Tag Archives: environment

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PRESS RELEASE AND LEGAL BACKGROUNDER: FIRST NATIONS STAND TOGETHER AGAINST TRANS MOUNTAIN: FEDERAL COURT OF APPEAL BEGINS NEW ROUND OF HEARINGS IN VANCOUVER

Vancouver (Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Territory) — Representatives of Indigenous communities fighting the Trans Mountain pipeline and tanker project (TMX) in the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) gathered today before hearings begin, in a demonstration of unity and resolve to have the Courts once again quash Canada’s approval of the controversial project.

The FCA will hear from four First Nations who are challenging the June, 2019 Federal Cabinet re-approval of the TMX. The case has the potential to delay pipeline construction by quashing Cabinet’s approval as they did in the August 2018 Tsleil-Waututh vs. Canada decision..

December 16, 2019

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Alaska Natives Demanded Goldman Sachs Not Fund Arctic Drilling—And It Listened

The main argument is that banks are funding the climate crisis every time they loan money to fossil fuel companies. Along with that, they support human rights violations when they give money to companies that take land from indigenous people and engage in violent suppression. In the case of the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota, that meant supporting a brutal police force that met protestors with water hoses and rubber bullets in 2016.

“Drilling in the Arctic Refuge would permanently destroy the primary food source of the Gwich’in people, our culture, and our way of life,” said Bernadette Demientieff, executive director of the Gwich’in Steering Committee, in a Sierra Club statement. “The Trump administration may have made up their minds about selling off this sacred place, but the fight is far from over. We’re glad to see Goldman Sachs recognize that the Arctic Refuge is no place for drilling and we hope that other banks, and the oil companies they fund, will follow their lead.”

December 16, 2019

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House of Commons Motion: Green New Deal for Canada – The Energy Mix

While this sounds good, most of the other countries feel Canada is a laggard when it comes to stepping up to the plate to do our part for global warming.

The first motion filed in the reconstituted House of Commons calls for MPs to endorse a Green New Deal for Canada.

Motion M-1, introduced December 5 by MP Peter Julian (NDP, New Westminster-Burnaby) lays out a 10-year mobilization to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, create millions of secure jobs, invest in sustainable infrastructure and industry, and promote justice and equity for Indigenous peoples and all “front-line and vulnerable communities”.

December 16, 2019

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Melting Permafrost Turns Arctic into Net Source of GHGs – The Energy Mix

In its latest annual Arctic Report Card, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reveals that a long-feared climate “tipping point” may have been breached, such that “the Arctic itself may now be contributing to climate change,” writes Vox. The report warns that “thawing permafrost throughout the Arctic could be releasing an estimated 300 to 600 million tons of net carbon per year to the atmosphere.”

And climate-altering CO2 and methane are “not all that’s lurking in the permafrost,” Vox notes. A video accompanying the news story offers chilling insight into the perils that await, especially for the 35 million people who currently call the Arctic home. Citing an outbreak of anthrax in Siberia in 2016, which infected 90 and killed a 12-year-old boy, the online news outlet points to the possibility that other deadly diseases like Spanish flu, smallpox, and bubonic plague may waken from hibernation as the permafrost melts. (Researchers now believe the source of the Siberian anthrax outbreak was a long-dead reindeer whose frozen carcass thawed and released spores into the open air.)

December 16, 2019

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COP 25 Failure Blamed on Big Emitters – The Energy Mix

In the end, after seasoned negotiators had declared that no agreement on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, dealing with international carbon trading, was better than a bad deal, it was Brazil that held up a final decision, The Guardian recounts. “It insisted that its carbon sinks—mainly forests, including the Amazon—should count towards its emissions-cutting goals, while also selling carbon credits derived from preserving forests to other countries to count towards their emissions targets. Other countries said this was double counting and would undermine the carbon trading system.”

In the end, delegates kicked Article 6 down the road, to be dealt with at next year’s COP. “Thankfully, the weak rules on a market-based mechanism, promoted by Brazil and Australia, that would have undermined efforts to reduce emissions have been shelved, and the fight on that can continue next year at COP 26 in Glasgow,” said veteran civil society negotiator Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa.

December 16, 2019

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Steve MacLellan

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Tag Archives: environment