Below2C is pleased to feature Because IPCC and highly recommends it as a tool to educate learners of all ages about the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The material in this post is sourced from the website.
The IPCC Is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Since 1988 they’ve been producing reports that are the consensus of the world’s scientists & experts and the consensus of the world’s governments too. But almost nobody knows that the reason we know what we know about climate change is because of the IPCC.
Why did we make Because IPCC
Published Oct 4, 2020
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Who is Because IPCC For?
People often tell us the book Because IPCC will be great for students in schools. I guess that’s because the story is told using a classroom as the stage. But really we made the book for anyone who believes climate change could be a problem, but needs a little more confidence that the experts really know what they are talking about.
Who did we make Because IPCC for
Published Oct 4, 2020
Standard YouTube license
When you know that there is a real, even an official consensus not only among scientists but also agreed to by virtually every government on earth – including your own – it’s true – check if your government is a member of the IPCC – they are. When you know that, you read the news differently, you hear what your friends say differently, you shop differently, you vote differently. If someone learns even one new fact from Because IPCC – we made it for them.
Because IPCC was conceived and produced by volunteers who paid its initial expenses out of their own pockets. The maintenance of Because IPCC and the management of it as a project continues to be an entirely volunteer effort. Any donations you make go entirely to reaching more readers.
Leading into the update, the Trudeau government downplayed expectations for serious investment in a “greener and more just Canada,” MacDonald writes. But “other countries have delivered budgets and other countries have committed huge stimulus packages to climate goals, recognizing that the pandemic represents a once-in-generation opportunity to embrace the challenges and the opportunities around climate change.”
While “certainly, near-term spending needs to focus on the pandemic,” he added, “governments should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.”
Climate Action Network-Canada said the fiscal update contained “many encouraging signals,” along with “a few areas we will watch with close scrutiny”, in a statement that acknowledged the “exceptionally difficult COVID-19 pandemic year” the country has faced.
“Today’s statement reflects the need to protect people, communities, and workers as we strive to build back better. In doing so, it affirms the calls from hundreds of civil society organizations earlier this year, including Climate Action Network-Canada and many of its members and allies, for governments to support a just recovery for all,” CAN-Rac said in a release. It applauded Freeland for positioning climate action “at the heart of the federal plan to create a million jobs,” adding that “green job creation through post-pandemic recovery goes far beyond specific climate policies.”
Environmental Defence Climate and Energy Program Manager Julia Levin acknowledged the green economy commitments in the update as an “important step in the right direction”, but stressed that “far greater investments are necessary to truly tackle the scale of the climate crisis.” After months of civil society advocacy for a just, green recovery, she said groups are “glad to see important commitments to tackle the social injustices people in Canada endure every day, which are critical to ensuring a healthy and safe society for all.”
Last September it was announced that Freeland, Carney may be Canada’s last, best chance for a green recovery. As appearances go, it was starting to look promising.
So when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau travelled to Houston in March 2017 and declared fealty to a fossil fuel industry already entering its sunset years, he showed it was bound to be a long, hard climb back to more sober-minded policy-making.
“No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there,” Trudeau (video) told participants at the big CERAWeek oil and gas conference. “The resource will be developed. Our job is to ensure this is done responsibly, safely and sustainably.”
The question for Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland as she settles into her new cabinet portfolio is whether that statement still rings true in the context of a global health emergency, an accelerating climate crisis, a mounting wave of fossil fuel divestment and stranded assets, and the meteoric rise of clean energy alternatives.
‘The restart of our economy needs to be green’: Freeland on de-carbonization of Canadian economy pic.twitter.com/9yYk37pi2c
It was believed she would have an understanding of how the poor have had to live in pollution and how these communities have been marginalized with no-one to speak for them. She will be well aware of the health affects oil, gas, and coal have imposed on people and how it has affected the health of the world’s population. She will be more attuned to Trudeau’s vision of creating a greener recovery than Mr. Morneau was. He was more of a capitalist and was more apt to direct funds, unaligned with the prime minister’s vision.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Bill Morneau, former finance minster, was the problem. Then, perhaps Trudeau didn’t have the vision he claimed to have. It’s thought the U.S. election outcome could affect Canada’s environment and energy future. It depends on how well President Biden and Trudeau work together,
With 5,200 direct jobs lost in the fossil sector since March, the government of Newfoundland is beginning to talk, tentatively, about reinventing itself as a green energy leader. Also on the horizon: finding answers to the murky question of who will pay to decommission the fossil infrastructure left behind.
“Just a few years ago, with oil at more than US$100 a barrel, St. John’s was a boom town, with a soaring real estate market, rapidly growing population, and pricey new restaurants fuelled by oil executives and their expense accounts,” writes the Globe and Mail. Today, with the province’s key export hovering in the low $40s, those executives are fuelling nothing but anxious speculation about when, if ever, billion-dollar oil projects will get the green light.
Noting that Husky Energy’s C$2.2-billion West White Rose extension is on hold until “at least 2022,” the Globe adds that “drilling on the iconic Hibernia platform, which launched the province’s oil industry, has been suspended since April as a cost-saving measure.”
And according to a recent report by the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board, that industry regulator “received zero bids for 16 of the 17 offshore parcels available for drilling in 2020—slashing planned exploration spending from oil companies to just $27 million, down from $1.3 billion in 2018.”
The Quebec government may have nabbed some early headlines by tipping the centrepiece of its Green Economy Plan, a 2035 phaseout of internal combustion vehicle sales. But once the full strategy was released Monday, climate analysts and campaigners quickly concluded that it won’t meet the province’s greenhouse gas reduction targets.
Over the course of the five-year plan, most of the C$6.7 billion in the provincial announcement will be devoted to subsidizing electric vehicle purchases, CBC reports. But “climate change experts and environmental activists say that won’t be enough to put the province on track to meet its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 29 million tonnes of CO2 by 2030. They say more money should be invested in public transit and climate change mitigation.”
While the 29-megatonne reduction “remains Quebec’s stated goal, the plan only identifies a series of measures that will result in a reduction of 12.4 million tonnes of CO2 by 2030, according to the government’s own accounting,” the national broadcaster adds in a separate dispatch. “The 17.4-million-tonne difference will be achieved through unspecified technological advancements and a contribution from the federal government, also unspecified.”
“By itself the plan won’t be enough to address the challenges presented by the climate crisis,” Équiterre agreed.
He also promised to eliminate federal subsidies to the oil industry and move to net-zero emissions by 2050. President Donald Trump, sensing a major blunder by his opponent, called on voters in Pennsylvania, Texas, Oklahoma and Ohio to vote against Biden’s energy plans.
The moment was noteworthy because it highlighted the new political importance of climate change and energy policy in U.S. politics. The Democratic candidate, now the president-elect, enthusiastically committed to taking action on climate change and energy transition. What’s equally significant is that Biden’s strong climate change position doesn’t appear to have hurt him in the key swing state of Pennsylvania or in the general election more broadly.
Serious climate plan
Although Biden’s climate plan is not as ambitious as the Green New Deal advocated by the left of the Democratic Party, his plans are serious.
He has called for a “Clean Energy Revolution” that includes mandatory emission cuts from electric utilities and support for electric vehicles. An interesting aspect of his overall plan is a commitment to spend at least 40 per cent of funds in historically disadvantaged areas.
Biden’s energy revolution will be limited by several factors, however.
His efforts will be constrained by the Democrats’ failure so far to win the Senate — two runoff elections in Georgia in early January will determine what party controls the chamber — combined with continued opposition from the fossil fuel industry and communities dependent upon fossil fuels.
Implications for Canada
Nevertheless, Biden can be expected to move ahead in response to climate science and pressure by some of his key constituencies, such as young people and progressives. This has significant implications for Canada and Canadians.
Any Canadians hoping for U.S. government support for the ongoing expansion of Canada’s fossil fuel infrastructure are likely going to be disappointed.
An example of this is the Keystone XL pipeline. Designed to bring Canadian oilsands bitumen to American refineries, its approvals were halted by former president Barack Obama in 2015 and renewed by Trump.
Opponents of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada are seen demonstrating in sub-freezing temperatures on in October 2019 in Billings, Mont. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)
Politically, this is a relatively painless action for Biden to burnish his climate change credentials. Canadian government and industry arguments about the need for more pipelines face an uphill battle.
More competition
A second implication is that Canadian industry can expect to see more competition from U.S. firms climbing on the climate change bandwagon. American companies will ramp up clean energy technologies and products. The question is whether Canadian-based industry will be up to the challenge and receive adequate government support.
There is some indication that even some of the most anti-environmental politicians are slowly starting to recognize the urgency to take climate action. Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford has vigorously campaigned against any form of a carbon tax and rolled back measures supporting renewable energy.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau takes part in a news conference at the Ford Connectivity and Innovation Centre in Ottawa in October 2020, joined virtually from Oakville by Ontario Premier Doug Ford. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
Yet he also recently committed $295 million to the Ford car company for its plans to build electric vehicles in Ontario.
This realization of the significant economic opportunities offered by green technologies opens up the door to a more evidence-based discussion of how public policy can support both a green economy and economic growth.
The transition is coming. The question is whether Canada will turn it into an opportunity to clean our air and environment, or make the transition more difficult by delaying action and spending vast sums to maintain fossil fuel production and employment.
The energy transition is a challenge facing all countries, but it will be particularly difficult for Canada because so much of our economy and large regions of our country are heavily dependent on the exploitation of fossil fuels.
Assistance for affected communities and industries is vital, but at the moment, many politicians are more comfortable denying the necessity and inevitability of the changes that are coming.
Indigenous communities that have been marginalized and harmed by other people’s exploitation of natural resources, as well as racialized and poor communities exposed to dangerous environmental risks, need to be integrated into clean energy spending.
People pause in a forested area along the Brunette River where trees are to be felled as part of Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, during a guided tour in Burnaby, B.C., in August 2020, led by Indigenous leaders and environmental groups. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
The president-elect is committed to moving on the issue of climate change. Important parts of his electoral coalition are also adamant that he oversee a transition to renewable energy. Equally important, his policies reflect the overwhelming scientific evidence that aggressive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is required to avoid serious economic and social consequences.
Can Canada respond similarly?
There is a discussion forum topic with a similar theme that’s titled, “How the U.S. election outcome could affect Canada’s environment and energy future” if anyone wants to discuss this topic.
