Harper tried to mislead on climate change. Are you as shocked as I am?
When will people realize that Stephen Harper is an enemy of the environment.
And Environment Minister John Baird, who I have known for a few years and who is very close to my in-laws in Ottawa, may believe in the environmental movement personally, but he has chosen to sell out and put his own political ambition ahead of his personal beliefs. There is no way that you can be the Environment Minister within this government and go along with what Harper demands, and still be committed to the environmental movement.
http://www.thestar.com/article/259339
PM’s climate plan `misleading’
Government accused of exaggerating its proposals for cutting emissions in report by advisory panel
September 22, 2007
Peter Gorrie
Environment Reporter
The federal government’s latest climate change plan is badly flawed and won’t help Canada to hit its international climate change targets, its own advisory group says.
All nine programs in the plan, unveiled last month after Parliament passed a law that ordered the government to comply with the Kyoto Protocol, won’t do the job, the National Roundtable on the Environment and Economy said yesterday.
“With respect to the realization of Canada’s Kyoto commitments, we conclude that the plan … will likely not allow Canada to meet those commitments,” the report states.
The highly critical report came just three days before Prime Minister Stephen Harper is to defend his government’s actions on climate change at a major UN meeting in New York.
The report accuses the Conservative government of using “systematic” exaggeration, “double accounting,” “not accurately reflecting” emissions reductions, “important inconsistency” and “overestimated” reductions to produce false conclusions about the effectiveness of its plan.
It concludes that of the nine federal climate-change programs it studied, the government had exaggerated the benefits of three and failed to produce sufficient information to support the other six.
In one example, the report says the government is wrong for claiming greenhouse gas emissions will be cut when companies that exceed pollution limits pay a penalty in a new technology fund. The fund is to invest the money in new, cleaner technologies, and the government assumes every dollar put in will produce a certain amount of reductions.
However, the Conservatives claimed a silver lining.
They noted that the 38-page report also concludes the government plan will, over time, result in significant emissions reductions. The Tories say greenhouse gas emissions will stop increasing by 2010 under their plan and will actually drop 20 per cent by 2020.
“What’s clear through this exercise is our government appears to be on the right track,” said Garry Keller, a spokesperson for Environment Minister John Baird.
What world is this guy living in? It’s truly scary how these guys can spin bad news into outright lies.
The Roundtable was required to issue its report by the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, enacted in June after the opposition parties pushed it through the Commons and Senate.
The Act gave the government 60 days to come up with a plan that would enable Canada to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 6 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012.
Baird responded at the deadline, basically restating an earlier plan the opposition said was inadequate.
The Act then gave the Roundtable 30 days to report on whether Baird’s new plan was satisfactory. That led to yesterday’s conclusion that it does not comply with the Act.
Earlier this week, two environment groups filed a lawsuit in the Federal Court of Canada asking for a ruling to say Baird’s plan doesn’t comply with the law and asking for an order to comply.
Baird noted that the report criticizes the short-term focus on Kyoto in the Act and that it states climate change should be addressed in the medium- and long-term.
The government also noted that the document said the deadlines set by the Act were too short. The Roundtable went out of its way to complain that it did not have enough time to do a thorough study, Baird said. As a result, “they had to make a lot of assumptions.”
Got this a few days ago, it really sums things up nicely
The leaves may be starting to turn, but the bad air season is still with us. Ontario has now had 50 smog days for the year, and we are steadily closing the gap on the horrendous spring, summer and fall of 2005 when the province recorded more than 60 smog days in total. With muggy weather in the forecast for this week, we’ll once again have Ontario’s No. 1 smog recipe in action: dirty coal plants running full out to meet demand for cooling on days with poor air quality.
Are scrubbers the answer? Not really. These expensive end-of-pipe solutions are more like a band aid than a solution — a band aid that could cost up to $1.6 billion to install on Nanticoke alone and would reduce the total emissions of our coal plants by only 14/100ths of 1%. For the same money, we could make tremendous investments in efficiency and conservation, renewable energy and natural gas-fired combined heat and power, all of which will be dramatically cleaner than even scrubbed-up coal. And like many end-of-pipe solutions, scrubbers really just move the problem around. The little mercury they do capture, for example, ends up in ash that Ontario Power Generation sends to cement plants, which put it up the stack again.
And, of course, scrubbers do absolutely nothing about greenhouse gas emissions. And that’s one big hole in a $1.6 billion-dollar band aid solution.
The Province of Ontario has issued a legally-binding regulation which requires the complete phase-out of our dirty coal plants in 2014. Please contact John Tory and ask him if he believes that Ontario should aggressively promote energy conservation, renewable energy and natural gas-fired combined heat and power so that we can phase out coal by 2014 or sooner and keep the lights on. Mr. Tory can be reached at John.Tory@pc.ola.org.
Please pass this message on to your friends.
Thank you.
Jack Gibbons, Chair
Ontario Clean Air Alliance
402-625 Church St, Toronto M4Y 2G1
Phone: 416-926-1907 ext. 240
Fax: 416-926-1601
Email: jack@cleanairalliance.org
Website: www.cleanairalliance.org
Contest: www.PeakBusters.ca
The Ontario Clean Air Alliance is a coalition of health, environmental, and consumer organizations, faith communities, municipalities, utilities, unions, corporations and individuals working for cleaner air through a coal phase-out and the shift to a renewable electricity future. Our partner organizations represent more than six million Ontarians.
To subscribe or unsubscribe to this list please visit www.cleanair.web.ca/getin.
This is not nearly as radical as is sounds…
UK urged to ban petrol cars by 2040
Britain’s third largest political party backed a series of radical proposals Monday to tackle climate change, including a ban on petrol powered cars by 2040.
Setting out plans to make Britain carbon neutral by 2050, Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Chris Huhne said that tackling global warming would need an “enormous economic change”.
Climate change meant “far more wild weather” and there was little time left to change the way people live, Huhne warned at the party’s annual conference in Brighton, southern England.
Proposals also included charging lorries to use the UK’s roads in order to double rail investment and possibly creating a high speed rail line running north to south.
“With these plans we can restructure the economy towards a basis that is based on renewable energy not on fossil fuels,” the Lib Dem front-bench MP said.
“It’s an economic change in line with changes which we’ve seen in the past, for example between the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century moving from steam power to the petrol engine, moving from gas light to electric light,” he said.
Speaking ahead of the Huhne, Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell said his party was the only one to stand up and say what has to be done to address climate change.
“We should be working towards a carbon-neutral Britain by 2050.
We should be working towards the elimination of petrol-driven motor cars,” he told BBC1’s Breakfast programme Monday.
Delegates at the Lib Dem conference backed the radical proposals but voted to reject a call to end the party’s opposition to nuclear power. –IRNA
This is an incredibly important study called Renewable is Doable
It was conducted jointly by WWF-Canada, The Pembina Institute, Greenpeace, Ontario Clean Air Alliance and Sierra Club of Eastern Canada.
RENEWABLE IS DOABLE
Will Ontario follow other jurisdictions that are keeping the lights on by being energy-efficient (stopping energy waste) and with renewable sources (like wind, hydro, solar), or continue with dirty coal or dangerous and expensive nuclear megaprojects.
The fact is that ‘renewable is doable’. That’s the title of an authoritative study showing that a sustainable energy system is possible, and cheaper and more effective at reducing greenhouse gases than what has been recommended by the Ontario Power Authority. For more info visit www.renewableisdoable.ca
VOTE FOR CLEAN ENERGY
WWF-Canada, The Pembina Institute, Greenpeace, Ontario Clean Air Alliance and Sierra Club of Eastern Canada have called on all political parties to adopt clean, climate-friendly energy policies. Please consider the need for a clean, climate-friendly energy system in Ontario when you decide who to vote for.
Please visit www.voteforcleanenergy.ca for information and ongoing analysis, events/activities, and to sing up for the e-newsletter.
Ignoring global warming won’t make it go away. Take action now at www.saveourclimate.ca
What? John Howard, George Bush and Stephen Harper would try to undermine global climate change treaties? I don’t believe it…
Greens criticize ‘fraudulent’ APEC deal
Canadian Press
September 11, 2007 at 1:18 PM EDT
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper reached a “fraudulent” agreement on climate change with his fellow Asia-Pacific leaders, the leaders of Green parties in Canada and Australia said Tuesday.
APEC leaders agreed Saturday to a so-called “aspirational goal” of slowing, stopping and eventually reversing greenhouse gas emissions.
But the APEC meetings have always been about trade, Canadian Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said.
By trying to set the rules on climate change, the APEC leaders were attempting to circumvent United Nations talks on the environment, Ms. May argued Tuesday during a news conference.
“This is a direct effort to sabotage the upcoming meetings in Bali, Indonesia, at the 13th conference of the parties on climate change,” she said.
“(That’s) where negotiations belong, within the United Nations system.”
Ms. May and Australia’s Green party accused Mr. Harper, U.S. President George W. Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard of trying to diminish global efforts to fight climate change.
Australia’s environmental party, known as the Australian Greens, issued a statement Tuesday calling Canada and Australia spoilers on climate change, suggesting their governments are being swayed by the energy and logging industries in both countries.
“Prime Minister Harper is desperately trying to renege on Canada’s commitments under the Kyoto Protocol,” said Greens spokeswoman on climate change, Senator Christine Milne.
“So it’s no wonder he feels at home with Prime Minister Howard, who is equally keen to avoid any binding targets or real action to reduce emissions.”
Mr. Harper has said the Sydney declaration brings together a divided world on the issue of climate change.
Both Mr. Harper and Mr. Howard stressed that the real significance of the APEC statement was that the world’s biggest emitters – China, Russia and the United States – signed on after finding common ground.
Without specific targets or timelines, however, the declaration was immediately panned as a political stunt.
The declaration said APEC member countries would try to improve energy efficiency by at least 25 per cent by 2030.
It also called for forest cover to be increased by at least 20 million hectares by 2020 as a way of fighting climate change.
If that were achieved, the additional trees could store about 1.4 billion tonnes of carbon, equivalent to about 11 per cent of 2004’s global emissions, the statement said.
You can’t get a better endorsement than this.
Again, no original link…
Save the planet before it’s too late, Pope urges
By Philip Pullella Sun Sep 2, 5:47 AM ET
LORETO, Italy (Reuters) – Pope Benedict, leading the
Catholic Church’s first ‘eco-friendly’ youth rally, on
Sunday told up to half a million people that world
leaders must make courageous decisions to save the
planet “before it is too late.”
“A decisive ‘yes’ is needed in decisions to safeguard
creation as well as a strong commitment to reverse
tendencies that risk leading to irreversible
situations of degradation,
” the 80-year-old Pope said.
Wearing green vestments, he spoke to a crowd of mostly
young people sprawled over a hillside near the
Adriatic city of Loreto on the day Italy’s Catholic
Church marks it annual Save Creation Day.
More than 300,000 people had slept on blankets and in
tents or prayed during the night. Organizers said they
were joined by some 200,000 more who arrived from
throughout Italy on Sunday.
“New generations will be entrusted with the future of
the planet, which bears clear signs of a type of
development that has not always protected nature’s
delicate equilibriums,” the Pope said, speaking from a
white stage.
In one of his strongest environmental appeals,
Benedict said: “Courageous choices that can re-create
a strong alliance between man and earth must be made
before it is too late.”
The Pope closed the rally with a Sunday morning mass.
It was the first environmentally friendly youth rally,
a break from gatherings that have left tonnes of
garbage.
Participants had backpacks made of recyclable
material, flashlights operated by a crank instead of
batteries, and color-coded trash bags so personal
garbage could be easily recycled. Meals were served on
biodegradable plates.
Tens of thousands of prayer books for Sunday’s mass
were printed on recycled paper and an adequate number
of trees will be planted to compensate for the carbon
produced at the event, many in areas of southern Italy
devastated by recent brushfires.
Under Benedict and his predecessor John Paul, the
Vatican has become progressively “green,” installing
photovoltaic cells on buildings to produce electricity
and hosting a scientific conference to discuss global
warming and climate change.
Benedict voiced concern about a breakdown of the
traditional family and in his Sunday homily told young
people to “go against the current” and challenge
“seductive” media messages promoting materialism,
consumerism and fleeting pleasures.
Loreto is famous in the Catholic world for the “holy
house of the Madonna,” a small stone structure
purported to be where Mary grew up in the Holy Land
and where she was told by an angel she would give
birth to Jesus although a virgin.
