climate change

Saturday August 10, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday August 10, 2019

To reduce global warming, people need to eat less meat: UN report

Global meat consumption must fall to curb global warming, reduce growing strains on land and water and improve food security, health and biodiversity, a United Nations report on the effects of climate change concluded.

Although the report stopped short of explicitly advocating going meat free, it called for big changes to farming and eating habits to limit the impact of population growth and changing consumption patterns on stretched land and water resources.

Plant-based foods and sustainable animal-sourced food could free up several million square kilometres of land by 2050 and cut 0.7-8.0 gigatonnes a year of carbon dioxide equivalent, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said.

“There are certain kinds of diets that have a lower carbon footprint and put less pressure on land,” Jim Skea, professor at London’s Imperial College, said on Thursday.

The IPCC met this week in Geneva, Switzerland to finalize its report which should help to guide governments meeting this year in Chile on ways to implement the 2015 Paris Agreement.

“The IPCC does not recommend people’s diets … Dietary choices are very often shaped or influenced by local production practices and cultural habits,” Skea, who is one of the report’s authors, told reporters in Geneva. (National Post) 

 

Thursday June 20, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday June 20, 2019

Scheer’s climate pledge is nonsense, just like Trudeau’s

Conservative leader Andrew Scheer’s long-awaited climate change plan means the Tories will now join Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals in lying through their teeth leading up to the Oct. 21 election.

May 2, 2019

Scheer’s 60-page plan released Wednesday, which does not include a carbon tax, says the greenhouse gas reduction targets agreed to by Trudeau under the Paris climate accord in 2015, “are Conservative targets and our plan will give Canada the best chance at reaching them.”

Scheer has to say that because Trudeau’s targets used to be Stephen Harper’s targets and Scheer previously said he supports the Paris accord.

But in the real world Scheer’s plan, containing 50 initiatives, has as much chance of hitting the Paris targets as Trudeau’s, meaning somewhere between slim and none and slim just left town.

This as evidenced by the fact Scheer’s plan contains no timeline or deadlines for actually achieving the Paris target of reducing our emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030.

That means Trudeau and Environment Minister Catherine McKenna will spend the election denouncing Scheer for not having a plan to meet the Paris targets.

Of course, they will ignore the fact the federal environment commissioner, nine of 10 provincial auditors general, the United Nations, the federal government’s own studies and the Parliamentary Budget Officer, say the same thing about Trudeau’s plan. (Toronto Sun)

April 11, 2018

Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is an icon of progressive politics who has promised to “put a price on pollution”. Last week, to much applause, he proposed a ban on single-use plastics. On Monday night, his government declared a national “climate emergency.”

He is also now the public face of a Canadian plan to expand a pipeline that would triple the amount of crude oil that moves from the Alberta tar sands to the Pacific Coast for shipment around the world.

Such is his dilemma — and Canada’s.

Trudeau’s Liberal government announced Tuesday it will push ahead with the stalled Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion, $5.5 billion project that has long pitted the country’s energy sector against the concerns of environmental and some indigenous groups.

December 1, 2016

Trudeau, announcing the decision at a news conference in Ottawa, pledged that every dollar earned from the pipeline will be used to fund projects to power Canada’s transition to clean energy.

“We need to create wealth today so we can invest in the future,” he said. “We need resources to invest in Canadians so they can take advantage of the opportunities generated by a rapidly changing economy, here at home and around the world.”

The move will be welcomed by the country’s struggling oil sector and the many Canadians whose fortunes are tied to it. Landlocked Alberta produces four-fifths of Canadian crude but struggles to get it abroad, and so must settle for selling at steep discounts against global benchmarks — hitting the province hard.

But many Canadians have protested the expansion proposal out of concern for oil spills and the continuing promotion of climate-changing fossil fuels. They question whether this is the moment to increase Canadian shipments of oil.

Trudeau has been left to walk a tightrope between the two sides, taking heat from both as he limps toward a federal election this fall. (Washington Post) 

 

Thursday May 2, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday May 2, 2019

Where is your climate change plan? Liberal ministers ask Scheer

The House of Commons resumed sitting on Monday for what’s set to be an intense session before Parliament adjourns for the last time before the federal election will be called, and the governing Liberals came out swinging bright and early against Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer.

April 2, 2019

Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna and Finance Minister Bill Morneau began their day criticizing their main opponent for his lack of a climate plan. Meanwhile, Scheer was elsewhere on the Hill doing the same over the government’s approach to current trade tensions with China.

At issue specifically for the Liberal ministers: Scheer’s lack of a climate change plan, despite his consistent attacks on the government’s imposition of a federal price on carbon — up to $50 per excess tonne by 2022 — in provinces who don’t implement their own. The federal Conservatives say the government’s plan is little more than a “tax grab.”

It was exactly a year ago, on April 29, 2018 during a sit-down interview on CTV’s Question Period, Scheer said that he would be unveiling a climate plan ahead of the 2019 election that will meet the Paris targets without a carbon tax.

September 20, 2016

Asked whether the plan will meet the UN targets for combating climate change, otherwise known as Paris Agreement, Scheer said “of course.”

The Paris agreement sets out an international plan to limit global warming to below two degrees.

“I will unveil a plan that reaches the targets that we have already voted in favour of,” Scheer said at the time.

In June 2017, Scheer and his caucus voted in support of the Canadian government implementing the Paris Agreement, stating it was in the best interest of Canadians and recognizing that climate change is a global issue.

Though, eight months later it was on CTV’s Question Period again where he walked back that promise. He could not commit that his plan would mean the targets, instead he said his plan would have “meaningful reductions.” (Source: CTV News) 

 

Tuesday April 30, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday April 30, 2019

Doug Ford links Ontario floods to climate change: ‘Just rips your heart out’

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he believes climate change is among the reasons eastern Ontario homeowners are trying to save their homes from flooding for the second time in three years.

February 28, 2019

Ford was in the rural west end of Ottawa Friday morning, touring flooded areas along the Ottawa River, where officials are warning a new rain storm will make water levels rise rapidly over the next few days, likely exceeding the levels seen during a 2017 flood.

Ford says when you see the affected people face-to-face it “just rips your heart out.”

“These folks can’t go through this every single year,” he said.

He said local officials desperately need volunteers to help fill and distribute sandbags.

The Ottawa River is just one of several water bodies overflowing this week, forcing thousands of Canadians from their homes in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, where the Saint John River is experiencing a major flood for the second year in a row.

December 1, 2018

In Quebec, officials said Thursday 3,148 homes are already underwater and another 2,305 are surrounded by it, with 1,111 people out of their residences. In New Brunswick, 84 roads are closed because of flooding, including a portion of the TransCanada Highway.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson declared a state of emergency because of flooding Thursday, with another 20 mm to 50 mm of rain forecast to fall Friday and Saturday.

Residents in several small communities on the eastern and western edges of Ottawa are sandbagging to keep their homes dry, while paths along the Ottawa River in downtown Ottawa, including behind Parliament Hill, are underwater. About 400 soldiers have been deployed to the Ottawa area to help sandbag and assist with other flood operations. (Source: Hamilton Spectator) 

 

Tuesday April 2, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday April 2, 2019

Canadian provinces vow to resist Trudeau’s landmark carbon tax

Canada on Monday imposed a landmark carbon tax on four provinces which had defied Ottawa’s push to combat climate change, prompting unhappy premiers to say they would challenge the measure.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, citing international commitments to fight global warming, had made clear for two years he would slap the tax on any of the 10 provinces that did not come up with their own plans by April 1.

The measure is opposed by Ontario, the most populous province, where Trudeau’s Liberals need to do well to stand a chance of retaining power in a federal election this October.

Carbon pollution will initially cost C$20 ($15) a tonne, rising by C$10 a year until it reaches C$50 in 2022. It also applies in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick.

July 11, 2018

“As of today, it’s no longer free to pollute anywhere in Canada,” Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said on Twitter.

Official data regularly show Canada has little chance of meeting its climate change goals of reducing emissions by 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.

Canada will heat up twice as fast as the rest the world, with northern regions warming at an even greater pace, a Canadian environment ministry report said on Monday.

Smaller snow packs and a loss of glacier ice could mean water supply shortages in the summer, it added.

Trudeau says extreme weather events like forest fires and floods underline the need to combat global warming.

April 11, 2018

Although Ottawa says the money collected from the next tax will be returned to Canadians in the form of rebates, right-leaning parties portray it as a cash grab.

The Conservatives, who polls show could win the October election as a political scandal dogs Trudeau, promise to scrap the measure.

Ontario premier Doug Ford vowed to oppose what he called “the worst tax ever” in court.

“We’re going to keep fighting this carbon tax with every single tool at our disposal,” he said.

Trudeau’s other efforts to combat climate change are also proving a challenge. (Source: Reuters)