South Coast Today - climate change

Good news on Canada's climate change front

Timothy Gillespie — Thu, 05 May 2016 11:42:32 +0000

While Canada’s climate target is achievable, the PBO report reminds us that existing policies won’t be enough. “Deeper reductions will be needed,” it says.

In the midst of charges and counter charges by Green Party leader Elizabeth May and prime minister Justin Trudeau regarding the role of climate change in the disastrous Fort MacMurray fire, there is a relatively good news message in the report of the Parliamentary Budget Officer on climate change: there’s not a huge cost to the economy in meeting Canada’s climate change targets, and much of the needed slashing at greenhouse gas emissions can be achieved with existing technology or technology currently under development, and at a price of less than $100 a tonne for carbon.

The report made some headlines because it noted that the 30 per cent target meant removing more than the equivalent of all emissions from today’s cars and trucks, including off-road vehicles. What’s more interesting is that by 2025, the average fuel efficiency of vehicles has to be double what it is today, so that we will drive much further on a litre of gasoline or on the battery charge in our electric vehicle (and there will be many more of those).

SEE FULL STORY IN THE HILL TIMES

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Climate calamity coming to Gulf of Maine?

Timothy Gillespie — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 12:57:31 +0000

Perfect storm of ocean acidification...

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Ottawa to mandate climate tests for proposed pipelines

Timothy Gillespie — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 20:30:03 +0000

Cost of Energy East pipeline project now estimated at $15.7-billion

The federal government plans to require a separate climate test for proposed pipelines and a planned LNG export terminal, which are now under regulatory review, to determine their impact on Canada’s greenhouse-gas emissions, a move that could impose new delays on billion-dollar projects.

The climate analyses are part of proposed measures – which include additional First Nations consultations – that Ottawa will impose on Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain expansion and TransCanada Corp.’s Energy East, both currently before the National Energy Board, a government source confirmed Monday. The measures will also apply to Pacific NorthWest’s planned LNG export terminal, currently in front of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency.

SEE FULL STORY IN GLOBE & MAIL

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NATIONAL ENERGY BOARD

Nova Scotia ranks 7th in climate change action

SCT and news sources — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 13:20:18 +0000

With all eyes on Paris during COP21 in Paris, political web site Rabble.ca thought it time to take a closer look at where Canadian provinces stand on carbon credits and climate change.

With a B-, Nova Scotia ranks 7th out of 10.

Highlighting the accomplishments and areas for improvement, the report card outlines some of the significant moments in each province's climate action throughout 2015.

What Nova Scotia is doing well, according to Rabble.ca:

The Nova Scotia government says that, since 1990, the province has reduced emissions by nine per cent and is on track to meet its target of at least 10 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. In addition, less than a decade ago, the province relied on fossil fuels to produce 85 per cent of its electricity. Now, 24 per cent of its electricity is from renewable resources.

Where Nova Scotia could improve:

Environmentalists say that, although Nova Scotia is at the frontlines of coastal climate change, the province still lacks a unified strategy in protecting its coast. Furthermore, the province still produces a significant portion of their electricity from coal.

Rabble.ca grade for 2015: B-

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Open letter: Time to step up on climate change

Timothy Gillespie — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 13:48:37 +0000

Kiki Wood and Katie Perfitt are part of the Canadian Youth Delegation to the UN Climate Conference in Paris, and local organizers of Climate Welcome which will consist of gentle acts of civil disobedience to hold the government to task on climate change starting November 5.

Open letter to newly-elected Liberal MP from Halifax, Andy Fillmore

Dear Andy,

While the dust settles after the longest election in recent Canadian history, there’s been a palpable collective sigh of relief. We’ve finally kicked Harper to the curb. Under Harper’s “leadership,” we had a government that thwarted climate action, science-based decision-making and reconciliation with the people who are indigenous to this land.

The Liberals won because Canadians want significant change and trust that you will make policy decisions based on science and fact, as opposed to ideology. Yet, the Liberal climate policy (or lack thereof) is missing prescribed scientific solutions.

It’s great that Trudeau invited opposition leaders and premiers to attend the Paris climate talks this month as part of his posse, but let’s not forget that these gestures were standard practice until Mr. Harper rolled in.

Here in Halifax, Andy, we prescribe to the “lead or follow” rule for politicians: be a leader, or follow your constituents when they take the lead for you. Your predecessors—Alexa and Megan—demonstrated leadership on important issues and we expect the same of you.

Consider this your chance to distinguish yourself as an MP who understands what climate change will mean for his own community, and who will champion policy change with the urgency the climate crisis necessitates.

As your new constituents, we find ourselves wondering how you will live up to the high expectations this community has. How will you represent us? Where will you stand when it comes to the most important questions of our generation. We’ve made a list of things that need to happen for this country to tackle the climate crisis. As a starting point, we expect you to champion the following changes in parliament:

i. Implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples;
ii. A federal climate action plan that includes greenhouse gas emission reduction targets;
iii. A legally binding agreement in Paris in line with science that keeps us below two degrees of warming;
iv. An immediate end to fossil fuel subsidies;
v. A commitment to heavy investments in sustainable, long-term renewable energy solutions;
vi. A moratorium on all tar sands expansion;
vii. No new tar sands infrastructure
projects, including the Energy East pipeline; viii. A moratorium on offshore drilling in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence;
ix. Revocation of the TPP and an to end back-door destructive free trade deals;
x. A decarbonized energy economy by 2050.

We are writing today to tell you that, as people from all parts of this country host a Climate Welcome in Ottawa to demand climate leadership from Justin Trudeau, here in Halifax we plan to do the same.

We are not interested in the symbolic gestures on climate change that your party has offered thus far. Andy, we will be taking you and your party to task on climate change. We’ll accept nothing less than real climate action now and we will be here to respond.

With cautious optimism, Kiki Wood, national director of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition and Katie Perfitt, member of the Canadian Youth Delegation to COP21 in Paris

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Obama says "no" to Harper's dirty oil

Timothy Gillespie — Sat, 07 Nov 2015 11:34:01 +0000

President Obama announced on Friday that he had rejected the request from a Canadian company to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline, ending a seven-year review that had become a symbol of the debate over his climate policies.

Mr. Obama’s denial of the proposed 1,179-mile pipeline, which would have carried 800,000 barrels a day of carbon-heavy petroleum from the Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast, comes as he seeks to build an ambitious legacy on climate change.

“America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change,” Mr. Obama said in remarks from the White House. “And, frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership.”

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What Exxon knew about the Earth's melting arctic

Timothy Gillespie — Thu, 29 Oct 2015 14:19:31 +0000

Back in 1990, as the debate over climate change was heating up, a dissident shareholder petitioned the board of Exxon, one of the world’s largest oil companies, imploring it to develop a plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from its production plants and facilities.

The board’s response: Exxon had studied the science of global warming and concluded it was too murky to warrant action. The company’s “examination of the issue supports the conclusions that the facts today and the projection of future effects are very unclear.”

Yet in the far northern regions of Canada’s Arctic frontier, researchers and engineers at Exxon and Imperial Oil were quietly incorporating climate change projections into the company’s planning and closely studying how to adapt the company’s Arctic operations to a warming planet.

SEE FULL LA TIMES STORY

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Norway swears off dirty coal

Timothy Gillespie — Sat, 06 Jun 2015 15:17:00 +0000

"Coal is dirty business and Nova Scotia's electricity is destroying the South American environment."

Norway’s $890 billion government pension fund, considered the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, will sell off many of its investments related to coal, making it the biggest institution yet to join a growing international movement to abandon at least some fossil fuel stocks.

Norway's Parliament voted Friday to order the fund to shift its holdings out of billions of dollars of stock in companies whose businesses rely at least 30 percent on coal. A committee vote last week made Friday’s decision all but a formality; it will take effect next year.

Nova Scotia is one of Canada's worst coal-fired polluters, with more electricity produced from coal than all other sources combined. In a Chris Benjamin story in The Coast, he describes Nova Scotia's use of "blood coal" and says "Coal is dirty business and Nova Scotia's electricity is destroying the South American environment."

In a report, "Electricity from coal: time to turn the page on Canada’s dirtiest source of power", the Pembina Institute describes the extent to which Nova Scotia depends on dirty coal for its electicity.

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Climate change affecting lobster catches in Nova Scotia & Maine?

Timothy Gillespie — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 11:05:44 +0000

Warming waters from climate change off the Atlantic coast are driving lobsters further north than ever before, disrupting fisheries and - for some - perhaps changing a way of life forever, according to a story in the Observer.

While the southern New England lobster fishery has all but collapsed, fishers in Maine, Nova Scotia and even further north are benefiting from the crustaceans’ movement.

“I’ve seen enough of the charts to say the water’s warming, and if that’s climate change, it’s happening. It is happening,” says Beth Casoni, executive director of the Lobstermen’s Association of Massachusetts.

Casoni estimates some 30 fishers still trap lobster in southern New England, down from hundreds previously. The impacted areas include Southern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York.

At the same time the lobster fishing in Maine and north has exploded. Maine is seeing historically high landings now, roughly five times higher than it was back in the 1980s and ‘90s.

It’s a similar story in P.E.I., where lobster landings have gone from a low of 17.6 million pounds in 1997 to a high of 29.7 million pounds in 2014.

Off of Nova Scotia, fishers are calling the 2015-2016 season one of the best in the last decade and estimate the lobster catch at 75 million pounds.

There have even been reports of fishers trying to secure lobster fishing licences in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence off of Quebec and Labrador - a cold-water region which previously hasn’t supported a lobster fishery.

Fisheries scientist Richard Wahle attributes the collapse of the southern New England lobster fishery to climate change and points to previous mass die-offs in Long Island Sound as a result of extreme warm temperatures.

During 1999 to 2000, the Long Island Sound die-off resulted in a 75 per cent drop in lobster landings.

“It’s important to take it all in,” Wahle says, “because when you look to the southern end of the species’ range, that’s where we see some signs of trouble. Those areas which have historically been at the southern end of the species range have really been seeing a collapse of the fishery.

“There are pretty strong signs they are related to climate warming: ocean warming, the onset of diseases like shell disease.”

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