much drier, grassier ecosystem that is far more flammable than a rainforest. 

https://www.wired.com/story/the-amazon-rainforest-may-be-nearing-a-point...

 

 

When Krystyna Dodds, a spokeswoman for the Environment Ministry, says the Trudeau Liberal government ""is reviewing a considerable amount of complex information about whether the Bay du Nord Development Project is likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects," you know what the answer is you're going to get. Opening a new oilfield off the Newfoundland coast and you are wondering whether there will be significant adverse environmental impacts? 

Trudeau is already set to outline plans to increase oil exports to Europe because of the Ukraine war while claiming this will not affect Canada's greenhouse gas emissions. I call BS on that. It may also be used as an excuse to go ahead with the new Bay du Nord oil field off Newfoundland, which the Trudeau Liberals have heavily subsidized already. In December 2020 , the Trudeau Liberals gave $41.5 to Husky Oil in Newfoundland to keep the "idled West White Rose offshore oil project going, particularly to "protect the option of restarting" in the next year — although there is no guarantee that will happen." Meanwhile Trudeau continues to proclaim his devotion to stopping greenhouse gas emissions. I guess he is just following his strategy before the last election of proclaiming a climate change emergency one day and literally the next day buying the Trans Mountain pipeline.  The $41.5 million, which is half the project cost, is in addition to the $325 million the Trudeau government handed the Liberal Newfoundland government to support the Newfoundland oil industry, after Husky stopped construction on the project in April due to the low price of oil. More subsidies poured into a sunsetting industry. (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/west-white-rose-1.5...)

An oil pump jack pumps oil in a field near Calgary, REUTERS/Todd Korol

Canada on Thursday will outline plans to increase oil exports to help alleviate the tight global market following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but the hike will not undermine Ottawa's long-term climate commitments, a government source said.

Federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson will detail Canada's plans at the International Energy Agency (IEA) meeting in Paris, the source said.

Wilkinson told Reuters earlier this month the government is working with industry to find ways increase pipeline utilization and boost crude exports, and pipeline company Enbridge Inc (ENB.TO) said it is prepared to do "what it can."

Canada, holder of the world's third-largest oil reserves, is keen to help shore up long-term energy security as countries that previously relied on Russian oil and gas look for replacements amid sanctions aimed at punishing Russia for its assault on Ukraine. But the government has no plans to compromise its climate goals.

"There's no real desire to shift away from the focus on emissions reductions and the environment. We're not throwing out the climate rulebook," added the source, who declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the information. ...

A spokesman for Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage said Canada could ship an extra 200,000 barrels per day (bpd), roughly 5% of current exports to the United States and a fraction of the 3 million bpd of Russian supply expected to be missing from April. ...

Critics say Canada is failing to meet its climate goals. In 2018, Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government bought the Trans Mountain oil pipeline to help producers struggling to get their crude to market. Carbon emissions from the oil and gas sector have risen 20% since 2005 and contribute 26% of Canada's total emissions, making it the country's largest emitting industry. ...

 

"What the Ukraine crisis has done is increase the attention being given to energy security," said George Hoberg, a professor of public policy at the University of British Columbia.

"There'll be lots of pressure from the oil and gas sector (to grow the industry) but to do so would be inconsistent with Canada's climate commitments."

Next month, the government will decide whether to approve Norwegian oil company Equinor's (EQNR.OL) Bay du Nord project off the coast of Atlantic Canada. Bay du Nord has an estimated 300 million barrels of recoverable resources.

The Environment Ministry "is reviewing a considerable amount of complex information about whether the Bay du Nord Development Project is likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects," Dodds said.

Environmental groups like Sierra Club have accused the oil and gas industry of exploiting the Ukraine crisis to drum up more support for the project.

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/canada-plan-hike-oil-exports-will...

Many civic organizations are calling on the Trudeau Liberals to shut down the Bay du Nord oilfield off Newfoundland before it starts because "To have some chance of climate stability for our kids, the global community has to wind down fossil fuel production and use."

The Sierra Club called the Trudeau Liberals environmental assessment of the project "fatally flawed" and "shockingly inadequate" that "completely ignores the global consequences of burning the fuel intended to be extracted.” in a process that "deliberately downplayed three areas, including the risk of a spill, the risk to sea corals and deep-sea life, and the risk to marine mammals in the areas" and also ignored indigenous complaints about the project.

Map of Newfoundland oilfields including proposed Bay du Nord

A group of civil organizations has called on Ottawa to reject the Bay du Nord offshore oil venture in Newfoundland and Labrador, recalling the province’s gutted cod fishing business as a lesson on the long-term impacts of environmental devastation.

“To have some chance of climate stability for our kids, the global community has to wind down fossil fuel production and use. We’ve got to stop exploring for it, extracting it, consuming it,” Dr. Angela Carter, an environmental politics professor at the University of Waterloo and member of Newfoundland’s Net-Zero Advisory Council, told a virtual Bay du Nord briefing held on March 22, World Water Day.

Continuing to expand oil and gas production, she added, commits future generations to a lifetime of extreme storms, erosion, and flooding, “all in a world of intensifying human suffering.” 

Norwegian state fossil Equinor, the company behind the Bay du Nord development, says the project will bring 11,000 person years of employment to the province and support its oil-reliant economy. But those opposing the project—including political leaders and 200 Canadian and international environmental and citizens groups—say drilling in that area threatens the surrounding ecosystem, and would set Canada back on its climate targets. A final decision to approve or reject the project was scheduled for March 6, but Environment and Climate Minister Steven Guilbeault announced a 40-day delay at the last minute, pushing the verdict to April 13.

A major point of contention regarding the project is a crucial but “fatally flawed” environmental impact assessment, said Gretchen Fitzgerald national programs director at the Sierra Club Canada Foundation. Fitzgerald said the assessment does not show that the project was given the “deep and adequate scrutiny” it warrants, and “completely ignores the global consequences of burning the fuel intended to be extracted.” She added the assessment process deliberately downplayed three areas, including the risk of a spill, the risk to sea corals and deep-sea life, and the risk to marine mammals in the areas.

The “shockingly inadequate environmental assessment” is a major reason for Guilbeault’s delay, added Tzeporah Berman, international program director for Stand.earth and chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. “I expect that there are heavy debates from vested interests who want to say yes to more oil and gas no matter what, and from those inside governments who recognize that, at this moment in history, it would be a huge mistake,” she said.

The impact assessment also fell short on claims by Equinor and the Impact Assessment Agency that the report incorporates Indigenous knowledge, said Inuk land protector and community advocate Amy Norman. “I don’t think this project actually truly, genuinely respects Indigenous knowledge,” she said. “When they say that this project respects Indigenous knowledge, I think they’re picking and choosing, and I think they’re treating Indigenous knowledge as a buzzword.” Fitzgerald added that Indigenous communities who were consulted as part of the project raised many concerns, and some voiced opposition.

With Ottawa’s ongoing internal debate on Bay du Nord, speakers at the briefing recalled past events that support rejecting the project. Newfoundland and Labrador’s 1992 cod moratorium, for instance, came after an “environmental devastation that had far-reaching, long-term economic impacts that we are still paying for today,” said Kerri Claire Neil, co-chair of the Social Justice Cooperative of Newfoundland and Labrador.

https://www.theenergymix.com/2022/03/23/local-groups-declare-bay-du-nord...

 

As in BC's summer heat and last fall's atmospheric river massive flooding, two atmospheric rivers, one heading toward each polar region, produced record temperatures that changed the environment. This looks like the new normal for the planet with catastrophic results. Dr. Stephan Singer of Climate Action Network warned on Aljazeera news that the continuation of these and other heat events has already broken off a 1200 km piece of an Antarctic ice shelf and that if the heating up of the planet continues our linear models of climate change and glacial melt are turning into exponential change that would produce a two metre rise in sea level by 2100, thereby resulting in the destruction of many coastal cities and the wiping out of many coastal cities.

With the longest coastline in the world, 2.7 times as long as Norway's -the next longest, Canada will pay an enormous price because of global warming. c 

Quote:

The bloodless term “anomaly” doesn’t do justice to the stupendous temperature departures seen across parts of both the Antarctic and Arctic in mid-March 2022. With the initial shock now behind them, scientists are taking stock of exactly what happened and what it might portend. ...

The Arctic’s warm spell was impressive in its own right. An atmospheric river (or AR, a narrow plume of warmth and moisture that typically pushes toward higher latitudes) surged from the North Atlantic well into the Arctic Ocean on a track running just east of Greenland. The AR was associated with a powerful mid-latitude cyclone that produced the lowest atmospheric pressure ever recorded in Greenland: 934.1 mb at Ikermiuarsuk, beating a value of 936.2 mb set at two locations in 1986 and 1988.

As the AR pushed north, temperatures rose close to the freezing point near the North Pole. Several stations in Svalbard, Norway – an archipelago that includes one of the world’s northernmost cities, Svalbard – set all-time records for March, with readings as high as 42°F. ...

Even more impressive was the freakish warming at Earth’s South Pole. An atmospheric river originating near southeast Australia surged across much of the vast, barren landscape of East Antarctica, the coldest large plateau on the planet.

“This Antarctic heat wave definitely changes what we thought was possible for Antarctic weather,” tweeted Jonathan Wille (Université Grenoble Alpes). ...

In the case of March 2022, just days before the southern autumn equinox of March 20—a time when temperatures have normally plunged close to winter levels—the atmospheric river spread warmth-trapping clouds and moisture well inland across East Antarctica.

As a result, temperatures soared to levels as much as 50°F or more above average over broad areas on March 18 and remained far above average for several days.

• At Vostok, a Russian weather station launched in 1958, the high of –17.7°C (0.1°F) on March 18 smashed the record for any March by 26.8°F and came in roughly 63°Fabove the average daily high. The 26.8°F represents the largest margin in world history for breaking a monthly record at any site with at least 40 years of data, according to Maximiliano Herrera, an expert on international weather records. It’s also the only time Vostok has gotten above zero Fahrenheit outside of December or January, never mind mid-March. Vostok’s all-time high is –14°C (6.8°F).

• About 350 miles away, on terrain and elevation roughly similar to Vostok, the French-Italian research site Concordia Station (staffed year-round, as is the case for Vostok) set its all-time record high of –11.5°C (11.3°F) on March 17. Data has been collected year round at this site only since 2005, a period too brief for an all-time record to carry too much weight. However, the reading was a mind-blowing 67°F above the daily average high of around –49°C (–56°F). ...

Meanwhile, the sea ice that expands and contracts around the continent each year reached its lowest level in 43 years of satellite monitoring on February 25. Unlike the Arctic, the Antarctic had had no sustained decrease in sea ice extent for decades, actually setting consecutive record highs in 2012, 2013, and 2014. A profound shift then followed, with 2017, 2018, and 2019 placing first, second, and third in sea ice extent minima until this year beat out 2017. ...

Western Antarctica, and especially the peninsula extending north toward South America, have warmed dramatically since the mid-20th century, outpacing the rate of worldwide warming. ....

There’s no obvious reason, other than the backdrop of general global warming, why the Arctic and Antarctic would happen to set such eye-popping warmth records within days of each other. The hemispheric climate regimes of north and south are largely distinct.​

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2022/03/how-this-month-produced-a-min...

The F-list is a new list of awards for companies involved in greenwashing for the fossil fuel companies. 

The brainchild of Clean Creatives, a group working to expose how PR companies are contributing to the climate crisis, the awards recognize the “most egregious campaigns on behalf of fossil fuel companies.” In a virtual ceremony last week, hosted by the comedian and YouTube star Rollie Williams, seasoned climate activists such as Bill McKibben and Lennox Yearwood Jr. announced the winners of categories such as “Lifetime Achievement in Shortening Lifetimes” and “Most Impressive Cognitive Dissonance.”  ...

Over the last few years, climate advocates have begun to call more attention to a kind of deceptive marketing, called “greenwashing,” that suggests companies are more environmentally responsible than they are, and have filed lawsuits against oil companies for misleading advertising. Activists have called for a ban on fossil fuel advertising, akin to the 1971 ban on tobacco ads. Dozens of ad agencies have signed the pledge from Clean Creatives to decline contracts with fossil fuel companies. If the trend continues, the thinking goes, oil and gas companies could become so stigmatized that no advertiser would take on their work.

The first sardonic honour at the F-List Awards, “Environmental Impact of the Year,” went to Hill+Knowlton Strategies for its work with the Oil & Gas Climate Initiative, a group of 12 oil company CEOs including Bernard Looney of BP and Amin Nasser of Saudi Aramco. Then, the agency BBDO was recognized for “Excellence in Science Fiction” for its ads about ExxonMobil’s algae biofuel initiative, which portray the company as a clean energy pioneer. (For the record, Exxon has spent at least $200 million more on corporate advertising than its algae project since 2009.) None of the firms, of course, were present to receive accolades.

Next, McKibben (who is a member of Grist’s board) opened his “virtual envelope” to present the “Most Impressive Cognitive Dissonance.” It went to Iris Worldwide, an agency that has advertised for both the oil company Shell and COP26, last year’s international climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. ...

For years, agencies have been rewarded for helping oil and gas companies improve their image. In 2007, a few years before BP’s offshore oil rig exploded, spilling more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the firm Ogilvy & Mather won an Effie advertising award for “sustained success” in its long-running campaign to rebrand the company formerly known as British Petroleum as “Beyond Petroleum.” 

In more recent years, trade associations haven’t been handing out as many prizes to oil and gas campaigns, said Duncan Meisel, the campaign director for Clean Creatives. But, simply because of the sheer number of award shows out there, there are still some campaigns getting recognition at the Reggie Awards or Stevie Awards, for instance. ...

In 2020, the lower-case advertising agency mcgarrybowen and media agency Wavemaker were finalists at the Effies for their commercials for Chevron. As the summary for the award explains, “The energy industry was losing trust, leading to increased scrutiny… To reclaim progress, we celebrated the DOERS who make things happen and how the energy Chevron provides helps them get things done.”

Melissa Aronczyk, a media studies professor at Rutgers who recently co-wrote a book on public relations and environmentalism, said that awards ceremonies are so prevalent in the advertising world because they do double duty, putting the spotlight on agencies’ work and giving more publicity to their clients at the same time. “I see awards programs as one tactic companies use to appear socially responsible,” Aroncyzk said. ...

Last month, two House Democrats sent a letter to six groups that give out PR awards, asking for details on their work recognizing firms for their campaigns on behalf of oil, gas and coal companies. Representatives Katie Porter of California and Raúl M. Grijalva of Arizona wrote that they were trying to understand how the industry and PR firms were attempting “to influence public opinion and policymaking in ways that prevent the United States from addressing the climate crisis.”

This concern was echoed at the F-List Awards by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island. “It’s time for accountability,” Whitehouse said. “Public relations firms that partner with fossil fuel companies are neither socially responsible nor climate-conscious. Instead, they’re holding back progress at a critical moment for our country.”

In the remainder of the hour-long ceremony, Yearwood announced that the T Brand Studio, a custom content studio for the New York Times, was winning an award for having itsads for Exxon featured at a congressional hearing on climate misinformation last fall. Another victor was the world’s largest PR firm, Edelman, recipient of the “Lifetime Achievement in Shortening Lifetimes.”

A running theme of the ceremony was that a mark of “good” advertising is not simply running an effective campaign, but also a morally responsible one. McKibben observed that people are starting to “feel a little bit of the shame they should feel” for advertising for fossil fuel companies. 

“If you’re in this industry, you completely depend on the constant influx of smart young people coming to help you,” he said.

“And you know what? Smart young people are looking around and saying, ‘You know, spending my life playing pretend on behalf of big oil companies is really not what I had in mind.’”

https://grist.org/culture/greenwashing-for-oil-companies-awards-clean-cr...

 

Canada is the only G7 country still emitting greenhouse gas emissions way above its 1990s levels and after doubling gas and oil production in the last decade, the tenth climate plan, the previous nine over the last 30 years having totally failed, released today by the Trudeau Liberals proposes to further increase oil production by 650,000 barrels per day over the current 5.5 million barrels per day. Another sign that nothing has changed except we have a new plan whose goals are as likely to succeed as the last nine plans. Five provinces are responsible for 90% of Canada's emissions. Of those five, only two have decreased emissions, and then only slightly, since 1990: Ontario (-9% - because of the phase out of coal, otherwise it would still be +5%) and Quebec (-3%). The other three have had substantial increases: Saskatchewan (+73%), Alberta (+61%), and BC (+27%), making Canada overall 21% above 1990 emissions. 

Humanity is hurtling towards a full-blown climate crisis. To avoid this dystopian future, climate pollution must rapidly plunge to zero.

Canada and its peer nations in the Group of Seven (G7) — the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Japan, plus the European Union — are some of the world's largest emitters. Combined, these nations emit one-third of global climate pollution. And in each nation, emissions per person are above the global average.

These are also the world's largest advanced economies, controlling half the world's wealth and producing half the world's GDP. In short, if the world is going to prevent a climate tragedy, these nations with the most resources, talent, technology and capacity will need to lead the way. So how much climate progress have Canada and its G7 peers made so far? Let's take a look.

My chart below shows what each nation has done with their climate pollution since 1990. That's the international baseline for measuring climate progress. The chart ends with 2019 because that is the most recent year for which emissions data is available. As you can see, Canada has been the rogue climate polluter in the group.

Canada first promised to cut our oversized climate pollution in 1988. More than 30 years later, we're the only G7 nation that is still emitting far above our 1990 levels.

Even more troubling has been our failure to act during the last decade. Since 2010, as the climate crisis has started to hit with increasing fury, every other G7 nation has made significant cuts in its emissions — except Canada. Ours went up instead.

Some G7 peers have been making deep and sustained cuts to their emissions for decades now. For example, the European Union as a whole has cut its emissions by 28 per cent since 1990. Germany cut its emissions by 35 per cent. And our Commonwealth peer, the U.K., cut its emissions by 43 per cent. ...

If the British can do it, surely Canadians can, too. The difference so far has been that the British passed laws that required their emissions to go down. We haven't. In particular, they passed their innovative Carbon Budget law — way back in 2008 — that required legally binding targets covering all emissions in every year. We could have adopted a version of this proven policy package at any point. ...

British Columbia's emissions are 27 per cent higher than in 1990. The fact that B.C. has allowed its emissions to surge so high surprises many people I talk to. That's because B.C. was seen as a climate policy leader way back in 2008 when it introduced Canada's first economy-wide "carbon tax."

As you may remember, that was the same year the U.K. introduced its Carbon Budget law. But unlike the British, who followed through, British Columbians quickly slammed the brakes on their climate policy and have allowed their emissions to keep rising instead.

Alberta emits 61 per cent more than in 1990. Its climate polluting has been turbocharged by skyrocketing extraction of fossil fuels — combined with its aggressive hostility towards effective climate policy.

Saskatchewan emits 73 per cent more than in 1990. Like Alberta, this province has been cranking up the climate burner like there is no tomorrow.

In contrast, Canada's two most populous provinces have reduced their annual emissions since 1990.

Quebec's record, though, is a mixed bag. A few years ago, its emissions had fallen to nine per cent below 1990. But rising emissions since have wiped out two-thirds of that progress. Three steps forward, two steps back.

Ontario reduced emissions to nine per cent below 1990. The big caveat here is that all of this — and more — can be attributed to a single policy enacted in 2007: Cessation of Coal Use Regulation. The provincial government calls this the "single largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction action on the continent." This one policy eliminated 27 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year. That's substantially more than the province's overall reduction since 1990 of 17 million tonnes of CO2 per year. Without the coal phaseout, Ontario's emissions would be five per cent higher than 1990, instead of nine per cent lower. Now that all its coal-fired power has been shut down, the province will need to introduce strong policies for the other sectors.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/03/23/analysis/wrong-way-canada-em...

ETA:

Here's more analysis on Trudeau's latest climate change plan, the tenth in the last thirty years with the same chance of success as the last nine. It provides even subidies to the fossil fuel industry, plans on increasing production by 650,000 barrels per day over the current 5.5 billion barrels per day (which is double that of a decade ago), provides $9.1 billion for change to a green energy program over eight years when the Royal Bank of Canada says $60 billion is needed per year from government and private sources, and proposes to reduce emissions by relying heavily carbon capture and storage through subsidies provided by government tax credits, a technology that has not proven successful, when "The world’s largest carbon capture and storage system dedicated to emissions reduction at Chevron’s Gorgon LNG plant off the West Australian coast has failed to bury 9.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in its first five years of operation." (https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/chevron-s-five-years-o...)

Trudeau blamed Canada's failure to meet emissions reduction targets on the Conservative and Trump governments, even though emissions rose under his government between 2015 and 2019, with Covid being the main driver in reduced emissions in 2020-21, just like the rest of the world.  

Where are we really at:

Quote:

Canadian "Environment Commissioner Jerry DeMarco said in November that Canada was ranked the “worst performer” among the G7 industrialised nations in cutting emissions. While Canada represents about 1.6 percent of global CO2 emissions, it is among the top 10 largest emitters globally and one of the highest emitters per capita. ...
On Tuesday, environmentalists welcomed Ottawa’s plan, but said they would be watching its implementation closely. ...“Given three decades of successful oil industry lobbying against implementation of past climate plans, it is vital that people hold all politicians’ feet to the fire to make sure they force industry to do its fair share. We need real action this time.”

(https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/29/canada-unveils-multi-billion-do...)

Quote:

A Suncor Energy upgrader plant in Athabasca oil sands, near Fort McMurray, Alberta.Photographer: Ben Nelms/Bloomberg

The government plan acknowledges that oil and gas demand will continue for decades, Terry Abel, executive vice president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said in an emailed statement. ...

Climate activists, meanwhile, complained that Trudeau didn’t go far enough. “Avoiding catastrophic climate change requires winding down production of oil and gas over the next decade,” Keith Brooks, program director at Environmental Defence, said in a statement.

And in parliament, New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh -- who agreed last week to keep the Liberals in power for three years in exchange for more social spending -- lamented that the plan had little say on ending fossil-fuel subsidies and helping workers transition to greener jobs.

Meeting Canada’s targets won’t be cheap. The total spending -- from both governments and businesses -- needed over the next three decades to get to net zero is C$2 trillion, according to a Royal Bank of Canada report last fall, which it said translates to at least C$60 billion a year in spending given current technologies. ...

Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 were 730 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent. Oil and gas extraction represents about 26% of those emissions, and the government will be heavily relying on the carbon capture tax credit and the emissions cap to ensure the sector reaches its goals. ...

Increased oil production in Canada is still possible under the plan, according to a government official who briefed reporters on condition they not be named. The official said the measures will significantly improve emissions intensity in the sector, potentially allowing for more production if the market demands it.

Trudeau’s government will soon be deciding on at least one large oil project, the Bay du Nord offshore development near Newfoundland. Guilbeault has until April 13 to decide if the project has significant adverse environmental effects, though that deadline has already been extended twice. ...

Canada is the only country in the Group of Seven to see its harmful emissions actually rise between 2015 and 2019. Trudeau has blamed his country’s record on emissions to date on the previous Conservative government, which in 2011 withdrew from the Kyoto protocol, a precursor to the 2015 Paris agreement. The prime minister also has said four years of climate skepticism in the U.S. under Donald Trump also effectively held Canada back.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-29/trudeau-climate-plan-...

In another sign of the world being in deep trouble from global warming, another mass bleaching event is occuring along the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, putting millions of species at risk. "Last year, UN science advisors recommended the committee place the reef on a list of world heritage sites “in danger” because of the impacts of bleaching and a lack of progress in improving pollution levels. But fierce lobbying by the Australian government saw the 21-country committee ignore the recommendation."

Quote:

Above average sea surface temperatures in parts of the Great Barrier Reef mean there is a risk of coral bleaching from the Whitsundays to the northern tip of the reef. Photograph: Jumbo Aerial Photography/AP

One of the world’s leading coral scientists claims a sixth mass bleaching event is unfolding across the Great Barrier Reef, with official monitoring flights now under way all along the Queensland coastline.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) has confirmed monitoring flights are being conducted “along the length and breadth” of the 2,300km world heritage reef.

Prof Terry Hughes, a leading expert on coral bleaching at James Cook University, said he had received a “flood of reports from the field” of bleached corals in the last two weeks.

Rising ocean temperatures driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases have caused five mass bleaching events along the reef in 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017 and 2020.

Hughes told the Guardian he believes a sixth mass bleaching event is now unfolding, and that it was not mild or local.

The amount of heat stress over the reef tends to peak in early to mid-March each year but scientists began to worry as early as December after water temperatures rose to record levels for that month. ...

The Australian Institute of Marine Science has previously said a recovery in coral cover over the reef since the last bleaching event in 2020 has been driven by fast-growing acropora corals that were also susceptible to bleaching. Hughes said northern parts of the reef were “halfway to recovery” but a lot of “vulnerable corals” were now bleaching. Corals can recover from mild bleaching, but if heat stress is too severe the coral can die.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/17/great-barrier-reef-h...

epaulo13 wrote:

..we saw a bit of the above with the recent convoys. 

More than a bit.

Canadian Dimension has an excellent review of the Trudeau Liberal's climate change plan and its many problems in trying to meet its 2030 targets in the tenth climate change plan in the last thirty years, all previous ones having been total failures. I also discussed the plan's failures in posts # 37-39.

Carbon capture, utilization and storage features heavily in the Trudeau government’s new climate plan, but critics question whether it represents another gift to to the oil and gas industry. Photo by Claudia Otte/Fotolia.

On March 29, the Government of Canada released its new emissions reduction plan. ...

The report outlines how Canada will, “reduce emissions across the entire economy to reach our emissions reduction target of 40 to 45 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 and put us on a path to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.” While this aspirational goal is commendable, it is divorced from the reality that, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada, we have not yet even begun to lower our total national emissions. As stated in a report published in 2021, “Canada’s total GHG emissions in 2019 were 730 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO2 eq), a slight increase from 728 Mt CO2 eq in 2018.”

Our emissions may even be higher than estimated, as new research shows that fugitive emissionsfrom sources like natural gas may be orders of magnitude larger than currently accounted for. Similarly, the Climate Action Tracker (an independent scientific collaboration between Climate Analytics and the NewClimate Institute) states that, “We rate Canada’s policies and action as ‘Highly Insufficient’ when compared to modelled domestic pathways.” ...

The 2030 plan begins with a focus on homes and buildings, which together represent approximately 13 percent of Canada’s total emissions. However, updating model codes for buildings and supporting large-scale and expensive home retrofits in an already problematic era of skyrocketing property values will require vast amounts of resources in a world already strained by supply chain disruptions and intensifying geo-political instability.

A key cornerstone of the plan is related to the oil and gas sector and the spectrum of technologies known as carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), with a complementary investment tax credit to incentivize their development and adoption. While CCUS has the potential to decrease or mitigate the carbon emissions from a variety of industrial processes from concrete production to oil extraction, experts are dubious about its potential to significantly lower Canada’s overall carbon footprint. Prior to the release of the Trudeau government’s 2030 plan, over 400 Canadian climate scientists and other academics (myself included) signed a letter calling on the federal government to reject the introduction of tax credits for CCUS technologies on the grounds that, “Despite decades of research, CCUS is neither economically sound nor proven at scale, with a terrible track record and limited potential to deliver significant, cost-effective emissions reductions.” Several independent reports have found that existing CCUS innovations have failed to meet their targets according to numerous metrics, and none are on track to be met. ...

Regrettably, the Trudeau government has chosen to implement new subsidies to attempt to force the technology into wider adoption under the guise that “climate action must go hand in hand with keeping life affordable for Canadians and creating good jobs.” However, the question must be asked: who is paying for these subsidies? No new taxes on the oil and gas sector are identified as part of Canada’s new climate action plan. Instead the report implores the fossil fuel sector to do its part: “Canada’s oil and gas industry is currently generating record cash flow. If deployed strategically, these funds could enhance carbon competitiveness and enable the sector to do its fair share in contributing to the country’s climate goals.” ...

Despite decades of boldfaced lies by oil and gas companies about their contributions to tackling global warming, the ‘polluter pays’ principle has yet to be forced upon the extractive sector—the same firms that have for decades reaped record profits despite abandoning their messes both in the form of orphaned wells and climate harms. ...

Nor is there any explanation of where funding for the billions of dollars for other programs will come from. At a time when the Liberal government is emerging from under a burden of historic stimulus spending in the wake of the COVID crisis, announcing negotiations to buy a fleet of F-35 fighter jets, and entering into a cooperation agreement with the NDP that will see the introduction of dental and pharmacare, one might question the scope of the government’s fiscal flexibility. ...

If the government is going to commit over $9 billion towards climate action, it needs to be targeted at programs that will quickly and effectively reduce emissions. Unfortunately, this means that our grandiose strategy of planting billions of trees is probably all for naught, as is hoping the oil and gas sector will do its part voluntarily. ...

As one of the world’s worst climate offenders, we have a responsibility to act, and earn a reputation for leadership which others may follow. Until real action is taken, any plan will be nothing more than thoughts and prayers.

https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/trudeaus-2030-climate-plan-l...

The war in Ukraine has led to the banning of Russian scientists from conferences which has had a negative impact on climate change science, especially in the Arctic, because of a lack of collaboration, including the followup on a new discovery of algal bloom in the waters between Russia and Alaska that could harm ocean and human life, as well as the effects on salmon habitat of Arctic global warming in the Alaskan, Russian and Canadian Arctic.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had far-reaching consequences. Beyond the toll on Ukrainians and their lands, the invasion has triggered a political backlash that is disrupting the international scientific collaborations that provide vital information for Arctic peoples and the world at large. Photo by Newspixs/Alamy Stock Photo

Far from the front lines, Russia’s aggression is taking another kind of toll—it’s causing decades of scientific collaboration to unravel, even in the farthest reaches of the Arctic Ocean.

The world is heating up fast. The pace of climate change demands broad scientific study in Arctic regions, where disappearing sea ice, melting glaciers, and other developments carry global consequences.

But the war in Ukraine has brought disarray and uncertainty to a scientific community in which international collaboration is vital, says Maribeth Murray, executive director of the Arctic Institute of North America at the University of Calgary in Alberta. Russia, which controls 50 percent of the world’s Arctic coastline, is a key partner in Arctic science. “I can’t name a field where they’re not involved,” says Murray.

Murray has felt the war’s impact on Arctic research through her coordinating role for the Arctic Observing Summit, a biennial meeting happening this week in Tromsø, Norway. The meeting brings together international scientists to share findings, exchange ideas, and guide the ongoing development of a long-term pan-Arctic observing network. The network is aimed at understanding systemic changes across the Arctic and informing the adaptation and mitigation measures needed to address climate change.

But this year’s summit—and the broader Arctic Science Summit Week it is part of—is now closed to scientists from Russian institutions and organizations. The International Arctic Science Committee, which hosts the events, released a statement affirming its commitment to “peaceful scientific cooperation between nations,” but declaring it “cannot proceed as normal” because of the war. ...

In many cases, the severing of ties is impacting research into how climate change affects food resources crucial to Arctic peoples.

Don Anderson, a biologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, leads one such study. Last year, Anderson and his colleagues found evidence of massive and recurrent harmful algal blooms in the Chukchi Sea between Alaska and Russia. The potential for these blooms is a new development in Arctic waters that could harm marine mammals and the people who rely on them.

“What we’re finding is alarming,” says Anderson. He stresses the need for more research, including on the Russian side of the Chukchi Sea, which he has been unable to study. Anderson, whose team has found abundant evidence of algal blooms right up to the Russian border, believes the risk exists in Russia’s warming waters, too, and that algae there could drift into US waters.

In the Gulf of Alaska, international research led by Russian, Canadian, and American teams to study critical salmon habitat as part of the International Year of the Salmon (IYS)* has also been disrupted.

Evan Bloom, a lawyer and diplomat with the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute, a Washington, DC–based institution, which, among other things, informs governments on polar science needs, says collaborative projects investigating microplastic pollution, the effects of heavy fuels from rising Arctic shipping, and other pressing research are also being impacted.

https://hakaimagazine.com/news/with-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-arctic-s...