There’s No Green in Harperland: The Northern Gateway, the “Radical Groups,” and what it means for the future of Canada’s Environment, Economy and Politics.
By mark winfield | January 21st, 2012 | Blogs, Sustainable Energy
Federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver’s “open letter” on diversifying Canada’s energy markets and reforming the regulatory approval process for energy projects, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s remarks in an interview with The National’s Peter Mansbridge last week regarding the Northern Gateway pipeline project from Alberta’s oil sands to the BC coast have intensified the already growing debates about energy policy, the environment, and the roles and rights of the public and First Nations in decision-making processes.
The attacks on free speech, public participation, and civil society implicit in the Prime Minister and minister’s remarks and the underlying double standard with respect to acceptability of massive expenditures by international corporations in favour of energy development and export projects in Canada but hyperbolic objections to the relatively small amounts of US foundation money supporting some of the participants in the Northern Gateway hearings (to say nothing of the government’s aggressive lobby in the United States in favour of the Keystone pipeline) have been rightly pilloried in the both cyberspace and the mainstream media (For Rick Mercer’s contribution see http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iZf5fC9v2qE).
The Importance of ‘Listening’ in International Climate Change Conferences
By ewa | January 10th, 2012 | Blogs, Students Speak, Turning Up the Heat
This blog is cross-published and also available on the CC-RAI website: http://www.climateconsortium.ca/
As a graduate student from York University, I had the opportunity to attend the United Nations’ Conference of Parties (COP17) in Durban, South Africa this December. The experience helped me understand that climate justice is about knowing when to stop talking and start listening. It is about humility and creating institutional opportunities for the people who are most affected by climate change to voice their concerns.
During a COP17 protest, I sat down under a tree beside a group of rural women from Northern Cape, South Africa. They were tired, hungry, and thirsty from protesting all day, but they were there to fight for agricultural and land reform. I have tried to understand their cause, but I was left confused by their passion and determination for climate justice. My situation was a lot more different than theirs: I live a relatively comfortable life in Canada as a student researching climate change policies.
Hitting Bottom – Canada’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol – Published in the Toronto Star
By mark winfield | December 16th, 2011 | Blogs, Sustainable Energy
This blog was originally published in Professor Mark Winfield’s blog.
Yesterday’s announcement by federal environment minister Peter Kent of Canada’s intention to formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol marks the country’s lowest point in the forty year history of modern global environmental diplomacy. The protocol, which Canada signed in 1997 and ratified in 2002, committed Canada to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 6 per cent relative to their 1990 levels by the 2008-2012 period.
Kent rolled out a familiar chain of justifications for Canada’s action – that Canada’s original targets were unreachable, that it was really the fault of the previous Liberal governments for failing to implement effective emission reduction strategies and that action by Canada was pointless unless the United States and rapidly developing economies like China and India were also subject to binding emission targets.
Letter to the Editor – Globe and Mail – Green Energy Act and Auditor General’s Report
By mark winfield | December 11th, 2011 | Blogs, Sustainable Energy
This blog was originally published in Professor Mark Winfield’s blog.
December 9, 2011
The Editors
The Globe and Mail
444 Front St.
Toronto, Ontario
Re: “Green spendthrifts” (December 9, 2011)
Dear Sir or Madam,
The Ontario Auditor-General’s Report on Ontario’s Green Energy Act seems to me more a more a case of an outright hopping the fence into policy than “mission creep” (Radwanski, December 7). There are longstanding debates about how far auditor-generals should stray into matters of policy, but one thing is certain, that if you are going to go there then you need to do it well.
Unfortunately the Auditor-General’s report fails badly on that front, and in doing so does more to inflame the debate about Ontario’s Green Energy Act than inform it. Indeed, at times the report seems more a recitation of every compliant (however dubious) that has ever been made against the legislation than a meaningful analysis.
REDD at COP17: Where is the critical perspective?
By ewa | December 9th, 2011 | Blogs, Students Speak, Turning Up the Heat
On Wednesday morning, Indigenous Peoples from Bolivia, Mexico, Kenya, US, and Canada voiced their concerns against UN’s climate-change program that is going to convert their forests into carbon credits.
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) in developing countries has received lots of attention at COP17. The REDD initiative was first proposed at COP11 as a program that will transfer money to conserve forests in developing countries and prevent the release of about 20% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are said to be caused by deforestation and forest degradation in the Global South. In official negotiations, REDD has become the win-win program as it would reward ‘forest stewardship’ in developing countries, and it would allow developed countries to bank-in carbon credits. A number of climate finance programs have been established to push forward the development and application of REDD.
