Stop the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines Project
Wednesday, 11 January 2012
Tuesday, 13 December 2011
Canada pulls out of Kyoto Protocol
CBC News - 2011 Dec 12
Canada pulls out of Kyoto9:35
MPs on Kyoto pullout10:45Canada is formally withdrawing from the Kyoto accord, Environment Minister Peter Kent said Monday.
The decision to do so will save the government an estimated $14 billion in penalties, Kent said. The Conservative government says it has no choice given the economic situation.
Blaming an "incompetent Liberal government" who signed the accord and then took little action to make the necessary greenhouse gas emission cuts, Kent said he was formalizing what the Conservative government has been saying for weeks.
"Kyoto for Canada is in the past. As such, we are invoking our legal right to formally withdraw," Kent said.
The Kyoto Protocol, which expires next year, committed major industrial economies to reducing their annual CO2 emissions to below 1990 levels, while providing financial supports to developing nations to encourage them to follow suit eventually. Canada ratified the accord in 1997 but was not on track to meet its legally binding targets.
The Conservatives have committed to 17 per cent cuts from 2005 levels by 2020, a much lower threshold to meet than cutting below 1990 emissions levels.
"What this is really about is the fact that our government is abdicating its international obligations. It's like we're the kid who's failing the class so we have to drop it before that happens," Leslie said.
The cost to staying in Kyoto is "absolutely" made up, she added.
Kent says Canada produces less than two per cent of global carbon emissions, Kyoto doesn't require major emitters like China and India to cut the amount of greenhouse gases they produce.
Kent says Copenhagen and Cancun agreements, which were negotiated in 2009 and 2010 as the world stared down the end of Kyoto, are the future.
Gary Doer, Canada's ambassador to the U.S., says Canada signed onto the Copenhagen agreement because it had the "on-ramp" for more countries to join in.
"We took measures, often which aren't credited in either of our countries, to start by reducing through energy efficiency the emissions from light vehicles," Doer told Evan Solomon, host of CBC's Power & Politics.
Canada had to notify the United Nations of its intent to withdraw from Kyoto by the end of the year or face additional cuts under the accord based on a five-year audit being conducted at the end of 2012. Canada would have been forced to buy expensive carbon credits to meet those targets.
The Conservative government has opposed any extension of the Kyoto Protocol framework in future agreements, arguing instead for a new international agreement that includes commitments from all major emitters, including those in the developing world.
The 194 nations attending the UN climate change summit in Durban, South Africa, agreed Sunday to start negotiations on a new accord that would put all participating countries under the same binding commitments to control greenhouse gases.
Kent returned to Ottawa from Durban Monday afternoon and made the announcement about two hours after landing.
He said he waited to formally pull out of the Kyoto Protocol because he'd promised a top UN official in Durban not to distract from the talks.
Hamilton 350 Blog
The decision to do so will save the government an estimated $14 billion in penalties, Kent said. The Conservative government says it has no choice given the economic situation.
Blaming an "incompetent Liberal government" who signed the accord and then took little action to make the necessary greenhouse gas emission cuts, Kent said he was formalizing what the Conservative government has been saying for weeks.
"Kyoto for Canada is in the past. As such, we are invoking our legal right to formally withdraw," Kent said.
The Kyoto Protocol, which expires next year, committed major industrial economies to reducing their annual CO2 emissions to below 1990 levels, while providing financial supports to developing nations to encourage them to follow suit eventually. Canada ratified the accord in 1997 but was not on track to meet its legally binding targets.
The Conservatives have committed to 17 per cent cuts from 2005 levels by 2020, a much lower threshold to meet than cutting below 1990 emissions levels.
Canada 'abdicating' responsibilities
NDP Environment critic Megan Leslie says Kent is fear-mongering about the consequences of staying in the Kyoto pact."What this is really about is the fact that our government is abdicating its international obligations. It's like we're the kid who's failing the class so we have to drop it before that happens," Leslie said.
The cost to staying in Kyoto is "absolutely" made up, she added.
Kent says Canada produces less than two per cent of global carbon emissions, Kyoto doesn't require major emitters like China and India to cut the amount of greenhouse gases they produce.
Kent says Copenhagen and Cancun agreements, which were negotiated in 2009 and 2010 as the world stared down the end of Kyoto, are the future.
Gary Doer, Canada's ambassador to the U.S., says Canada signed onto the Copenhagen agreement because it had the "on-ramp" for more countries to join in.
"We took measures, often which aren't credited in either of our countries, to start by reducing through energy efficiency the emissions from light vehicles," Doer told Evan Solomon, host of CBC's Power & Politics.
Canada had to notify the United Nations of its intent to withdraw from Kyoto by the end of the year or face additional cuts under the accord based on a five-year audit being conducted at the end of 2012. Canada would have been forced to buy expensive carbon credits to meet those targets.
The Conservative government has opposed any extension of the Kyoto Protocol framework in future agreements, arguing instead for a new international agreement that includes commitments from all major emitters, including those in the developing world.
The 194 nations attending the UN climate change summit in Durban, South Africa, agreed Sunday to start negotiations on a new accord that would put all participating countries under the same binding commitments to control greenhouse gases.
Kent returned to Ottawa from Durban Monday afternoon and made the announcement about two hours after landing.
He said he waited to formally pull out of the Kyoto Protocol because he'd promised a top UN official in Durban not to distract from the talks.
Hamilton 350 Blog
Monday, 12 December 2011
Courage and Cowardice
Dear Friends,
Last Friday afternoon at the UN Climate Talks, a member of our 350.org team here in Durban walked into the main conference center hallway, and in the tradition of Occupy movements around the world, yelled: "Mic check!"
Much to the surprise of UN security and official negotiators, hundreds of people yelled back: "Mic check!"
Together, we unfurled banners with messages reading "Don't Kill Africa" and "Stand with Island Nations," and began marching towards the main negotiating room.
For the next two hours, the 350.org team and our allies occupied the hallways of the climate talks, using the "human microphone" (the crowd repeating each line a speaker says) to amplify the voices of people from around the world, including an official Egyptian negotiator and the Environment Minister of the Maldives.
Many of you were there, too, in global solidarity. One of the signs we carried read, "703,000 People Stand With You." That's the (astonishing) number of people who signed petitions, including at 350.org, that called on the United States to stop blocking progress.
Check out the courageous movement moments from Durban:
Our collective efforts forced the US to back down from locking in the "worst idea ever": delaying agreement on a new climate treaty until 2020. The roadmap agreed to in Durban calls for a climate agreement to be reached by 2015, with full implementation five years later. It's better than "the worst" possible outcome, but it's still a cowardly, unacceptable delay on global climate action -- and a recipe for climate disasters.
There was some tentative progress on other issues: plans solidified for a “green climate fund” to help developing countries, and a tentative blueprint emerged for a legal climate agreement that would apply to all major emitters of greenhouse gases. And in a surprise to some, the talks didn't collapse completely.
But on the whole, the results from Durban are a grave disappointment.
The United States and its allies were able to throw up enough roadblocks to stop the type of transformative progress we need to really take on the climate crisis. Targets for emissions reductions are still too vague, too weak, or too distant to get carbon dioxide levels down below the safe upper limit of 350.
Here's the tough reality we now need to face together: the international climate negotiations -- or the US Congress, for that matter -- are never going to produce transformative progress until we can break the stranglehold that fossil fuel companies have on our governments around the world.
Here’s what Bill McKibben had to say about the situation:
“We're not going to be overly distracted by the ongoing shell game of endless UN negotiations. We know that the real debate is between the bottom line of the scientists, and the bottom line of the fossil fuel companies -- and we're working hard to tip that debate towards science. Just as we took on the Keystone XL oil pipeline, we're going to take on the subsidies that make the oil companies so rich, and the systemic corruption that makes them so politically powerful.”
If there is one definitive lesson from Durban, it's this: we have a lot of work to do as a movement. In 2012, 350.org will launch hard-hitting campaigns to confront the root causes of the climate crisis, and together we'll build bottom-up climate solutions -- solutions that don't require a global treaty to get the world on the path to climate safety.
We'll be in touch to discuss the details, but you can be sure we're going to need all the help we can get.
More soon,
Jamie Henn for the whole 350.org team
P.S. While we didn't see great ambition from negotiators in Durban, this UN conference saw the most courage we’ve ever seen from youth delegates and civil society. We hope you’ll share the “Courage in South Africa” wrap-up far and wide with a couple of clicks on Twitter and Facebook. Or, just pass along this link: www.350.org/this/is/courage
Hamilton 350 Blog
Last Friday afternoon at the UN Climate Talks, a member of our 350.org team here in Durban walked into the main conference center hallway, and in the tradition of Occupy movements around the world, yelled: "Mic check!"
Much to the surprise of UN security and official negotiators, hundreds of people yelled back: "Mic check!"
Together, we unfurled banners with messages reading "Don't Kill Africa" and "Stand with Island Nations," and began marching towards the main negotiating room.
For the next two hours, the 350.org team and our allies occupied the hallways of the climate talks, using the "human microphone" (the crowd repeating each line a speaker says) to amplify the voices of people from around the world, including an official Egyptian negotiator and the Environment Minister of the Maldives.
Many of you were there, too, in global solidarity. One of the signs we carried read, "703,000 People Stand With You." That's the (astonishing) number of people who signed petitions, including at 350.org, that called on the United States to stop blocking progress.
Check out the courageous movement moments from Durban:
Our collective efforts forced the US to back down from locking in the "worst idea ever": delaying agreement on a new climate treaty until 2020. The roadmap agreed to in Durban calls for a climate agreement to be reached by 2015, with full implementation five years later. It's better than "the worst" possible outcome, but it's still a cowardly, unacceptable delay on global climate action -- and a recipe for climate disasters.
There was some tentative progress on other issues: plans solidified for a “green climate fund” to help developing countries, and a tentative blueprint emerged for a legal climate agreement that would apply to all major emitters of greenhouse gases. And in a surprise to some, the talks didn't collapse completely.
But on the whole, the results from Durban are a grave disappointment.
The United States and its allies were able to throw up enough roadblocks to stop the type of transformative progress we need to really take on the climate crisis. Targets for emissions reductions are still too vague, too weak, or too distant to get carbon dioxide levels down below the safe upper limit of 350.
Here's the tough reality we now need to face together: the international climate negotiations -- or the US Congress, for that matter -- are never going to produce transformative progress until we can break the stranglehold that fossil fuel companies have on our governments around the world.
Here’s what Bill McKibben had to say about the situation:
“We're not going to be overly distracted by the ongoing shell game of endless UN negotiations. We know that the real debate is between the bottom line of the scientists, and the bottom line of the fossil fuel companies -- and we're working hard to tip that debate towards science. Just as we took on the Keystone XL oil pipeline, we're going to take on the subsidies that make the oil companies so rich, and the systemic corruption that makes them so politically powerful.”
If there is one definitive lesson from Durban, it's this: we have a lot of work to do as a movement. In 2012, 350.org will launch hard-hitting campaigns to confront the root causes of the climate crisis, and together we'll build bottom-up climate solutions -- solutions that don't require a global treaty to get the world on the path to climate safety.
We'll be in touch to discuss the details, but you can be sure we're going to need all the help we can get.
More soon,
Jamie Henn for the whole 350.org team
P.S. While we didn't see great ambition from negotiators in Durban, this UN conference saw the most courage we’ve ever seen from youth delegates and civil society. We hope you’ll share the “Courage in South Africa” wrap-up far and wide with a couple of clicks on Twitter and Facebook. Or, just pass along this link: www.350.org/this/is/courage
Hamilton 350 Blog
Thursday, 8 December 2011
Ottawa broke law on Wheat Board
Justice Campbell of the Federal Court is to be commended as a credit to the judiciary in finding the Minister of Agriculture in breach of the law with regard to his arrogant attack on the Canadian Wheat Board.
It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to a government renowned for the psychopathic vengeance it metes out to anyone preventing its destruction of our once decent country.
The good justice said that the Minister's conduct is an affront to the rule of law. This is not at all surprising. After all he is a member of a government that is an affront to human decency.
Hamilton 350 Blog
It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to a government renowned for the psychopathic vengeance it metes out to anyone preventing its destruction of our once decent country.
The good justice said that the Minister's conduct is an affront to the rule of law. This is not at all surprising. After all he is a member of a government that is an affront to human decency.
Hamilton 350 Blog
Wednesday, 7 December 2011
US and Canada delay action on Climate Change
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More information: Bloomberg: U.S. Delay on Climate Pact Spurs Backlash From EU to Barbados Photo credit: Photo by Julian Koschorke for Speak Your Mind
Hamilton 350 Blog
Notable Achievements of our current Canadian government
Here are some of the Harper govt. achievements or currently working on:
Eliminate
Long Gun Registry
Long Form Census
Canadian Wheat Board
Kyoto Protocol
Funding for KAIROS
Canadian Environmental Network
Environmental assessments
Independent observers
Promote
Tar Sands Development
Keystone XL Pipeline
Northern Gateway Pipeline
CETA - Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with EU
Arctic Exploration
Crime Legislation
Canada-US border deal
How much more can we take?
Hamilton 350 Blog
Eliminate
Long Gun Registry
Long Form Census
Canadian Wheat Board
Kyoto Protocol
Funding for KAIROS
Canadian Environmental Network
Environmental assessments
Independent observers
Promote
Tar Sands Development
Keystone XL Pipeline
Northern Gateway Pipeline
CETA - Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with EU
Arctic Exploration
Crime Legislation
Canada-US border deal
How much more can we take?
Hamilton 350 Blog
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