The taxonomy report, produced by Canada’s Sustainable Finance Action Council (SFAC) and published today by the Department of Finance, approves investment in two different categories for activities considered consistent with meeting the country’s climate targets.

A ‘green’ label is awarded to activities that emit little or no carbon, such as solar and wind, or activities that enable them, such as hydrogen pipelines.

Unlike the EU’s taxonomy, which was formalised last year, Canada does not give a green investment label to nuclear and gas. Those definitions opened the EU up to a swathe of ongoing legal challenges by NGOs and European governments.

Canada’s is also one of the first taxonomies in the world to set criteria for ‘transition’ activities, which aim to decarbonise emission-intensive activities.

The document excludes investment in new coal, oil and gas projects, but it does potentially include carbon capture and storage (CCS) upgrades to oil sand production, concrete production with sequestration, blue hydrogen production and electrification of steelmaking.

European Commission endorses fossil gas as ‘transition’ fuel for private investment

The report says all investment activities need to be consistent with Canada’s target to be net zero by 2050 and must address scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions.

Some of its authors say it will reduce uncertainty in the market and fill a $115-billion-per-year spending shortfall needed to meet the country’s climate goal.

“It’s been great to see the 25 financial institutions sign on and endorse this framework,” said Jonathan Arnold, research lead for clean growth at the Canadian Climate Institute who provided advice on climate science for the taxonomy.

‘Endorsement for greenwashing’

But Adam Scott, director of Canadian non-profit Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health, said some of the transition activities listed do not have a “credible” decarbonisation route.

“Steel and cement and fertiliser and other hard-to-decarbonise industries will need continued finance to make a transition, but there’s a credible argument that they have a pathway or they could reach their emissions through technology.

“If you continue to finance oil and gas, though, you’re actually delaying the transition. You’re essentially saying: ‘We’re going to bet against electrification by making marginal emissions reductions which have no path to zero’.”

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Julie Segal, climate finance senior manager at Environmental Defence, said the taxonomy gives a helping hand to Canada’s oil sands and promotes the dubious use of methane-derived blue hydrogen, which scientists say is potentially dirtier than burning fossil gas.

The taxonomy could also have international implications. Segal said it would weaken the OECD’s definition of transition, which rules out emissions-intensive lock-in. And, given the size of Canada’s pension funds, could muddy the waters globally as an “endorsement for greenwashing”.

Arnold recognised these concerns, and said the transition label should not lead to a lock-in of emissions or extend the fossil fuel industry’s social licence. “At the end of the day, [you want to] have a framework that’s credible and scientifically robust.”

He contended that there is no blanket approval for particular activities, saying investment decisions on projects will be made on an individual basis. There are strict criteria for meeting these, he added, although the thresholds have not yet been set.

‘Differences of opinion’

The taxonomy has been in development for several years, led initially by the Canadian Standards Association (CSA), but hit a roadblock due to “fundamental differences of opinion”.

Scott said that project was aimed at legitimising Canada’s carbon-intensive resource industries and was “basically a private table with banks and other financial institutions” to draw up a voluntary taxonomy.

The federal government subsequently took over under the banner of the SFAC, but some groups fear it is still over-represented by the finance and resource sectors and did not allow civil society or climate experts to make meaningful contributions.

“We’ve been complaining since it was created that that’s self regulation,” said Scott. “Essentially, the industry is able to create its own rules through the SFAC and present them directly to the finance minister.”

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“The process for drafting this taxonomy has been much weaker than in the EU,” agreed Segal.

She said prime minister Justin Trudeau should be paying attention to this given his efforts to position Canada as a global climate leader.

Scott said the lack of consultation and transparency in developing the taxonomy meant the end result would lack legitimacy.

But Arnold noted that Canada had been “playing catch up” as one of the last wealthy countries to develop a taxonomy. “It’s a difficult balancing act between moving very quickly on this and and doing robust engagement and I think the process was largely successful in that regard.”

He said the process would now be taken over by a taxonomy council, led by regulators with civil society having more of a voice alongside the financial sector. That, he said, would work out the remaining details and hopefully address all the “valid concerns that have been raised”.

The post Canada sets out green investments guide amid complaints of industry capture appeared first on Climate Home News.

After meeting with Germany’s leader Olaf Scholz, Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau announced Canada would work towards exporting green hydrogen to Germany by 2025.

Energy experts swiftly criticised the idea as unrealistic. A call by Scholz for Canada to expand its fossil fuel infrastructure got less attention.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance founder Michael Liebreich called the alliance “hilarious”. “No more than homeopathic quantities of [hydrogen] will ever move by ship,” he said.

Hilarious. Any engineer can tell you hydrogen is not like LNG. 30% energy lost in liquefaction; 38% of the volumetric energy density; 6x the boil-off; embrittles; -253C; etc. Transport cost 2-3x production cost? No more than homeopathic quantities of H2 will ever move by ship. https://t.co/qZojKtSyH7

— Michael Liebreich (@MLiebreich) August 24, 2022

On his trip to Canada, Scholz urged Trudeau’s government to build shipping terminals on its east coast to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe.

“As Germany is moving away from Russian energy at warp speed, Canada is our partner of choice,” he said in Toronto. “For now, this means increasing our LNG imports. We hope that Canadian LNG will play a major role in this.”

Electrical engineering professor Arvind Ravikumar said: “This is more an LNG export deal than a hydrogen one, at least in the short term… Because transporting [liquified hydrogen] like [liquified natural gas] is an expensive, leaky, & uneconomic endeavor.”

It follows a pattern in Scholz’s recent energy diplomacy. He’s encouraged an LNG terminal in Argentina, gas production in Senegal and a pipeline to bring gas from Algeria through Spain and France to Germany. At home, Scholz supports the building of two terminals to import LNG from overseas.

Canada’s east coast has no operating gas exporting terminals (brown dots) but several proposed ones (orange) (Photo: Global Energy Monitor)

Experts warn this infrastructure will take too long to build to help with Germany’s immediate gas demand crunch. In the long run, it will either worsen climate change by prolonging gas use or become worthless as Germany phases gas out of its electricity system by 2035.

Scholz is in coalition with the German Green Party. He has tried to reconcile his support for gas infrastructure with climate action by claiming that the terminals and pipelines can be converted from fossil gas to zero-carbon hydrogen made from renewables.

Hosting a recent G7 summit, he told the press: “When it comes to financing fossil sources of energy, this is something that is to come to an end. But of course, in this very specific situation we are now in, we will be helping many countries, if they need to make investments for being hydrogen-ready.”

Germany has no LNG import terminals (brown dots) but several proposed ones (orange) and two under construction (red) (Photo: Global Energy Monitor)

Hydrogen has different properties to methane gas and switching infrastructure from one to the other is no simple matter. E3G gas analyst Maria Pastukhova told Climate Home: ““There is no such thing as a ‘hydrogen-ready LNG terminal’”. It is cheaper to build a hydrogen terminal from scratch than convert an LNG one to hydrogen, she said.

Scholz and EU Commission chief Ursula Von Der Leyen have claimed that gas pipelines in Europe can be converted to hydrogen.

Over the rainbow: The role of hydrogen in a clean energy system, explained

While conversion is possible, Stanford University engineering professor Mark Jacobson told Climate Home that hydrogen in a gas pipeline leaks at seven time the rate of gas, as the molecules are smaller and escape easier. Hydrogen leaks are expensive and dangerous.

We are also ready in case Russia uses energy as a weapon.

Several countries are ready to step up their exports of LNG to the EU.

We already reinforced our pan-European pipeline and electricity interconnector network.

This will also be the backbone of green hydrogen supply. pic.twitter.com/cxRfDzz0Lq

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) February 16, 2022

Jacobson said green hydrogen should be produced near to where it is needed in places like “airports, steel factories, ammonia factories, shipping ports, and truck stops”. The renewable electricity needed to make green hydrogen can be moved by cables. Pastukhova agreed, adding that 85% of hydrogen is currently produced near to where it used.

Another option is to use green hydrogen to make ammonia, which is easier to transport and can be used as fuel or in fertilisers. But converting ammonia back to hydrogen for use as a gas is inefficient, Pastukhova said.

The post Germany hypes green hydrogen alliance while shopping for Canadian fossil gas appeared first on Climate Home News.

The Bay du Nord project off the coast of Newfoundland, developed by Norwegian company Equinor, would extract 300 million barrels of oil over 30 years with production expected to start from 2028.

UN head António Guterres described investments in new fossil fuel infrastructure as “moral and economic madness” and slammed countries doing so as “dangerous radicals”.

But veteran campaigner turned environment minister Steven Guilbeault approved the $12bn project last month after an environmental assessment concluded it is “not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects” if mitigation measures were imposed.

The move didn’t impress his former colleagues. Environmental law charity Ecojustice filed a petition at Canada’s Federal Court to overturn the decision on behalf of the Sierra Club Canada Foundation and Équiterre, which Guilbeault co-founded and led until November 2018.

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Campaigners will argue the project is incompatible with Canada’s climate obligations and that the environmental impact assessment was “deeply flawed” and failed to take into account emissions from burning the oil.

“Equinor’s Bay du Nord flies in the face of climate science and would be a clear violation of our attempts to meet climate targets,” said Gretchen Fitzgerald, national programme director at the Sierra Club Canada Foundation ahead of Equinor’s annual general assembly (AGM) on Wednesday.

Fitzgerald, who grew up in Newfoundland, called on investors to push the company to cancel the project and invest in renewable energy and particularly wind projects. During the meeting, several interventions called on the company to shift its business model away from oil.

Addressing investors, Jon Erik Reinhardsen, chair of Equinor’s board of directors, insisted that the company’s strategy and net zero plans were in line with global climate goals but that the company also sees “a significant exploration potential especially around our existing infrastructure”.

Reinhardsen argued that the company was prioritising projects “with the highest value and lowest emissions” internationally.

Climate scientists and the International Energy Agency have said that investment in new oil and gas projects is incompatible with meeting global climate goals.

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Upon approving the project, the government imposed 137 legally binding conditions for Equinor to develop the project. This includes measures to reduce emissions from the project so that it reaches net zero emissions from its operations by 2050.

The government said the project will be five times less emission intensive than the average Canadian oil and gas project and described it as “an example of how Canada can chart a path forward on producing energy at the lowest possible emissions intensity while looking to a net-zero future”.

But it faces mounting opposition from campaigners and youth activists. On the eve of Equinor’s AGM, campaigners projected testimonies of Canadians who oppose the project on buildings across the town of Stavanger, where the meeting was held.

Emissions from oil and gas extraction continue to rise in Canada and account for more than a quarter of the country’s total emissions – the highest-polluting sector.

From extraction to oil use, the project would emit the equivalent of adding 7 to 10 million fossil fuel cars to the road, according to NGO analysis. Even if the project were to use carbon capture and storage technology, they estimate the oil produced would still emit 10 to 52 times the amount captured.

A review of the impact assessment by a governmental science body concluded that the document was not a reliable source for decision-making because risks were “significantly underestimated” and some information was omitted or “cut and pasted” from other assessments.

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Equinor, previously known as Statoil, has pitched itself as an energy company with a leading role to play in the energy transition but it continues to expand its oil and gas business.

Last month, it announced the discovery of 25-50 million barrels of recoverable oil near its current operations in the North Sea.

Its oil expansion has led to more confrontation with campaigners in Argentina, where Greenpeace has filed a lawsuit against the approval of the company’s plans to carry out exploratory seismic drilling in the Argentine Sea to determine whether there is oil and gas under the seabed.

“People in Argentina and Canada are shocked at how Equinor is pushing to open up new and vulnerable areas for oil extraction in their countries, and there is no sign that Norway will put the brakes on for their own oil and gas exploration,” said Ragnhild Waagaard, of WWF Norway.

“This must stop as there is no room for new oil and gas fields if we are to achieve the goals in the Paris Climate Agreement.”

The post Campaigners take Canada to court over oil extraction project appeared first on Climate Home News.

In its annual budget, Justin Trudeau’s government proposed to subsidise the development of projects to capture carbon dioxide from oil and gas production or combustion and permanently store it underground or in concrete for example.

Under the plan, oil and gas companies would be eligible for a 50% tax credit until 2030 for investing in carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) projects. This expected to cost the federal government $2.6 billion in the first five years — reaching up to $8.6 billion by 2030.

But companies producing some of the world’s dirtiest oil say it is not enough to convince producers to develop large-scale CCUS.

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On Monday, Canadian tar sands producer MEG Energy Corporation posted record results in the first quarter of the year, with net earnings more than double that of the same period in 2021.

The next day, CEO Derek Evans told analysts that the Alberta government should top up the CCUS tax credit to cover 75% of the costs, leaving oil firms responsible for just 25% of the investments, the Financial Post reports.

Last week, Alex Pourbaix, CEO of tar sand firm Cenovus Energy, said companies will need “more help” from both the federal government and the Alberta government to go ahead with large-scale carbon capture and storage projects.

The same day, the company announced a sevenfold increase in its quarterly profits and a tripling of its dividends. Oil and gas companies are benefitting from soaring global energy prices as western buyers scramble to replace Russian supplies and defund the Kremlin’s war machine.

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The industry’s stance has prompted outrage from Canadian environmentalists.

“Carbon capture is not a climate solution – it’s a greenwashing strategy used to justify more fossil fuel production,” Julia Levin, from the Environmental Defence Canada, told Climate Home.

“Oil and gas companies know these are dead-end technologies which won’t make a dent in emissions, but are using them anyway to delay the clean energy transition and get more taxpayer money into the pockets of executives and shareholders.”

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Both MEG Energy and Cenovus are members of the Oil Sands Pathway Alliance, a group of six oil companies responsible for about 95% of Canada’s oil sands production committed to achieve net zero operational emissions by 2050. The target does not cover emissions from customers burning the oil.

The alliance has proposed to work on a CCUS project that it says could reduce CO2 emissions by 10 million tonnes per year by 2030 – the equivalent of emissions from more than two million combustion-engine cars driven for a year.

But that will require governments’ “co-investing alongside the industry,” it said in a statement welcoming the government’s tax credit proposal last month.

“Tar sands companies are swimming in cash, yet are only willing to reduce pollution if the taxpayer foots the bill,” Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada, told Climate Home.

“Rather than wasting public money on carbon capture subsidies for fossil fuels, Canadian governments should be going all in on renewable energy and the electrification of transport, heating and cooling.”

Environment minister Steven Guilbeault told the Canadian Press on Thursday that the federal government won’t be putting more money on the table. “These companies are making record profits, they should be investing some of them into ensuring that they have a future,” he said.

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Canada is one of five major oil producers to have signed up to the Net Zero Producers Forum, which committed to use strategies such as CCS to reduce emissions from oil production. Leaving oil in the ground is not one of them.

In fact, most of the captured carbon dioxide in Canada is used to extract more oil from depleted wells in a process known as enhanced oil recovery. This is not eligible for the Ottawa’s proposed tax credits.

A report by Environmental Defence Canada published in March estimates that, since 2000, subsidies for oil and gas companies to develop CCS amounted to $5.8bn: $2bn from the federal government and $2.6bn and $1.2bn from the oil producing provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan respectively.

This resulted in a yearly capture rate of less than four million tonnes of CO2 – about 0.05% of Canada’s emissions, the report found.

Most of the proposed CCUS projects in Canada concern the production stage and wouldn’t help to reduce emissions from burning of the oil, which accounts for 80% of the emissions.

“There may be a role for carbon capture from hard-to-abate industrial applications, but not for traditional fossil fuels like the tar sands where it can at best address only a tiny portion of the pollution,” said Stewart.

The story was updated on 06/05/2022 to include comments from the environment minister. 

The post Amid record profits, tar sands companies want more subsidies for carbon capture appeared first on Climate Home News.

Justin Trudeau’s government announced its emissions reduction plan on Tuesday, outlining how it plans to meet its target to reduce emissions by 40-45% between 2005 and 2030.

It predicts that oil production will continue to grow while emissions from oil production fall. Campaigners said this “doesn’t add up” and “bets too heavily on [carbon capture technology]”.

At Cop26, Trudeau told world leaders that the town of Lytton had burned down because of climate change and promised “we’ll cap oil and gas sector emissions today and ensure they decrease tomorrow at a pace and scale needed to reach net zero by 2050”.

“That’s no small task for a major oil and gas producing country,” he said. “It’s a big step that’s absolutely necessary.”

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But Tuesday’s plan did not include a cap on production emissions from oil and gas. Environment minister Steven Guilbeault said earlier this month that this policy will be deferred to late 2022 or early 2023.

Announcing the plan in Vancouver, natural resources minister Jonathan Wilkinson explained: “We committed to the [oil and gas] sector that we would work with them in a collaborative basis to establish the cap”.

He added: “We will be working with them over the coming months to ensure we put in place an appropriate cap that’s going to work in a manner that will continue to employ people but that will allow us to get at those emissions”.

The way in which the cap is implemented is still up for debate. Guilbeault has said that a cap and trade system is one of the options. This is when a limited number of pollution permits are issued in key sectors and companies that cut their emissions faster can sell unused allowances to those emitting more.

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The government projects that emissions from oil and gas production will decline 42% on 2019 levels, while oil production will rise 22% between 2020 and 2030.

The emissions reduction plan states: “The intent of the cap is not to bring reductions in production that are not driven by declines in global demand”.

Catherine Abreu, director of Destination Zero, told Climate Home it was good that Canada is “finally moving to address the glaring gap in all of its previous climate plans – the oil and gas sector”.

But, she said: “Increasing oil production while trying to reduce oil and gas emissions doesn’t add up… Canadian governments need to ask whether it makes sense to keep ramping up extraction in this critical decade of decarbonisation.”

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Measures to reduce emissions without reducing production include tax credits for carbon capture technology and potentially domestic and international carbon offsets for “a small portion of the reductions”, the plan says.

Julia Levin, from the Environmental Defence Canada, said the plan “bets much too heavily on [carbon capture]”.

Jan Gorski, from the Pembina Institute think tank said that the projected oil and gas emissions reductions for 2030 were not ambitious enough. He said that the industry’s fair share was a 45% reduction from 2005 levels by 2030 not the plan’s 31% projection.

His analysis suggests this can be achieved through stopping methane leaks and venting, electrification, carbon capture, facilities reaching their end of life and “other decarbonisation activities for which we do not yet have adequate information”.

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While campaigners criticised it, the oil and gas industry welcomed the plan. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said that it “acknowledges that global demand for natural gas and oil will continue for decades and Canada has a role to play in providing lower emission resources to the world’s energy mix”.

According to the International Energy Agency, if the world is to reach net zero by 2050 then oil demand should fall by 75% between 2021 and 2050. Gas demand should decline by 55% over the same period.

Guilbeault said last November that the federal government doesn’t have the constitutional right to cap oil and gas production – that’s in the power of Canada’s provinces. But the federal government can cap production emissions.

Canada is the only G7 country whose emissions are still growing. This is largely because of the growing emissions from its oil and gas production and growth in polluting forms of transport like SUVs.

Canada’s Greenhouse gas emissions (kt of co2e) since 2005, compared with G7 European countries. Japan and the US have not been included for visual clarity but their emissions have also fallen. (Source: World Bank)

The emissions reduction plan includes C$9bn ($7bn) of new green investments in electric vehicles, green buildings, farming, restoring nature and a community air pollution fund. This is in addition to Canada’s rising carbon price on pollution.

The plan set interim targets for phasing out the sale of new internal combustion engine passenger vehicles. By 2026, 20% of new vehicle sales should be zero-emission. By 2030, this should be 60% and by 2035 it should be 100%.

The post Canadian government ducks fight with oil and gas industry appeared first on Climate Home News.

As well as looking at the parties’ manifestos, they will be judging the record of six years of government by Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party.

In 2015, a month after taking over from Conservative climate sceptic Stephen Harper, Trudeau told the Paris climate conference: “Canada can and will do more to address the global challenge of climate change.”

But, over the next four years, Canada’s emissions increased to their highest level in decades. Canada is the only G7 country to have increased its emissions since the Paris Agreement.

When asked about this in election debates, Trudeau blamed his predecessor. “We inherited a government from Conservatives that did not believe in the fight against climate change and had a lot of catching up to do,” he said.

Isabelle Turcotte, the Ottawa-based director of federal policy at the Pembina Institute, agreed that Trudeau’s government was hamstrung by its predecessor’s legacy. “It takes time to turn a big boat around,” she said.

She added: “The Liberal party could have taken more ambitious climate action but there’s only so much inertia, so much pushback and political battles you can fight so some compromises were made in the name of national unity.”

Judging Trudeau’s record in full is difficult as emissions figures only go up to 2019. That’s the year that Trudeau’s government introduced, against fervent Conservative opposition, a C$20 ($16) per tonne price on carbon which will increase every year until it reaches C$170 ($134) in 2030.

Figures for 2020, 2021 and onwards are likely to show more of an effect from this carbon price – although the trend could be obscured by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

It’s fair to say that, in its first three years, Trudeau’s government did not reverse the upward trend in Canada’s emissions, which is driven by emissions from road vehicles and oil and gas production. Decreases in emissions from electricity generation and heavy industry have only partly cancelled these increases out.

Oil production has continued to rise and the processing of oil and gas, particularly from tar sands, uses a lot of energy and releases a lot of greenhouse gases.

Waste gas is burned off a a Suncor production facility in Alberta. (Photo: E M/Greenpeace)

There has been a government drive to reduce “fugitive” emissions in oil and gas processing, which come from methane leakage or deliberate venting or flaring of gas as a waste product. This resulted in an 8% drop.

The Clean Air Task Force NGO’s Jonathan Banks worked with government on fugitive emission policies and said action in this area had been “fairly strong”.

But it was not enough to offset the emissions from increased production.

Emissions from processing oil and gas have risen 7% since 2015, from 97.5m tonnes of Co2 equivalent (tCo2e) to 105m, the total annual emissions of Belgium. This does not include emissions from burning the fuels, much of which takes place in other countries and shows up in their greenhouse gas inventories.

“Carbon intensity per barrel has been reducing but, in Canada, we are increasing production which means we are increasing overall emissions,” said Climate Action Network Canada’s domestic policy manager Caroline Brouillette.

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While much of Canada’s oil and gas policy is in the hands of provincial governments, the federal government does have authority over pipelines – and it has backed them.

In 2018, it defied criticism from environmentalists to buy the Trans Mountain oil pipeline linking Alberta’s tar sands with coastal ports. When Joe Biden took office and cancelled permits for the Keystone XL pipeline through the US, Trudeau leapt to its defence.

Aside from oil and gas production, Canada’s other major and growing emitter is road transport. Its emissions have been rising for decades and Trudeau’s government has failed to reverse this trend, overseeing a 5% increase to 153 mt Co2e a year in 2019.

The Honda CRV is one of the top-selling SUVs in Canada. (Photo: Eurovision Nim/Flickr)

In a 2021 submission to the UN, the government said this is “largely due to more driving” as more people buy vehicles.

“Despite a reduction in kilometres driven per vehicle, the total vehicle fleet has increased by 42% since 2005, most notably for trucks (both light- and heavy-duty), leading to more kilometres driven overall,” the government wrote in 2021.

As in much of the rest of the world, vehicles used are also becoming more polluting. A report by Equiterre found that light-duty trucks like SUVs, pick-up trucks and vans accounted for 80% of new vehicle sales in Canada in 2020,

Turcotte added the development of public transport in cities is “not there yet” and there are particular challenges for rural communities in such a large country. The uptake of electric vehicles has been slow, she added.

As it ramps up, Canada’s carbon price will make buying fuel increasingly expensive. This is likely to make less polluting vehicles, including zero-emission ones, more appealing to Canadian drivers.

The post Oil and SUVs: Why Canada’s emissions have risen since Trudeau took office appeared first on Climate Home News.

Announcing her decision on Monday, she said: “Like many Canadians, living through Covid19 over a very long year, made me step back and reflect on what matters to me most. And it’s two things. My kids and climate change.”

She added: “This is a critical year for climate action in the most important decade that will decide whether we can save the only planet we have. I want to spend my working hours helping to make sure that we do.”

After a lot of reflection, I decided I wanted to spend more time on the two things that matter most to me: my kids & the climate.

Huge thanks to the people of Ottawa Centre & Canadians. It’s been such an honour. pic.twitter.com/wPbAAGiyhr

— Catherine McKenna (@cathmckenna) June 28, 2021

McKenna was environment minister between 2015 and 2019 before becoming infrastructure and communities minister.

Domestically, she introduced carbon pricing against strong opposition from provincial governments, and stricter environmental standards for big infrastructure projects – but held the government line in support of oil pipeline expansion.

Internationally, she signed the Paris Agreement and jointly spearheaded the Powering Past Coal Alliance with the UK’s Claire O’Neill (then Perry).

The director of Climate Action Network Canada Catherine Abreu tweeted: “I don’t often talk about politicians publicly. But I’ve spent years watching [Catherine McKenna] exhaust herself in service to the climate & her constituents. Her dedication has achieved real results, even amidst [bullsh*t] misogynist attacks. Huge respect and thanks”.

McKenna was labelled “climate barbie” by a male opposition MP and a gendered term of abuse was spray-painted on a poster of her on her constituency office.

Canada’s next climate plan must finally address its blind spot: oil and gas emissions

While some environmentalists praised her, others criticised her for backing expansion of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline against protests from indigenous groups.

Canadian skier Trennon Paynter tweeted: “Canada’s percapita [greenhouse gas] is off the charts compared to similar climate countries in Europe, and she threw her support behind expanding [oil and gas] infrastructure when it desperately needs to be reduced.”

According to World Bank data from 2016, Canada’s per capita emissions are more than twice as high as the European Union’s. Oil production rose throughout McKenna’s time in office and Canada is the only G7 country whose emissions have increased the Paris agreement.

Canada’s crude oil production (blue) rose during McKenna’s time in office. (Photo: IEA)

She has offered to “support Canada’s international climate leadership” in the run up to Cop26 and continue in parliament until the next election, which will take place in October 2023 at the latest.

Fighting back tears, she told press: “For all the climate change conversations I’ve had in the all the fancy rooms I’ve had them in, the most instructive classroom has been in the natural world.”

She added: “If I forget everything else about my time in politics, I’ll always remember being out in our amazing nature with incredible Indigenous peoples who generously shared their land and traditional knowledge with me.”

Canadian media say her resignation opens up a safe seat in parliament for Mark Carney, the Canadian banker and UN climate envoy who has campaigned for companies to report their climate risks and led a controversial taskforce to scale up carbon offsets.

Carney moved back from the UK to Canada in 2020. His support for Trudeau and McKenna’s centrist Liberal Party had long been rumoured and he openly declared it in April 2021.

The post Canadian minister Catherine McKenna to quit politics and focus on climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.

Five major oil companies, Canadian Natural Resources, Cenovus Energy, Imperial, MEG Energy and Suncor Energy, which extract some of the world’s most carbon-intensive oil, announced they had formed the Oil Sands Pathways to Net Zero alliance on Wednesday.

The companies, which together operate about 90% of Canada’s tar sands, said they will work with the Canadian government and the provincial government of Alberta to roll out technologies that will enable them to cut emissions from their extraction and production process.

Prime minister Justin Trudeau has committed to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. In 2018, the oil and gas sector was the largest source of Canada’s emissions, accounting for 26% of its total, according to government data.

Tar sands companies said the alliance aims to “develop an actionable approach” to cut emissions while “preserving the more than $3 trillion in oil sands contribution” to Canada’s economy to 2050.

But they made no mention of phasing out production. The “net zero” strategy does not extend to emissions from consumers burning the oil, which are many times larger than those from the extraction process.

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In fact, planned oil production in Canada would lead to a 17% expansion between 2019 and 2030, according to recent analysis by Stockholm Environment Institute.

This goes against modelling by the International Energy Agency (IEA), which found that new investments in expanding oil and gas production must stop by the end of the year for the sector to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

“This kind of greenwash is worse than meaningless – it’s dangerous,” Alex Doukas, senior consultant at the Denmark-based KR Foundation, said of the alliance. “It fails to cover emissions associated with the tar sands products themselves. Nobody should cheer this nonsense.”

Laurie van der Burg, campaigner at Oil Change International, told Climate Home News: “These plans lack the one and only action that is most vital to cutting emissions: cutting dirty oil and gas production.

“If the Canadian tar sands net-zero alliance cared about climate action it would have committed to cut production by 2030.”

Van der Burg added that tar sands producers risked facing litigation over the plans, citing a court ruling against oil giant Shell, which established that real emissions reductions were necessary for oil and gas companies to meet their obligations under the Paris Agreement.

According to the UN Environment Programme, global oil production must fall by 4% every year between now and 2030 to maintain a chance of staying below 1.5C of warming.

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Because it is thick and viscous, oil from tar sands takes a lot of energy to extract and refine, making its production three to four times more greenhouse gas intensive than conventional crude oil.

To meet the goal, the alliance plans to create a corridor to link oil sands facilities from Fort McMurray to the Cold Lake regions and channel CO2 to a carbon sequestration hub.

Energy efficiency measures, electrification of operations, producing hydrogen and carbon capture and storage technology would be deployed requiring “significant investment” from both the industry and government, the companies said.

The alliance said “internationally recognised forecasts” indicate fossil fuel will continue to be part of the energy mix to 2050 to justify the initiative – contrary to the latest IEA net zero report.

“Every credible energy forecast indicates that oil will be a major contributor to the energy mix in the decades ahead and even beyond 2050,” said Sonya Savage, Alberta’s minister of energy, claiming this would lead to the production of “net zero barrels of oil”.

Net-zero latest

“Canadian oil sands producers said on Wednesday they would form an alliance to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from their operations by 2050”https://t.co/WjuVD53quZ pic.twitter.com/bTyUKwHk4m

— Simon Evans (@DrSimEvans) June 9, 2021

Under the IEA’s first comprehensive 1.5C scenario, the agency projects a drop in oil demand of 75% between 2020 and 2050, with fossil fuels supplying slightly over one-fifth of total energy by 2050.

Tzeporah Berman, chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, described the alliance as “absurd”. In a tweet, she said measures to reduce emission intensity and develop carbon capture and storage were “clearly not enough” to help the world meet its climate goal.

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One of the main checks on tar sands producers’ bullishness is organised opposition to infrastructure projects to connect Alberta to key export markets.

On Wednesday, TC Energy abandoned plans for the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have transported 830,000 barrels of oil a day to refineries along the US’ Gulf Coast. The decision comes after Joe Biden revoked permits for the pipeline expansion in January.

It was hailed a victory by climate campaigners and indigenous communities who fought the project for a decade.

“Keystone XL is now the most famous fossil fuel project killed by the climate movement, but it won’t be the last,” said Jamie Henn, co-founder of 350.org. “Now it’s time to go a step further and say no to all new fossil fuel projects everywhere.”

On Thursday, the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative published research warning that ending the expansion of the fossil fuel sector was not enough to keep the 1.5C within reach, and an exit strategy from existing production is required.

The study, from the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology in Sydney, found that carbon emissions from existing fossil fuel projects would lead to 66% more emissions in 2030 than is compatible with a 1.5C trajectory.

Professor Sven Teske, who led the research, said: “National governments must establish binding limits for the extraction volumes for coal, oil and gas,” adding that new investments risked becoming stranded because of the falling prices of renewable energy.

The post Tar sands companies aim for ‘net zero’ by 2050 – with no plan to extract less oil appeared first on Climate Home News.

A statement published on the UK government’s website said 26 “Canadian climate champions” had been identified “as exceptional individuals actively working to move Canada to net zero emissions”.

The “champions” were selected by Canada Climate Law Initiative (CCLI), a research initiative based out of the University of British Columbia, with input from the British High Commission in Ottawa. The list was revealed during a livestream event co-hosted by CCLI and the British High Commission last week six months ahead of the start of the climate talks in Glasgow.

Martha Hall Findlay, chief sustainability officer at Suncor, a company which produces crude oil from tar sands, made the list of people awarded with the title.

Suncor is one of Canada’s largest integrated energy companies and is expanding its oil production. The company has pledged to reduce the emission intensity of its oil production by 30% by 2030 but made no commitment to cut its emissions in absolute terms.

Suncor CEO Mark Little is a governor on the board of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), which has repeatedly opposed climate policy and lobbied to weaken Canada’s carbon tax on the oil sector.

California is the biggest producer in the world planning to go beyond oil

“Appointing oil company executives and bank executives heavily invested in oil and gas as climate champions is like appointing the tobacco industry to regulate cigarette advertising,” Tzeporah Berman, chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-proliferation Treaty campaign and the international programme director at Stand.Earth, told Climate Home News.

“Emissions from the production of oil and fracked gas are now the fastest and largest growing source of emissions in Canada. It’s too late to just talk about carbon storage and emissions intensity reductions,” she said.

“Canada wants to be a climate leader and is making some headway but until the Trudeau government acknowledges the need to wind down oil and gas production growing emissions will cancel out all our progress.”

The Canadian government was not involved in the initiative and there are no plans for the 26 “champions” to play a formal role at Cop26.

A spokesperson for the UK’s foreign commonwealth and development office told Climate Home the event was “part of the UK’s work to drive forward leadership on climate change, ahead of the Cop26 summit”. The UK’s Cop26 team did not respond to a request for comment.

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Jesse Bragg, spokesperson for campaign group Corporate Accountability, told Climate Home that any business that promises alignment with the Paris Agreement but still plans to extract fossil fuels into the future “is not a climate champion” but “an obstacle to progress”.

“In fact, the only way to truly ensure the UN talks are set up for success is to completely firewall the talks from the fossil fuel industry, not roll out the red carpet for them,” he said.

Valerie Chort, vice president for corporate citizenship and sustainability at the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), was another controversial choice of “champion”.

RBC has financed fossil fuels projects to the tune of $160billion between 2016 and 2020, including more than $2bn for coal projects – the fifth largest fossil fuel funder in the world and the largest in Canada, according to a report by a coalition of NGOs published in March.

The findings led climate activists in Canada to put pressure on RBC to move away from fossil fuels.

Earlier this year, the bank pledged to reach net zero emissions by 2050 and to mobilise $500bn in sustainable finance by 2025.

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Other people named as champions include Canada’s infrastructure minister and former environment minister Catherine McKenna, who launched the Powering Past Coal Alliance with former UK minister Claire O’Neill.

Environmentalist broadcaster David Suzuki and indigenous climate justice advocate Melina Laboucan-Massimo also made the list.

Cat Abreu, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada, told Climate Home that while there were some “true champions” on the list, “the criteria for what constitutes a ‘champion’ is quite unclear”.

“It appears that this list was named with the exclusive input of the CCLI, which is a nascent academic group focused on corporate responsibility that has so far not engaged Canada’s broad climate movement,” she said.

The post Tar sands executive named as Canadian ‘climate champion’ ahead of Cop26 appeared first on Climate Home News.

Transition documents obtained by Canadian broadcaster CTV News show US president-elect Biden could use an executive order to revoke the Keystone XL pipeline expansion permit as soon as Wednesday, when he is due to be inaugurated US president.

The move is part of a to-do list for Biden’s first day in office that includes re-joining the Paris Agreement and announcing the date for a US-hosted leaders’ climate summit.

The pipeline, which has been in development for more than a decade, aims to transport 830,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta tar sands in Canada to refineries along the US’ Gulf Coast.

Faced with lawsuits and strong opposition from environmental groups, the project was rejected by the Obama-Biden administration in 2015 over “environmental concerns” – a decision reversed by Donald Trump in 2017.

The move would be a blow to Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau who has unreservedly supported the pipeline expansion, describing it last month as “an integral part of Canada and America’s energy security”.

Trudeau, who was the first world leader to speak with Biden following his election win, said he discussed the issue during his phone call with the president-elect and would press the new US administration to continue with the project.

On Sunday, Canada’s ambassador to the US Kirsten Hillman defended the pipeline expansion, arguing “Keystone XL fits within Canada’s climate plan”.

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The Canadian leg of the pipeline has been under construction for months with nearly 200 kilometres of pipes installed, including across the US-Canada border. The construction of pump stations continues on the US side.

Dale Marshall, national climate programme manager at advocacy group Environmental Defence Canada, told Climate Home News Biden’s decision to end the Keystone XL expansion project was “a defeat for the oil and gas industry” but should not come as a surprise.

On the campaign trail, Biden pledged to “stop [the pipeline] for good”. “I’ve been against Keystone from the beginning,” he told CNBC in May, adding the project did not make economic or environmental sense.

“If this project dies, it does not get revived in any form,” Marshall said. “We should be reducing fossil fuel infrastructure, not adding to it, particularly not to ship some of the dirtiest fuel in the world. It is baffling that the Canadian government is still continuing to stick its neck out for the oil and gas industry that is clearly on its way out.”

The situation is “awkward” for Trudeau who has put his political capital behind building new pipelines, Marshall said. “Hopefully this is a wake-up call… to take the transition to a post-oil future seriously.”

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Between 2005 and 2018, emissions from Canada’s oil and gas sector have increased, driven by growing production which offset emissions declines in other sectors, according to the latest government data.

Coupled with the slow implementation of climate policies, Canada’s support for the oil and gas industry has largely contributed to maintain its emissions at the same level since the beginning of the century. Much greater action is needed for the country to meet its emissions targets, according to Climate Action Tracker.

Recent projections from the country’s energy regulator found that the country did not need the additional capacity from the Keystone XL expansion and the Trans Mountain pipelines to export its oil. But the government has maintained its support for both projects.

“Canada’s blind spot is the oil and gas industry,” said Marshall. “Emissions have been stable for 15 years because the oil and gas continued to have projects green-lighted.”

Just last week, the Canadian government approved the exploration of hydrocarbons for three offshore drilling projects.

“What a contrast in leadership. This week: US President-elect Joe Biden confirms he will cancel Keystone XL pipeline on his first day in office vs. Canadian PM announces three new offshore exploration drilling projects,” Canada’s Green Party Leader Annamie Paul said in a tweet.

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Eddy Perez, international policy lead at Climate Action Network (CAN) Canada, told Climate Home that cancelling the Keystone XL project would show the Biden administration’s readiness to transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy.

“The US and Canada have a strong and unique economic relations. If your closest economic ally says it is time to go faster [on climate action], it is time to listen. This is an opportunity for Canada to send a message that it wants to stop the expansion of the fossil fuel industry in the country,” he said.

Perez said the move would hit at the heart of Canada’s energy policy, which continues to support its oil and gas industry.

Nearly two thirds of Canada’s exports are destined for the US. Canada’s oil trade with its neighbour was worth $75 billion and accounted for 94% of its oil exports in 2018, according to data from think tank Chatham House.

For Jason Kenney, Alberta’s premier, this is a key argument to allow Keystone XL expansion to go ahead.

In a statement, he said repealing the pipeline’s permit would “kill jobs on both sides of the border” and “weaken the critically important Canada-US relationship”.

In a defiant message, he called on Biden to “show respect for Canada as the United States’ most important trading partner and strategic ally by keeping that commitment to engage”.

The post Keystone XL cancellation: ‘Wake-up call’ for Canada to address oil and gas blind spot appeared first on Climate Home News.

The bill, called the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, follows an election pledged by Trudeau to set the country on a path to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

The act, which was introduced to parliament on Thursday, establishes a legally binding process to set five-year emission reduction targets from 2030 and develop a credible plan to meet each commitment. If passed, future governments would have to report regularly on progress towards meeting the goals.

However, the bill does not set out how the government is planning to reduce emissions in the short term nor does it propose a new 2030 target.

Trudeau told reporters on Thursday: “During the last election, our government promised to legally bind Canada to its commitment to net zero emissions by 2050. This morning we delivered on that promise.”

The bill “lays out a framework of accountability and transparency so that we reach this goal in a way that gives Canadians confidence. This is a fundamental step in our strategy to build a strong, resilient economy that works for everyone,” he said.

Canada has failed to live up to its climate commitments in recent decades. It reneged on the Kyoto Protocol and prior to the pandemic was off track to meet its 2020 emissions target.

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In his election manifesto, Trudeau promised to “exceed” Canada’s 2030 target of cutting emissions by 30% from 2005 levels. But he will need to take much greater climate action if he is to do so.

Despite a dip in emissions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, Canada may not be on track to meet its 2030 goal, according to Climate Action Tracker.

“What we see is that there is no plan at all. There is no plan for getting us to net zero. And it’s really just a game of smoke and mirrors,” Green Party leader Annamie Paul told reporters.

“There is only talk about accountability of a plan that will be developed at some future date,” she said, adding that it could take up to a year and a half under the bill for Canada to adopt a new 2030 target.

Paul said this was “a failure,” adding that under the Paris climate agreement, Canada was expected to enhance its 2030 climate plan this year. “This legislation makes it clear that we have no intention to increase our target within this year.” The Green Party backs a 60% emissions reduction by 2030.

Jagmeet Singh, leader of the left-wing New Democratic Party, which recently backed Trudeau’s minority government in a confidence vote that prevented a new election, promised to “push the government to ensure accountability begins sooner”.

Conservative MP Dan Albas said the government needed to be transparent about how much the plan would cost.

Boris Johnson has further to go on climate to show true leadership

The bill requires every department and federal corporations owned by the government to include climate risks in their planning. It also sets up an independent body to advise the government on how to achieve the net zero goal.

Isabelle Turcotte, federal policy director at the Pembina Institute, said the legislation “will help Canada achieve its low-carbon energy potential”.

The bill, she said, “moves us past the vagaries of the election cycle with legal requirements on governments to achieve climate progress, a strong accountability framework provides much-needed regulatory certainty for businesses to confidently make investments needed today to create jobs”.

Turcotte said the bill presented some key elements of a “coherent framework” to achieve net zero emissions that will need to be enhanced in the coming months.

“When it comes to net-zero emissions by 2050 it’s not just the destination, it’s how we get there that matters,” she said.

The post Canada sets out to enshrine 2050 net zero emissions goal in law appeared first on Climate Home News.

In a lengthy speech to lawmakers setting out the minority government’s vision for a new parliamentary session on Wednesday, Trudeau promised to “immediately” release plans to strengthen the country’s 2030 climate targets and legislate to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

“Climate action will be a cornerstone of our plan to support and create a million jobs across the country,” Trudeau said. “We can create good jobs today and a globally competitive economy not just next year, but in 2030, 2040, and beyond.”

But the speech, which on climate largely repeated existing pledges, was not enough for the opposition parties he needs to pass legislation.

Mired in a conflict of interest scandal and having lost his majority in an election last year, Trudeau gambled on a political reset and the promise of a green recovery to Covid-19 when he ended the parliamentary session last month.

Trudeau is now facing a confidence vote on his vision for the future and a possible election if he fails to gather support.

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For his administration to survive, Trudeau needs the support of at least one opposition party, the nationalist Bloc Québecois or the left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP). The Conservatives have ruled out any support for the government. A date for the vote has not yet been set.

Catherine Abreu, executive director of NGO Climate Action Network Canada, told Climate Home News that while the speech “struck the right tone on climate justice” no new climate or environment policies were announced. “Is it a revolutionary green recovery for Canada? No,” she said.

However, she described the government’s efforts to link climate policies and social issues as “a progressive” step forward for the Canadian government.

“Of course, we’ve heard similar promises before from this government. It is the policy and investment decisions made in the coming months that will determine whether the spirit articulated in this historic speech is turned into meaningful action,” she said.

UK, UN bill Paris Agreement anniversary as key moment for raising climate ambition

On Thursday, Trudeau attended a virtual round table with UN chief Antonio Guterres, intended to showcase climate leadership.

At the event, the UN and the UK set out plans for an online summit to mark the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement on 12 December.

The anniversary has been billed as a key moment for countries to come forward with enhanced ambition, giving Trudeau an opportunity to flesh out the plans on the world stage if he survives the confidence vote.

Trudeau’s climate policies include retrofitting homes and buildings to improve energy efficiency, supporting investment in renewable energy and clean technologies, investments in charging stations for zero-emissions vehicles and battery manufacturing.

He promised to use corporate tax cuts to make Canada “the most competitive jurisdiction in the world for clean technology companies”.

Trudeau said the government would continue implementing a carbon tax, which puts a price on pollution, against vehement opposition from the Conservatives.

He made no mention of oil and gas, nor of the government’s controversial support for the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which channels crude oil from Alberta to the coast for exports.

He pledged to ramp up efforts to address systemic racism and better support indigenous communities, identify additional ways of taxing “extreme wealth inequality” and address corporate tax avoidance.

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Bloc Quebecois leader Yves-François Blanchet said Trudeau’s speech was “an affront” to the demands of Canadian lawmakers and didn’t deserve Quebec’s support.

He slammed the plan as “vague” and lacking on detail. “Where is the notorious green recovery? It is nonexistent in this throne speech,” he said in an interview with the Canadian French-language ICI RDI, adding the plan did not exclude further support to the oil and gas industry.

Blanchet said Trudeau had a week to answer the Bloc Quebecois’ core demand to transfer provinces more autonomy on healthcare, or it would vote against the Liberal government.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said his party support was conditional on ensuring Canadians who cannot return to work because of the pandemic continue to receive the same level of support from the government and paid sick leave is available to all.

Isabelle Turcotte, director of federal policy at the Pembina Institute, said the government had demonstrated that it saw protecting people’s health, building a resilient economy, and taking strong action on climate change “as different pieces of the same puzzle”.

“We’ll be closely watching for the details on implementation, accountability, and the scale of effort,” she added about Trudeau’s commitment to deepen carbon-cutting efforts.

In a statement, Climate Strike Canada, a network of students and climate activists, said the speech was a missing opportunity to lay out a bold vision for tackling the climate emergency.

“The Liberal government has failed to take action at the scale we need to address the climate emergency,” it said, saying young people would take to the streets on Friday, joining a global protest for climate action.

The post Trudeau promises green jobs for Canada as his leadership hangs in the balance appeared first on Climate Home News.

The Conservative Party affirmed its opposition to a federal carbon tax on Monday, as members elected veteran Erin O’Toole to lead the party.

In his election platform, O’Toole promised to “fight the carbon tax with every last breath”, saying the Conservatives would defend the environment “without adding new taxes on working families and seniors on fixed incomes”.

The carbon tax has been on the frontline of Canada’s climate debate since it was introduced by prime minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government in 2019. It puts a price on carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels and distributes the revenues in the form of rebates for taxpayers.

Now the Conservatives are eyeing a fresh opportunity to topple the minority Liberal government and scrap the tax after Trudeau – mired in a conflict-of-interest controversy – ended the parliamentary session last week, prompting a confidence vote that could trigger another election this year.

“If we have another election in the fall, the Conservatives will make [the carbon tax] a huge election issue,” Cat Abreu, executive director at Climate Action Network Canada, told Climate Home News.

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Trudeau – once the rising star of Canadian politics – is gambling on a political reset, based on the presentation next month of a spending plan to drive a green recovery to Covid-19. Conservatives could bring down the government on 23 September, when Parliament is due to reconvene to vote on the bill.

“This is our moment to change the future for the better,” Trudeau told reporters. “We can’t afford to miss it because this window of opportunity won’t be open for long.”

Newly appointed finance minister Chrystia Freeland said she would work with Trudeau to “build back better” – a global slogan for promoting inclusive climate-friendly policies to reboot the economy. “I think all Canadians understand that the restart of our economy needs to be green,” she said.

But support for Trudeau is fragile after he lost the popular vote and his majority in last year’s election. His recovery plan will have to gather the support of progressive left-wing opposition parties if he is to stay in power.

“It is more likely than not that there will be an election in the fall,” said Ross McKitrick, professor specialised in environmental economics at the University of Guelph, Ontario, adding voters were focused on the “big hole” in the economy caused by Covid-19.

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On 1 April – at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and amid rising unemployment – the government went ahead with a scheduled increase of the federal carbon tax from $20 per tonne to $30/t, in line with its plan to raise it by $10/t each year until 2022.

McKitrick said the hike had hardly been noticed but future planned increases would likely become the target of any upcoming Conservative election campaign. “The battle lines are pretty much exactly the same as they were last year,” he added.

Since its implementation, the carbon tax has been met with strong headwinds at the provincial level, widening the gap between the provincial and federal governments on climate action. Ontario – where O’Toole has been an MP since 2012 –  and Saskatchewan have lodged legal challenges against Ottawa’s right to impose a carbon price on provinces. Canada’s Supreme Court is expected to hear the case in September.

In his election platform, O’Toole says he wants to build climate policy on “proven market-based principles for incenting positive economic change”. His manifesto promises to transition from coal to natural gas, boost nuclear technologies exports, support oil and gas companies in developing carbon capture technologies and expanding their infrastructure in Alberta and western Canada.

“I know that as long as the world needs oil, as much of that oil as humanly possible should be Canadian oil,” he wrote.

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While he would immediately scrap the federal carbon tax, O’Toole’s programme leaves the door open for provinces that want to continue to implement regulatory measures such as carbon pricing to do so. His manifesto also suggests regulatory measures could focus on “making industry pay rather than taxing ordinary Canadians”.

Isabelle Turcotte, director of policy at the clean energy think thank Pembina Institute, told CHN more than two thirds of voters backed parties with a strong climate platform in last year’s elections, showing public appetite for action. “That is encouraging,” she said.

Abreu, of CAN, said Canada was “learning a hard lesson” about how to address climate change at the federal level, when provinces have significant control over tax policy.

The outcome of the appeal at the Supreme Court will determine the extent of the federal government’s ability to impose climate policy on the provinces.

The post Prospect of snap election reanimates Canada’s carbon tax battle appeared first on Climate Home News.

Thunberg is one of four youth activists to sign a letter, along with 22 climate scientists, raising “grave concerns” about the Arctic nations’ policies to expand and subsidise fossil fuel extraction.

Canada and Norway are competing with Ireland for two seats on the UN security council, both promising to address climate change as a threat to peace and stability.

Yet their support for increased oil and gas production is incompatible with international climate goals, argued signatories to the letter, published in full below.

They called on small island developing states, as some of the most vulnerable countries to climate breakdown, to use their vote to highlight these concerns.

“For the young generation who will inherit the consequences of these decisions, it is critical that those who claim to be leading on climate action are held to account for decisions they are making back at home,” the letter said.

“As the Ambassador of a country that understands the grave risk posed to our security and yours, we ask that you raise these issues in your conversations with representatives of the candidate countries, and demand that they unite behind the science.

“If Norway and Canada are serious about our climate security, they should commit to no new fossil fuel exploration or extraction, and begin phasing down their domestic production at a pace that is consistent with limiting warming to 1.5C.”

Youth + scientists letter to SIDS Ambassadors re UN security council June 9, 2020 (Text)

Candidates are running for a two-year term on the security council starting in 2021, with seats allocated by region. Regardless of whether their seats are contested, they must win the backing of two thirds of member states.

While their numbers are not sufficient to wield veto power, the 38 small island developing states hold 20% of votes.

Ambassador Lois Young, Belize’s permanent representative to the UN and chair of the Alliance of Small Island Developing States (Aosis), said in a statement it was a “human imperative” to limit global heating to 1.5C. She called on all security council members to integrate climate risks in their UN work for global peace and their domestic policies.

“We would urge all major emitters to close the gap between where we are now and where we need to be for 1.5C,” she added.

In security circles, climate change is typically described as a “threat multiplier”: impacts like floods and droughts do not start wars but can intensify competition for resources, drive migration and stoke tensions between rival groups.

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Litokne Kabua and Ranton Anjain from the Marshall Islands and Pauline Tomren from Norway are the other youth activists, alongside Thunberg, demanding that would-be climate leaders respect the science.

They cite the 2019 Production Gap Report, which showed governments are planning to extract 120% more fossil fuels than can be burned under a 1.5C global warming limit – the stronger target in the Paris Agreement, seen as essential to the survival of low-lying island states.

Gail Whiteman, founder of Arctic Basecamp and professor of sustainability at the University of Exeter, UK, explained why she added her signature to the campaign.

“Climate change is a hugely important security topic, it is a hugely important global risk that is coming fast down the pipeline,” she told Climate Home News.

“On both the Canadian and the Norwegian side, they have some quite strong stated policies on climate change but when you look at the details, that is very problematic.”

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Ottawa is criticised in the letter for being the second biggest financier of fossil fuels in the G20 and backing controversial oil pipelines. Oslo is called out over its support for Arctic oil drilling.

On Monday, the Norwegian parliament’s finance committee recommended tax relief for its petroleum industry, which has been hammered by the coronavirus pandemic.

WWF, which has long been critical of Norway’s oil tax regime, said the move would enable oil companies to pay less than 10% of investments costs for projects approved before the end of 2023. This, it said, would bolster investments in oil fields that would otherwise be unprofitable and increase activity in the Arctic.

The measures, which have already been agreed by six political parties, are expected to be approved by full parliament on Friday.
Next week, lawmakers are also expected to vote on a government recommendation that rejects greater protection for the Barents Sea, in the Arctic Ocean, and allows for continued oil and gas developments.

The post Greta Thunberg looks to UN security council election for leverage on climate appeared first on Climate Home News.

Glacial melting and maritime traffic are threatening multiple species off the coast of Baffin Island, in Canada’s northeastern Arctic archipelago.

“Populations of belugas, narwhals, walruses, seals, polar bears and thousands of other species who depend on year-round sea ice to survive are now migrating, dwindling, or in some cases, disappearing,” Trudeau said during a visit to Iqaluit, in the eastern territory of Nunavut.

The prime minister, who is seeking reelection in three months, has made environmental protection and reconciliation with indigenous populations two main priorities.

“For Inuit who have relied on hunting and harvesting to feed their families, climate change imperils their livelihoods and their way of life,” he said.

According to Trudeau, the protected region would help the Canadian government surpass its goal to protect 10% of marine and coastal regions by 2020.

The liberal leader also pointed out his government had recently invested in modernising the Coast Guard, launching two Arctic patrol vessels to increase protection for national interests in the region.

“Our government is committed to enforcing Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic in partnership with the people who have lived here for (millennia),” Trudeau said.

The Arctic region is highly coveted by multiple global powers for its resources and access to navigation in the far north, made easier by melting glaciers.

The post Trudeau announces protected marine area in Canada’s Arctic appeared first on Climate Home News.

Stopping one pipeline was hardly going to stop climate change, after all. And even the more limited goal that activists had set – stopping the exploitation of Alberta’s highly polluting tar sands – was dismissed as unrealistic. The oil would simply find another way to the market, the argument went, leading New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait, for example, to declare “The Keystone Fight is a Huge Environmentalist Mistake”. Well, perhaps not.

“Historic Price Crash Plunges Canadian Oil Patch into Crisis,” Bloomberg reported in November 2018: “Heavy Canadian crude has been on a downward spiral since mid-May, with prices plummeting by more than 60 percent as an onslaught of new production from the oil-sands overwhelms the nation’s pipelines.”

The inability of Alberta producers to efficiently transport their oil to refiners, Bloomberg noted, had led to a substantial build-up of inventory in the region, and a correspondingly sharp discount on West Canada Select crude compared to the benchmark US oil price. In some instances, Albertan tar sands oil sold for more than $50 less than the typical US barrel, with prices sometimes dipping under $20. The financial consequences for the companies concerned were so significant, they precipitated that most ironic of oil industry behaviors: private producers calling for government-imposed supply cuts.

There is a direct line, therefore, between the Keep It In the Ground campaign and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley’s decision in December to do just that: mandate a reduction of 325,000 barrels a day of Albertan oil production, a reduction that began on 1 January this year.

“Every Albertan owns the oil in the ground,” the Alberta government website explaining the action states. “We have a responsibility to get our product to market for a fair price.” Elsewhere it notes: “It’s crucial that we match our production levels to what we can export”. Pipelines, it turns out, have more than symbolic significance.

By putting their bodies on the line to stop Keystone XL from being constructed, protesters have effectively forced the Alberta government to impose a hard ceiling on the province’s oil production, with reductions to remain in effect throughout 2019. The plan worked.

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Premier Notley’s actions are far from unprecedented. In August 1931, faced with a flooded market and an oil price that had collapsed from a dollar to 15 cents, the Governor of Texas declared martial law and used the National Guard to close wells across Texas.

Thereafter followed no less than four decades of government-imposed oil production quotas, not only in Texas but in other major oil producing states like Oklahoma, Louisiana, and New Mexico. These quotas shut in production capacity that, at its peak, kept the US producing over 4 million barrels a day less than it otherwise would have (an amount close to Canada’s entire production today).

Former George W Bush White House energy advisor Bob McNally has enthusiastically described the US state rationing system as “the most communistic, centrally planned, interventionist, heavy-handed government control of a commodity ever seen in human history”. Using government authority to keep oil in the ground, in other words, is as American as apple pie. There has never been a more urgent need to revive it.

In her video address explaining the cuts, Premier Notley states: “Our energy resources… are our natural inheritance – defended by those who came before and handed down to us in trust. We have a duty to defend these resources, protecting them for our children and our children’s children. So let me tell you how we are doing that. First, we are not letting up on our fight to build new pipelines.”

The non sequitur is really something. Alberta undoubtedly has a duty to preserve the oil in its tar sands for future generations. That duty, however, is advanced not by building more pipelines, but by capping Alberta’s oil production – permanently.

Not only are steadily increasing emissions from upstream oil and gas production a large reason for Canada’s dubious progress towards achieving its Paris Agreement target, but the pipelines necessary to further expand production create considerable environmental risks, to say nothing of their impact on indigenous sovereignty.

Lest we forget, the best-case scenario for these investments is that they become economically damaging stranded assets: bad bets on continued fossil fuel dependence at a time when the world is shifting to clean energy. The alternative – their full utilization – entails climate disaster.

What began as an emergency measure in Texas in 1931 quickly evolved, with the passage of the Texas Market Demand Act of 1932, into a system of rational government control and conservation of oil in the United States. In a sane world, events would follow the same path in Alberta this year.

In the meantime, those who truly have the interests of our children’s children at heart are gearing up to stop the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline: the next fight in the campaign to secure by direct action what should have already been done by government regulation.

Let no one say it isn’t worth it.

Michael Dobson is a PhD candidate at the New School for Social Research focused on supply-side climate policy. Follow him on twitter @michaeldobsonNZ

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The country’s two largest cities joined an international coalition of states, regions, cities and businesses who have committed to ending coal power generation.

Australia is the fourth largest coal producer in the world. Its federal government is known for its fierce support for the sector and signalled on Wednesday that it would use taxpayer money to underwrite new coal plants.

Neither city provided a specific end date for coal. Sydney has committed to a 100% renewable supply by 2035.

Scotland, gas and electricity company Scottish Power, Senegal and Israel are also joining the alliance, which has been convened by Canada and the UK.

“We all need to get off coal,” Canada’s environment minister Catherine McKenna told a side-event at the UN climate conference in Katowice, Poland. “That is the reality, if we are going to meet the ambitions under [the Paris Agreement], every country needs to get off coal. It doesn’t have to be today, but you need to set a goal – Canada has a goal of 2030 to phasing out coal.”

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UK minister for energy and clean growth Claire Perry said: “We will be off coal by 2025. If the market doesn’t deliver, I will legislate to do so.”

“The fallacy of clean coal is the last-ditch attempt at protecting vested interests,” Marshall Islands environment minister David Paul said. “Coal-fired power is the most significant barrier between us and capping temperature rise at 1.5C. For survival, all must stop now.”

Founded by the UK and Canada in 2017, the powering past coal alliance aims to slash reliance on “unabated coal generation” – or coal generation that does not use carbon capture and storage. Without taking into account its new recruits, there are 75 members, including 28 national governments, 19 sub-national governments, and 28 businesses or organisations.

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It is not the first time the alliance has targeted subnational or local governments in countries where the governments have dropped it. The UK and Canada recruited the US states of Connecticut, Hawaii, Minnesota and New York and cities of Honolulu, Los Angeles, even as president Donald Trump continued to prop up ailing coal plants.

Flying in after a dramatic week in domestic politics, Perry also unveiled a set of measures to bolster climate action. The government is set to plough £170 million into decarbonising its heavy industry, with a focus on achieving this through technologies such as carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS).

The funding initiative, which requires beneficiaries to co-invest and partner up with the government, will look to clean up UK factories producing steel, ceramics, cement, chemicals, paper and glass. Many of these are located in the country’s poorest communities, including in Grangemouth, South Wales, Merseyside, Teesside, Humberside and Southampton.

Extinction Rebellion, a protest group, repeatedly heckled Perry, challenging her over her support for fracking.

Perry also reiterated the UK’s keenness to host the 2020 UN climate summit, also known as Cop26.

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Environnement Jeunesse (Enjeu) alleges federal authorities are infringing on the younger generation’s rights by setting inadequate carbon-cutting targets – and failing to take the necessary action to meet them.

The law firm Trudel Johnston & Lespérance, acting pro bono, applied to the Superior Court of Québec on Monday to bring a class action, which Enjeu said was on behalf of the province’s under-35s.

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“Despite the abundance of scientific studies pointing in the same direction, the Canadian government is failing in its duty to take action against climate change,” said Catherine Gauthier, the 29-year-old executive director of Enjeu.

“Instead of accelerating a green transition, Canada is subsidizing oil companies and purchasing a pipeline in our name. We demand that our rights and those of future generations be protected and respected.”

A handful of young activists added their voices to the campaign launch. Bernadette Veilleux-Trinh, a 17-year-old student, said: “The government of Canada funds and protects an oil industry whose activities harm the environment and release greenhouse gasses. In this way, it is jeopardizing future generations’ ability to meet their needs and is contributing to the suffering of populations that are already experiencing the consequences of climate change. It’s time for my government to take responsibility and stop violating the rights of young people.”

Under Justin Trudeau, the Canadian government has signed up to the Paris Agreement and pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions 30% from 2005 levels by 2030.

Its main policy has been to introduce carbon pricing, but to get that passed the administration struck a political bargain with provinces to back a controversial pipeline to deliver oil from Alberta’s tar sands to the coast.

Earlier this year, the government nationalised the Trans Mountain pipeline, despite having signed up to a G7 pledge to phase out fossil fuel subsidies.

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Europe dominates the coalition, with 12 EU member states pledging to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality “in the second half of the century”.

Four new countries – Canada, Denmark, Spain and the United Kingdom – joined the initial 15 members, meaning Europe is strongly represented, with 12 of 19 members.

“Today, we announce we will develop long-term low-greenhouse gases emission climate resilient development strategies, in line with the agreed long-term temperature increase limit. We will do so well ahead of 2020, and if possible by 2018,” reads the declaration of the Carbon Neutrality Coalition.

Marshall Islands commit to going carbon-neutral by 2050

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As EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström visited Canadian minister Jim Carr, they adopted an update to the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (Ceta), which entered into force last year.

The two economies agreed to “promote the mutual supportiveness of trade and climate policies”, with reference to their commitment to the Paris Agreement.

The statement fleshed out Ceta’s provisions for environmental cooperation and underscored US president Donald Trump’s isolation on trade and climate change.

After #ParisAgreement was first mentioned in EU/Japan EPA, #CETA is now following: #Canada/#EU commit to PA & mutual support of trade/climate policies.
However, effectiveness & enforceability of such announcements in trade agreements still not clarified. https://t.co/G6Y2Milw0I pic.twitter.com/pIm90Imjjw

— Felix Schenuit (@FelixSchenuit) September 27, 2018

It came shortly after French president Emmanuel Macron told the UN countries rejecting the Paris pact should not benefit from economy-wide commercial deals.

Asked by Bloomberg if that ruled out a trade pact with Trump’s US, Macron said: “With America disrespecting the Paris Agreement, for sure, I could not accept…

“We are asking a lot of efforts [from] our farmers, our industrials, our citizens precisely to make such a shift [to a low carbon economy]. If you opened your market to products and goods coming from a country that decided not to accept the same rules and constraints, it would be totally crazy.”

EU-Japan trade deal first to carry Paris climate clause

Trump has declared his intention to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement and started dismantling policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

At the same time, he has pursued protectionist trade policies, using his speech at the UN general assembly this week to denounce “globalism”.

Malmström has said any new trade deal must mention the Paris pact, although commission president Jean-Claude Juncker took a softer stance on a visit to Washington DC in July.

What happens in the next few months will impact the future of the Paris Agreement and the global climate

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According to the joint statement, both countries have made significant progress on lowering their fossil fuel subsidies.

“Phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies is an important step in the transition to a low-carbon economy,” said the statement.

Canada and Argentina are the hosts of this year’s G7 and G20 respectively. Those two bodies have pledged to end “inefficient” subsidies for fossil fuel use.

Canada, which is a member of both the G7 and G20, has committed to working to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies every year since 2009. G7 countries put a date on subsidy phase-out two years ago, pledging to ditch the “inefficient” handouts by 2025. The G20 has a similar pledge, but aims for a vaguer “medium term” timeline.

Earlier this month, an NGO review found G7 subsidies were worth $100 billion a year. Subsidies can include anything from government spending on energy infrastructure to price controls on energy.

This month, observers told Climate Home News that Canada’s pledge to spend $3.5bn to nationalise the Kinder Morgan oil pipeline counted as a huge new subsidy.

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“As a G20 country, Argentina reaffirms its commitment to rationalise and phase out, over the medium term, inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption, recognizing the need to support the poor, and we will endeavour to make further progress in moving forward on this commitment,” said Juan José Aranguren, Argentina’s minister of energy and mining.

“[The review] will help us to enhance our energy security, mitigate climate change and keep our focus on those people who really need subsidies,” said Aranguren.

The announcement did not set a deadline for the review to be delivered.

“Canada’s partnership with Argentina in this peer review demonstrates our commitment to ambitious climate and energy policies,” said Jim Carr, Canada’s minister of natural resources.

UNFCCC executive secretary Patricia Espinosa praised the announcement on Twitter. “Phasing out subsidies for fossil fuels is essential to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement,” she said.

Good development that Canada and Argentina have agreed to enter into a peer review of #fossilfuel subsidies https://t.co/TAO5VawOai Phasing out subsidies for fossil fuels is essential to achieving the goals of the #ParisAgreement and #GlobalGoals #G20 #G7 pic.twitter.com/WeXGFvzSgZ

— Patricia Espinosa C. (@PEspinosaC) June 15, 2018

According to a report by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) in June, Canada spent the most per capita of any G7 country on oil and gas production.

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The Liberal administration is set to buy the Trans Mountain Pipeline for C$4.5 billion ($3.5bn) from Kinder Morgan, to push through a controversial expansion.

That is a clear fossil fuel subsidy, critics said, which goes against a G7 pledge to phase out “inefficient” support for polluting sectors by 2025. It comes the week before Canada hosts a summit of G7 leaders.

“The decision by the Canadian government to acquire the Trans Mountain pipeline from Kinder Morgan has essentially been taken because, given the risk, no other private investor would step in,” said Mark Campanale, executive director of the Carbon Tracker Initiative. “It is government subsidising a market failure.”

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As electric vehicles and battery technologies take off, dampening oil demand, he warned, it was likely “taxpayers will be left with a wasting and stranded asset”.

Shelagh Whitley, head of climate and energy at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), expressed disappointment but not surprise at the buyout. “The petrostate was in hiding,” she told Climate Home News. “It is coming to the surface because the free market is not willing to bear this [environmental risk] any more.”

Canada has positioned itself in a global climate leadership role, last year hosting a trilateral “climate action” meeting with ministers from China and the EU and pushing to end coal power. But the pipeline “presents a critical credibility challenge for Canada”, said Greenpeace East Asia campaigner Li Shuo. “It is perverse to develop a major fossil project on one hand, while claiming to drive global climate ambition on the other.”

Report: UK and Canada announce global alliance to end coal power

Prime minister Justin Trudeau came to power in 2015 declaring “Canada is back” on climate change, after Stephen Harper’s scepticism. But from the outset his green zeal was tempered by a political bargain with oil-producing provinces. In exchange for their support to introduce carbon pricing, Trudeau promised to back a new pipeline.

The federal takeover is a last-ditch attempt to deliver on that promise, in the face of strong opposition along the pipeline route from indigenous Canadian territories and British Columbia.

It is intended to be temporary. If and when Ottawa succeeds in getting the project started, it intends to re-privatise the pipeline.

In a statement, Canada’s environment ministry said it had modelled the impact of the Trans Mountain expansion on emissions and could meet national targets while growing the oil and gas sector. “The project fits within our government’s commitment to tackle climate change, create jobs and be a leader in the transition to a low carbon economy,” a spokesperson said. The ministry did not address CHN’s question about whether the buyout conflicted with its G7 pledge on subsidies.

Whitley said the government buyout “absolutely” counted as a subsidy as it was paying to deliver something the market would not.

Supporters argue the state intervention is not a subsidy, however, as this kind of infrastructure can generate revenue. Trevor Tombe, economics professor at the University of Calgary, wrote for CBC news: “Pipelines are regulated assets, like many utilities, with their tolls set by government. So the operator is essentially guaranteed to earn a modest profit.”

Analysis: Investors have made oil majors consider safe climate limits. What next?

That assumes the pipeline will now get built, an outcome campaigners are still fighting. “Just days before Canada hosts the G7 leaders’ summit, the Trudeau government has wasted billions of dollars in Canadian taxpayer money by taking on a doomed pipeline project and all of the liabilities that come along with it,” said Alex Doukas of Oil Change International.

The climate case against the pipeline is that it will increase sales of oil from tar sands, a carbon-intensive source of production, and lock in oil dependence for decades.

Bill McKibben, writer and leader of the keep-it-in-the-ground movement, delivered a withering verdict on Trudeau in the Guardian. History would remember him “not as a dreamy progressive, but as one more pathetic employee of the richest, most reckless industry in the planet’s history”.

The ODI is due to publish a ranking of G7 countries’ progress towards phasing out fossil fuel subsidies on Monday. Previous assessments have found patchy efforts, with stealthy support mechanisms such as tax breaks for oil drilling or capacity payments to old coal generators continuing to prop up legacy industries.

Next week’s G7 summit is set to be a tense affair, as the Donald Trump’s US disagrees with the other advanced economies on more or less everything. Politico reports US officials are using “environmental resilience” as a euphemism for climate change, in a bid to salvage some common ground.

At the last such event in 2017, the US opted out of a statement reaffirming commitment to the Paris climate agreement, but stuck with previously agreed language on ending fossil fuel subsidies.

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On a state visit to Beijing, Canada’s Justin Trudeau and China’s Li Keqiang issued a joint statement that reinforced their commitment to the Paris climate agreement. “It will not be renegotiated”, they said – a message to US president Donald Trump.

The two countries agreed to establish a ministerial dialogue on climate change, to include cooperation on developing carbon markets. Canada has set a nationwide carbon price, while China is looking to establish a national emissions trading scheme, raising the possibility of future international trade in carbon credits.

In full: Leaked EU-China climate statement

They also flagged a closer partnership at UN climate talks. Canada and the EU have vocally championed climate action at these meetings since Trump announced the US was withdrawing from the Paris deal. China has appeared more ambivalent.

Catherine McKenna, Canada’s minister of environment, was at the negotiating table in Beijing. She said the climate announcement, which was released amid discussions of a potential bilateral trade deal, was important for shaping the ongoing trans-Pacific relationship.

“Environmental protection is key to our progressive trade agenda and will provide even greater opportunities for businesses to provide innovative solutions for clean air, water and soil that will lead to good, middle-class jobs and prosperity in both countries,” she said.

The two countries, along with the EU, have made diplomatic efforts during the year to present a united front on climate change. The three hosted a ministerial summit on climate change in Montreal in September.

The statement between Canada and China falls short in detail of a nine page EU-China declaration that was buried at the last minute in June.

Trudeau and Li emphasised cooperation on the deployment of clean energy, while also promising to “promote sustainable energy and resource development, including upstream oil and gas”.

Last month, Canada sent its first shipment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to China. “An event of great significance at a time when China’s demand for LNG is growing rapidly,” according to state newspaper China Daily.

On Monday, Climate Home News reported that gas shortages on northern China were leaving poor households to shiver through nights as cold as -6C.

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The two nations have committed to phase coal out of their electricity generation – by 2025 in the UK and 2030 in Canada.

Canada’s minister for the environment Catherine McKenna and UK climate minister Claire Perry met at the Houses of Parliament in London. Afterwards, they released a joint statement calling for an end to the use of the fuel that creates more carbon emissions than any other.

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“Phasing unabated coal power out of the energy mix and replacing it with cleaner technologies will significantly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, improve the health of our communities, and benefit generations to come,” the ministers said.

The announcement followed a September meeting between leaders Justin Trudeau and Theresa May, during which they agreed to team up on driving the global transition away from coal.

Coal plays a small role in the nations’ electricity mix – producing roughly 9% of electricity in both. Canada already gets 59% percent of its power from hydroelectricity.

In the UK, where coal first ignited the industrial revolution, EU pollution rules and a domestic carbon floor price are rapidly driving the fuel out of the mix. This year, with the growing influence of renewable energy, the UK began experiencing summer days during which not a single coal station needed to be turned on.

“We are doing our part, but we recognise the need to accelerate the international transition from burning coal to using cleaner power sources,” said McKenna and Perry. “Today, we announce that Canada and the UK will champion a global alliance on the transition from unabated coal-fired electricity.”

The term “unabated” means without carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, which can remove CO2 from power station emissions and pump it underground. CCS has yet to take off on a commercial scale.

Both the UK and Canada have significant non-coal fossil fuel industries, which their governments continue to back. The UK recently announced a £5 million subsidy for North Sea oil exploration.

Canada extracts heavy oil from tar sands, in a carbon-intensive process. A number of pipelines are planned to transport that oil to other markets.

On Tuesday at a conference at Chatham House in London, McKenna defended the industry.

“We still are going to get our resources to market in the near term; we are still going to use oil and gas,” she said. “I am elected to represent the people of Canada… that includes tar sands workers.”

Report: Netherlands to end coal power by 2030, closing down new plants

The ministers did not specify which countries they viewed as prospective alliance members. The Netherlands is a recent candidate to join, after announcing a coal phase out by 2030 on Wednesday.

For many other nations, joining the UK and Canada will be more difficult politically or technically. Developing countries argue that it is the responsibility of the rich to end their use of coal first. India’s government is adamant it will continue burning coal “for decades to come”.

The UK-Canada alliance will be launched at the COP23 climate talks in Bonn, Germany in November. In Germany, coal still produces 40% of electricity.

Next week, a group of oddly-matched left and right parties will begin negotiations to build a coalition government. A coal phase out promises to be a tough issue.

German Green politicians told Clean Energy Wire and Climate Home this week that there would not be a coalition without progress on climate change. Chancellor Angela Merkel will have to balance this against her own conservative party’s cautious stance on the energy transition and that of the economically liberal Free Democratic Party.

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Canada and EU countries have seized the diplomatic initiative on climate change in 2017. Last month, representatives of 35 countries met in Montreal hosted by Canada, China and the EU. The meeting replaced a similar climate leadership group formerly hosted by the US.

At Chatham House, McKenna said the political upheavals in Canada’s neighbour had “strengthened their resolve” to tackle climate change.

“It used to be the US hosted major economies to discuss and advance action. This was certainly the case under president Obama,” said McKenna. When it became clear this would not happen under Donald Trump – in June he announced he would withdraw the US from the Paris climate deal as soon as possible – McKenna flew to Berlin to meet Chinese and EU counterparts.

“We had a discussion for the need for global leadership and the need for us to step up,” she said.

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Canada’s Justin Trudeau there, speaking to a school kid in November 2016 who asked him what he’d say to a world leader who thought climate change was baloney (just imagine).

Roll on a few months and the guardian of climate scientists, banshee of warming disasters had this to say about the construction of a vast oil pipeline through Canada and the US.

“I’ve been on record supporting Keystone XL… we know we can get our resources to market more safely and responsibly while meeting our climate change goals.”

Keystone XL, it is estimated, would carry 800,000 barrels of tar sands oil every day over nearly 900 miles. It’s dirty stuff, by anyone’s reckoning. Each barrel would have a carbon footprint 17% higher than conventional oil, said the State Department.

Truly, you might say, Trudeau is a man for all seasons, presidents and energy mixes. Usually the last one that he happens to spot.

#Trump timeline: tracking the US #climate action crackdown https://t.co/4Nk9HhR8Ys

— Climate Home News (@ClimateHome) January 25, 2017

To place this in context, this is a man who has keenly – and successfully – tried to rebrand Canada as a climate progressive, pushing it back into the heart of UN climate summits.

Where before the North American energy giant was seen as a blocker, Trudeau directed his media-savvy environment chief Catherine McKenna to play a central role in securing a global climate deal.

At UN climate summits in 2015 and 2016 McKenna talked passionately about the dangers of climate change to Canada, the perils of Arctic melt and the concerns of first-nations.

She even managed to get into the so-called High Ambition Coalition pushing for a tough climate pact – that despite Canada’s carbon cutting pledges getting a tough ride from green groups.

In June 2016 US environment chief Gina McCarthy talked of “kindred sprits in Canada”, alluding to what seemed a rock-solid climate alliance between Trudeau and Barack Obama.

FLASHBACK: June 2016 – Canada, Mexico and US agree new #climate partnership https://t.co/eh6bKo37lx pic.twitter.com/FXemxY8bZy

— Climate Home News (@ClimateHome) January 25, 2017

Caps on methane emissions, a 2025 goal to source 50% of electricity from low carbon sources and a ban on Arctic oil drilling were among the headline initiatives secured by Ottawa and DC.

This followed on a national deal to implement a carbon tax by 2018, built on legal frameworks delivered by provinces through 2015 and 2016.

Still, the polish is starting to wear off, and Canada’s climate perkiness shows signs of drooping.

The pressure Trudeau faces from the oil-rich heartlands of Alberta – Canada’s Texas – is intense, illustrated in a painful “Town Hall” event he fronted on Tuesday.

Pinned on his recent comment that fossil fuels and oil sands will need to be phased out in time, a man wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat accused him of being a “liar or confused”.

“You’re in Alberta right now, sir. You’re not in Ottawa,” he shouted at Trudeau. “Yet when you come to Calgary, you tell people you’re sorry.”

Analysis: 6 bits of crucial context for Trudeau tar sands “gaffe”

Angry man received an apology from a mollified PM. “We know our transition off of fossil fuels is going to take a long time. My responsibility now… is making sure Canadians have good jobs,” he said.

“Making sure communities are prospering… and doing it in a way that understands our responsibility to the environment and future generations.”

Politically it was the wise answer. Scientifically Trudeau’s stance is highly dubious. As he told the kids last November, it’s important to “listen to all major climate science organisations”.

Do that and the answers are clear: the estimated tar sands reserves contain enough CO2 to bust half the remaining carbon budget scientists say is left before 2C of warming is highly likely.

Unlocking Keystone XL makes this more likely, as do the other two pipelines signed off by Trudeau ahead of Christmas.

It’s a tough job being Canada’s PM, one made even harder by the election of Donald Trump. But the science is there, and Trudeau has a decision to make.

Will he do the right thing and the smart thing?

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The post Justin Trudeau: climate leader or charlatan? appeared first on Climate Home News.

The verdicts, there, of columnists from the Edmonton Sun and National Post on a supposed “gaffe” that dominated the Canadian media this weekend.

How had the prime minister so embarrassed himself? He had the temerity to suggest, in a town hall meeting in Ontario, that the country ultimately needs to get out of the tar sands business.

“We can’t shut down the oil sands tomorrow. We need to phase them out. We need to manage the transition off of our dependence on fossil fuels. That is going to take time,” said Trudeau.

Underlying this backlash is anxiety about jobs – a recognisable theme from many declining industrial and extractive regions across the world.

If his opponents are genuinely outraged by this, though, they clearly haven’t been paying attention lately – let’s put Trudeau’s remarks in context.

1. 195 countries agree

At a 2015 UN summit in Paris, 195 governments adopted a deal to put a lid on dangerous climate change.

The agreement promised “to achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks… in the second half of the century”.

That’s effectively a fossil fuel phase-out. Coal, oil and gas can only be burned if their emissions are pumped underground or offset by large-scale tree planting, for example.

2. Even Saudi Arabia

Yes, the world’s biggest oil producer has ratified the Paris pact. What is more, it plans to diversify its economy away from hydrocarbons.

Deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Salman reckons that by 2035, the kingdom will no longer be financially dependent on oil.

That may be tough in practice and not everyone shares the young reformer-in-chief’s optimism. But debate about the end of the oil era has entered the mainstream.

3. Stephen Harper said the same

Trudeau’s predecessor may have pulled Canada out of the Kyoto Protocol, but he endorsed this agenda before leaving office.

It was Harper who signed a G7 statement ahead of the Paris summit committing Canada to decarbonise its energy sector by 2050 and entire economy by 2100.

G7 countries are responsible for nearly a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions (Pic: Number 10/Flickr)

4. This won’t happen overnight

In the very same video clip, Trudeau defends new oil pipelines he has approved, clearly signalling a role for tar sands for decades yet.

Environmentalists complain he is giving out mixed messages, posing as a climate leader on one hand and facilitating oil development on the other.

Trudeau argues his administration has “a fundamental responsibility” to get Canada’s resources to market, until the world develops large scale alternatives.

5. The market will decide

Nobody knows quite how fast economies will switch over from combustion engines to electric vehicles, but the direction of travel is clear.

As climate policies and clean technology kick in, the most expensive sources of oil will be the first to go. Tar sands, which take a lot of energy to process, are on the expensive end of the scale.

Established fields could stay viable for 20 or 30 years, according to Andrew Grant, an analyst at Carbon Tracker, but new ventures are risky. “There is a danger of Canadian investors misreading future demand for oil,” he told Climate Home.

6. Time to talk just transition

Trudeau’s critics are right about about one thing: this affects workers.

When communities are built around one commodity and it tanks, it’s hugely disruptive. Thousands of staff were laid off in Alberta after oil prices slumped from mid-2014.

Climate policies will undermine oil demand and ultimately the level of employment in that sector. There are no easy answers, but think-tanks like the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives are preparing for a “just transition” to greener jobs.

Instead of whipping up empty outrage, right wingers would do well to get involved in that discussion.

The post Six bits of crucial context for Trudeau tar sands “gaffe” appeared first on Climate Home News.

In the past 15 months the governor of the Bank of England has delivered four keynote speeches focused on global warming and participated in a UN climate summit.

Carney doesn’t do soaring rhetoric: what he does do is grind out a series of carefully calibrated warnings on the impact a warming world could have on the financial markets.

“Once climate change becomes a defining issue for financial stability, it may already be too late,” he told the UK insurance industry at a September 2015 event at Lloyds of London.

“Climate change is a tragedy of the horizon which imposes a cost on future generations that the current one has no direct incentive to fix,” he warned German business leaders a year later.

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As chairman of the G20 nations’ Financial Stability Board, Carney has overseen studies into the potential of green finance flows and the need for greater transparency on climate risk.

The latter was presented in London this week in a smart but low-key launch at the Tate Modern, attended by media and representatives from banking and industry leaders.

Mandated by the G20 and chaired by former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, the thick report may prove to be a turning point in the way the financial services sector thinks about climate change.

It sets out recommendations supported by Barclays, HSBC, Tata Steel and the China Development Bank for tougher climate risk analysis across all sectors – including fossil fuel majors.

It details how companies should map out how they will fare if the 195 countries that agreed the Paris climate deal deliver on their plan to cut carbon emissions to virtually zero by 2050.

Report: G20 panel tells energy giants to come clean on climate risks

“This is a solution for the market, by the market,” said Carney. “With the right information, financial markets can smooth the transition to a 2C world,” he added.

There’s nothing on polar bears, penguins, wind turbines or the need to go vegan in Carney’s playbook. He’s so dull he can be hard to quote, but his words make sense to the banking community.

“There have been lots of attempts to give companies guidance, but none of those have come from the Financial Stability Board or the governor of the Bank of England,” says Steve Waygood, head of Aviva Investors sustainable and responsible investment team.

“He’s a climate hero for bringing in a vital constituency,” says Mark Campanale, a former banker now running the Carbon Tracker Initiative (CTI). “He says straightforward things: markets have to price risk and we need more data and scenario analysis.”

Carney’s impact on media coverage of climate is instructive. Where green groups target the Guardian, New York Times and other centre-left outfits, when the governor talks climate he’s reported across the mainstream media.

That makes him a target for critics, notably those who want him to stick to his “day job” as governor.

“Who put Mark Carney in charge of climate policy?” asked the Daily Telegraph’s business columnist Jeremy Warner in 2015, branding his interest in the issue “well meaning” but “reckless”.

Former chancellor Lord Lawson – founder of the climate sceptic Global Warming Policy Foundation – has long called on Carney to face the sack, accusing him of “engaging in green claptrap”.

Times writer Tim Montgomerie was equally dismissive this week – tweeting the governor was “not running” to be the next prime minister of Canada yet.

Mark Carney has opinions on many things but he's not running to be Canada's PM yet and should focus on his day job https://t.co/XPmP9EZwjc

— Tim Montgomerie (@montie) December 14, 2016

What’s curious about these mini-blowouts is that Carney actually says relatively little on climate policy – simply that countries and companies should be aware of the risks they face.

“Participants in the Lloyd’s market know all too well that what appear to be low probability risks can evolve into large and unforeseen costs over a longer timescale,” he said in last September’s address.

Carney did touch on the stranded assets debate – the chance that some oil, gas and coal reserves could become worthless if the global transition to a greener economy accelerates.

But here again he is not saying anything new – just taking seriously the 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calculations on what remains in the carbon budget for 2C.

“If that estimate is even approximately correct it would render the vast majority of reserves ‘stranded’ – oil, gas and coal that will be literally unburnable without expensive carbon capture technology, which itself alters fossil fuel economics,” he said.

Report: Climate divested funds now bigger than listed oil, gas sector

Critics of his interventions are “dangerously misguided” argues Waygood, who says Aviva and the wider insurance industry “strongly support” his stance.

“We’re at one end of a spectrum of risk. Warming beyond 4C (above pre industrial levels) is an existential risk for the insurance sector.”

#Climatechange in 17 tweets, by @ed_hawkins https://t.co/eCuB3Xls65 pic.twitter.com/9YQMLf5rzd

— Climate Home News (@ClimateHome) December 13, 2016

Jane Ambachtsheer, global head of Responsible Investment at Mercer Investments, says Carney’s warnings are pushing at an open door.

“There have been clear signals from the investment community in the last decade that companies are interested in assessing climate risk,” she says. “The fact over 6,000 already report [on climate risk] voluntarily through CDP suggests that message is getting through.”

Where Carney’s desire to drum up climate warnings come from is not clear – one report says his wife Diana is an “eco warrior” who wants to return consumption to “sustainable” levels.

We also know he met UN climate chief Christiana Figueres for a business breakfast in October 2015, and that he received a presentation on Carbon Tracker Initiative’s “unburnable carbon” report earlier that year.

But reading through his speeches, what comes across is less a passionate treehugger and more a man who has looked at the data and thinks investors could do with a little more clarity.

It’s a message he will doubtless take to the World Economic Forum in Davos next month, where he’s due to host a climate round-table.

“Given the uncertainties around climate, not everyone will agree on the timing or the scale of adjustments required to achieve this goal,” he said at yesterday’s report launch.

“But the right information will allow optimists and pessimists, sceptics and evangelists, to back their convictions with their capital.“

The post Mark Carney, the unlikely climate champion appeared first on Climate Home News.

On Tuesday, he was accused of sending conflicted messages on climate change after authorising construction of two pipelines for tar sands oil.

In the past year, the Trudeau administration has been one of the more vocal in calling for tougher global greenhouse gas cuts and joined a ‘high ambition’ group of countries backing climate action.

But green groups say Trudeau’s decision to back the pair of projects – which are valued at C$11.8 billion – runs counter to his claims that the world needs to move away from fossil fuels.

In a series of tweets on his official account the prime minister said pipelines would “protect the environment and grow the economy”, citing nearly 200 “binding conditions” on developers.

Trudeau reveals playbook for tackling Trump climate denial: https://t.co/MiDVrAcWQf pic.twitter.com/wHEBrr8tAT

— Climate Home News (@ClimateHome) November 29, 2016

“A clear message has emerged through our government’s extensive consultations with Canadians: the economy and the environment go hand in hand,” read an accompanying statement.

One pipeline will run from the tar sands heartlands of Alberta to British Columbia; the second will see an existing 1,000km pipeline from Alberta to Manitoba replaced.

Oil extracted from tar sands is one of the most carbon-intensive fuel stocks on the planet, and causes widespread environmental damage during extraction and refining.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the pipelines mean Alberta’s tar sands industry will be able to ship an extra 1.1 million barrels of oil per day.

A third proposed project was rejected on the grounds it was not in the public interest and would see an increase in oil tankers navigating sensitive ecosystems.

FULL STATEMENT from Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson on Kinder Morgan decision. pic.twitter.com/TLrdRz7xWo

— Kamil Karamali (@KamilKaramali) November 29, 2016

Limits to shipments of oil along British Columbia’s north coast were also announced, with legislation due in early 2017.

The announcement illustrates the delicate line Canada’s federal government is taking on climate change and oil exploration, reluctant to squeeze a multi-billion dollar industry that employs thousands.

Plans for a nationwide carbon price from 2018 and a promise to axe coal use by 2030 grabbed headlines, as did the province of Alberta’s landmark decision in 2015 to cap the emissions of its tar sands industry.

Still, the country is projected to miss its climate targets under the Paris Agreement: there the government pledged to cut emissions 30% on 2005 levels by 2030, but analysts at Climate Action Tracker say they are on track to rise 1-7%.

Under that agreement, signatory countries aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero in the second half of the century and limit warming to “well below” 2C above pre industrialised levels.

Interview: Meet the woman who took on Canada’s tar sand barons

The decision means Canada “in one fell swoop” will not meet its targets under the UN climate agreement says Josh Axelrod, an analyst with NRDC Canada.

“Today’s announcement gives that industry decades worth of growth potential, a fact that will ensure soaring Canadian emissions for the foreseeable future.

“Indeed, the annual lifecycle emissions from the oil carried by these two pipelines could exceed 271 million metric tons, the same as 57 million passenger vehicles.”

Adam Scott from the campaign group Oil Change International said the move had “squandered” Trudeau’s climate credibility and moves to embrace indigenous communities.

“There is no need for any additional pipeline capacity. Oil Change International recently released a report showing how the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers is misleading Canadians on the need for new pipelines,” he added.

“Vancouver will continue to raise concerns about Kinder Morgan’s massive expansion that could bring seven times the number of oil tankers to our waters,” said the city’s mayor Gregor Robertson.

“I – along with the tens of thousands of residents, local First Nations, and other Metro Vancouver cities who told the federal government a resounding ‘no’ to this project.”

The post Tar sand pipelines batter Canada’s climate leader tag appeared first on Climate Home News.

So asks a young chap called Joe in a question and answer session with Canada’s prime minister that was posted online this week.

Given Justin Trudeau’s team likely had the Q&A well in advance to ensure there were no banana skins (why do you think Fidel Castro is so great?) his answer is as revealing as it is punchy.

“It’s about doing the right thing and doing the smart thing,” says the 44-year-old, who has painted Canada as a climate champion since taking office in November 2015.

Then he lays out his playbook for talking up climate action to this “leader”, who just might be based a few hundred miles south in Washington DC come January.

“First I’m going to talk about the science. We’re going to encourage anyone who has questions about climate change to listen to all the major science organisations and top scientists who know climate change is real and that human action is mostly responsible for it, and I’ll appeal to the sense that we have to work hard today to build a better future for tomorrow.”

But Trudeau knows the old science line doesn’t always work. He knows that some world leaders – say for example the future US president Donald Trump – think climate change is a hoax made up by the Chinese.

So he’s got a few other plays up his sleeve. “If that’s not enough I will also talk about the opportunity that comes with climate change that fact that we should be investing now in cleaner technology,” he says.

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He’s going to say cutting greenhouse gas emissions will create good jobs, economic growth and “opportunities” for the world to become less polluted.

“Those are the conversations that I’ll have, respectfully but firmly that we need to act to build a better future with better jobs and a cleaner environment,” he adds.

So there you have it. Justin Trudeau’s climate spiel for Donald Trump, who promised on the campaign trail to quit the Paris climate agreement once he takes office.

By tradition the first foreign trip by a US president is to Canada, so we won’t have to wait long to see if this works.

The post Trudeau reveals playbook on tackling Trump climate denial appeared first on Climate Home News.

Nova Scotia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick are the provinces impacted by the federal deadline, although McKenna said there could be flexibility on exact phase-out dates.

Coal accounts for around 10% of the country’s electricity in a grid dominated by hydropower.

“Our goal is to make Canada’s electricity 90% non-emitting by 2030,” she said in a statement, which left open the possibility coal-plants could continue by using carbon capture technology.

This hour: @ec_minister Catherine McKenna says Canada will phase out coal power; goal is 90% non-emitting sources and 5mt reduction by 2030 pic.twitter.com/3uokK8d41J

— CPAC (@CPAC_TV) November 21, 2016

Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan rely on coal for well over 40% of power generation, and will be the hardest hit provinces. New Brunswick has one coal plant while Alberta is already on track to ditch coal by 2030.

The announcement comes days after Canada released a carbon-cutting plan through 2050, targeting an 80% cut in emissions on 2005 levels.

Earlier this year prime minister Justin Trudeau said the country would also adopt a nationwide carbon pricing scheme from 2018.

The post Canada quits coal, government sets 2030 deadline appeared first on Climate Home News.

The choreography of launching the 2050 plans, months in the making, was thrown off by last week’s shock US election result, which put climate sceptic Donald Trump in the White House.

But at a packed side event to the climate negotiations on Thursday, three panels worth of ministers and top officials lined up to show their enthusiasm for long term planning.

Peru, Ethiopia and Norway were among 22 countries backing the “2050 pathways platform” championed by French envoy Laurence Tubiana. Fifteen cities and nearly 200 businesses are also on board.

“The 2050 pathways have a critical role to play in the transition, because while having a good plan is never a sufficient condition for success, not having one is always a recipe for failure,” said Tubiana.

#Marrakech mail: sign up here for your daily #COP22 update

The US and Canada outline routes to an 80% reduction in emissions from 2005 levels by 2050. Germany’s plan is in line with the EU goal of an 80-95% cut from 1990 levels – not at the most ambitious end of that range, as campaigners had urged. Mexico, as an emerging economy, is aiming to halve emissions from 2000.

The US report runs to 111 pages, covering everything from the roll-out of electric vehicles to the uncertain prospects for sucking carbon out of the air.

“It’s not a new target but an analytics exercise to explore how the US might decarbonise major sectors of our economy through 2050 and beyond,” said lead negotiator Jonathan Pershing.

Ministra Galarza en firma del “2050 Pathways Platform”, compromiso de paises para reducción de emisiones #COP22 pic.twitter.com/7r4JOwmA3L

— Ministerio Ambiente (@MinamPeru) November 17, 2016

Germany’s version, agreed on Monday after extensive public consultation and wrangling between the economic and environment ministries, has a similar heft at 90 pages.

It is about sending signals to the market, explained Jochen Flasbarth, state secretary at the German environment ministry.

Taking car makers as an example, he said: “If you would go for a 30-40% greenhouse gas cut in the transport sector, you could go to biofuels and more efficient engines to meet the targets. But if you want to meet the Paris targets, it will not be enough. It is important to invest in the right technologies.”

Canada environment minister Catherine McKenna used an ice hockey analogy, loosely quoting famous player Wayne Gretzky:  “You skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where the puck has been.”

Climate Interactive models show the 2050 plans bending the curve of global warming predictions – but not enough for 2C

The overarching goal of the Paris Agreement is to hold global temperature rise “well below 2C” from pre-industrial levels and “pursue efforts” to stay within 1.5C.

Those on the front line of climate impacts like rising sea levels and drought demanded the tougher threshold, with support from developed countries including those putting forward 2050 plans in Marrakech.

Yet none of the emissions trajectories are in line with 1.5C, according to analysis from Climate Interactive, in a further blow to the hopes of vulnerable states.

And 2C is only achievable if other major emitters step up, the consultancy said. It estimates that India would need to peak emissions between 2025 and 2035, for example – a notion the developing country has been reluctant to engage with, prioritising energy access to lift people out of poverty.

“For any of these strategies to be in line with 1.5C or 2C requires all the other countries to act as well,” said co-author of the analysis Ellie Johnston.

The post Three amigos launch beyond-Trump 2050 climate strategies appeared first on Climate Home News.

Provinces and territories need to set a price of at least C$10 a tonne, rising to $50 by 2022, he told parliament – or decrease emissions at an equivalent pace through a cap-and-trade system.

That will drag sceptical jurisdictions like Saskatchewan and Manitoba along with those already embracing the agenda.

“After decades of inaction and years of missed opportunities, we will finally take real and concrete measures to build a clean economy, create more opportunities for Canadians, and make our world better for our children and our grandchildren,” Trudeau said.

Under previous PM Stephen Harper, Canada withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol as it became clear the country was not meeting its emissions targets.

While the Trudeau administration has not changed the headline goal, it is more serious about meeting it, environment minister Catherine McKenna told Climate Home.

“We have got a target set by the previous government, but the challenge is: they did nothing and emissions rose,” she said in an interview during Climate Week NYC. “We are absolutely committed to taking action on climate change.”

Already, 80% of Canadians live in a jurisdiction that is pricing carbon, she noted, while many businesses support the approach.

“The good companies want this because it is going to position themselves well, it is going to move Canada to a cleaner economy,” she said.

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Quebec has an active carbon market and Ontario is poised to link to it in 2018. British Columbia has a carbon tax and even tar sands producer Alberta is getting in on the act after a change of leadership last year.

Some of the country’s sparsely populated but resource-rich regions are less keen. At the opening of Saskatchewan’s parliament in April, the Throne Speech hit out against “misguided dogma” that threatened energy sector jobs.

Federal opposition spokesman Ed Fast accused Trudeau of using a “sledgehammer” to force regional authorities into line, asking: “What happened to his promised new era of co-operative federalism?”

Trudeau countered that the provinces had flexibility over how they introduced a carbon price.

Profile: Meet the woman who took on Canada’s tar sand barons

Matt Horne of think-tank the Pembina Institute, described the announcement as an “important milestone”.

“An incentive to cut carbon pollution that will grow over time is a big positive for the country from coast to coast,” he said.

“It will help the country’s environment and economy as we compete for the rapidly growing global demand for clean energy.”

The International Emissions Trading Association urged provinces to chose carbon markets over a tax.

“We have seen time and again the effectiveness of cap and trade in delivering real reductions at prices that both drive innovation and ensure that all cost effective measures are implemented by those industries covered by the system,” said the industry group’s Katie Sulllivan.

The post Canada to set national carbon tax from 2018 – Trudeau appeared first on Climate Home News.

The commitment, signed at the second annual Climate Summit of the Americas in Guadalajara, Mexico, represents a step towards more emissions trading across borders.

“To effectively fight climate change, we must work together on a global scale,” said Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne.

“This milestone declaration will boost cooperation between our three regions and drive the reduction of carbon emissions across North America.”

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Quebec is already running a cap-and-trade system linked to California’s, with pollution permits changing hands for US$13 a tonne of carbon dioxide. Ontario set a similar programme in motion in July, with the intention of joining the established market in 2018. Mexico is preparing to pilot a carbon market in autumn.

The International Emissions Trading Association advocates for emissions trading as a way to spur polluters into cutting emissions where it is cheapest to do so.

Katie Sullivan, Americas director at IETA, said: “This declaration is further evidence that national and sub-national jurisdictions can link their cap-and-trade systems to achieve even greater economies of scale and access lower-cost reductions.”

UK envoy: Carbon pricing ‘too sluggish’ to meet climate goals

While favoured by the World Bank, IMF and several world leaders, carbon pricing has been slower to take off than many hoped. A World Bank review in 2015 counted 38 schemes covering about 12% of global emissions.

Critics say prices in most markets are too low to spur significant investment in clean technology, while industry lobbies continue to oppose measures to tighten supply.

Still, China is developing what will be the world’s largest national emissions trading system, while regional link-ups are seen as a way to complement or exceed national ambition.

California has unveiled plans to reinvest some US$900 million of carbon market revenues in green initiatives ranging from a clean vehicle subsidy to reducing methane from livestock.

The post Mexico, Ontario, Quebec pledge carbon market cooperation appeared first on Climate Home News.

“It is the single largest and most destructive project on earth,” she says. Running for as far as the eye can see are “mines and open pits where toxic water is pumped out into areas the size of lakes.

“You can smell it and feel it. It is incredibly toxic – if you spend more a couple of hours your eyes start to run, your skin hurts.”

Labelled as a “whacked out nature worshipper” by the government in the 1990s, the veteran environmental campaigner has long had Alberta’s oil industry in her sights.

Where conventional oil is extracted by drilling, crude from the sands is excavated by huge diggers and intensively refined to turn it into a useable product.

The technique consumes large amounts of energy and generates 100 million litres of toxic water a day. But it’s also a huge money-spinner. In 2014, Alberta’s royalties hit C$5.2 billion.

This explains why previous attempts to nix the sands were non-starters.

Even some civil society groups were reluctant to call for government intervention to impose tough regulations, fearful of the wider funding implications for healthcare and education.

Yet in late November 2015, four of Canada’s largest oil sand producers agreed to a historic cap on their greenhouse gas emissions.

The limit agreed by Suncor, Cenovus, CNRL and Shell Canada with the provincial government was not that radical: 100 megatonnes a year, up from 70Mt today.

But for a province that relied on fossil fuel extraction for 70% of its revenues the cap, along with a 2030 coal phase out and planned $15 a tonne carbon price, was an unprecedented step towards a greener future.

“This is a game changer,” said Suncor CEO Steve Williams. “We are doing our part to address one of the world’s greatest problems,” said Alberta premier Rachel Notley.

Announced weeks before the Paris climate summit – where the UN hoped 195 countries would sign a new climate change pact – it was also a sign of Canada’s shifting position on global warming.

Report: Canada’s most populous province passes climate change law

Elected to power earlier that year, Notley’s New Democrat Party took most of the plaudits for the deal – which would have been unlikely to pass under the Conservatives, who held the office for 44 years.

Underpinning it, though, were controversial negotiations between the oil giants and green groups including ForestEthics, Environmental Defense and the Pembina Institute.

Running since 2013, the talks were unpopular with veteran Canadian environmentalists like bestselling author Naomi Klein, who had long fought the tar sand companies.

Not so Berman, who emerged as a key player in the discussions and rejects any accusation of selling out in an interview with Climate Home in London.

New Nature study: Tar sands are bad for the planet, but also really terrible for people https://t.co/b0TWddOvZo

— Climate Reality (@ClimateReality) July 7, 2016

“The oil companies have been between rock and hard place; the controversy around tar sands development has been so huge, international campaigns have been so effective,” she says.

“I would say the climate movement and indigenous groups have stopped or delayed every pipeline in North America coming from the tar sands in the last 10 years… it’s landlocked.”

Sensing the walls closing in, the industry turned to green groups in an effort to clean up its image.

For green groups, Berman argues it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to at least start a conversation about an Albertan climate policy – one that previously had been off the agenda.

“To be clear, this is not policy that is equal to a 1.5 or 2C world,” she says.

“Like all climate policy it is historic and insufficient, but it does cap emissions which with today’s technology, mothballs a third of permits and millions of barrels will stay in ground because of that.”

Report: Alberta targets tar sands, coal in climate turnabout

The two-year dialogue took the form of eight meetings. Some companies sensed the “writing was on the wall” as a new UN climate deal turned into a reality, others eyed a new revenue stream.

Producers hope to stay under the emissions limit by investing in cleaner extraction technology, staying competitive as the carbon price rises from C$20 a barrel in 2017 to C$30 in 2018.

“More progressive companies believe they will be allowed to produce under the limit, because they are going to be the cleanest,” she says, adding she thinks production levels will be lower in 10 years.

“Their goal is to reduce emissions per barrel… but right now it’s a gamble – the oil companies think they will be able to compete for whatever smaller slice oil makes up in the pie in the future.

“Maybe that’s true, I think they have a tough hill to climb. It’s one of the most expensive and high carbon and still extremely controversial.”

Report: US, Canada, Mexico agree climate partnership

Now Alberta’s policy is in place, Berman says it’s game on, not only in the province but across the country, which under prime minister Justin Trudeau is taking a hawkish stance on climate.

In scenes virtually impossible under his predecessor Stephen Harper, Canada joined the “High Ambition Coalition” at the Paris talks, agreeing to target an ambitious 1.5C warming ceiling.

Subsequently, Trudeau has signed a number of climate accords with US president Barack Obama, most recently a clean energy pledge to source 50% of electricity from low carbon sources by 2025.

Part of this new dawn is linked to Alberta’s stance on emissions, says Berman, which “unlocked polarisation” among provinces and the federal government.

Severe floods in 2013 and intense wildfires in 2016 have only added to a national sense that climate change is a real and present danger, she argues.

Report: Saskatchewan denies climate science as wildfires lick its border

Still, it seems unlikely the tar sands will disappear anytime soon: Shell has invested in a $1.35 billion carbon capture facility in Alberta, which it hopes will capture 1 million tonnes of CO2 a year.

That suggests more collaboration and cooperation between natural enemies may be needed in the decades to come.

For her part, if it means she can get oil companies to agree tougher regulations, Berman is happy to engage.

“The solutions in the climate era are not black or white, they are various shades of grey. We’re not going go from no climate policy to the policy equivalent of 1.5C overnight,” she says.

“I’m going to do everything I can to ratchet up climate policy and also to support a growing and thriving movement that’s calling for the type of action we need to ensure climate safety.

“It’s not an either or. I think it’s both.”

The post Meet the woman who took on Canada’s tar sand barons appeared first on Climate Home News.

Mexico also joined an initiative by the US and Canada to cut methane emissions from the oil and gas sector 40-45% over the same period.

Leaders Justin Trudeau, Barack Obama and Enrique Peña Nieto pledged to work together on building a clean energy economy, following a meeting in Ottawa.

President Obama praised Mexico’s “remarkable leadership” on climate change and delivering on the Paris climate pact.

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The clean power goal is “eminently attainable, but it’s not a slam dunk,” blogged Clare Demerse, policy expert at Clean Energy Canada.

Today, 37% comes from nuclear, renewables or fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage. To achieve the 2025 goal, nearly all new generation capacity must be clean, she said, accelerating an existing trend.

Canada is ahead of its neighbours, with 65% renewable and 16% nuclear on the grid, making it well placed to export. The countries agreed to collaborate on cross-border electricity transmission projects.

Meanwhile, methane rules tackle a greenhouse gas 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide over a 100 year timeframe.

The target adopted by all three countries will have an impact equivalent to taking 85 million cars off the road, analysts at the Environmental Defense Fund, Centro Mario Molina and Pembina Institute calculate.

Sam Adams, US director of the World Resources Institute, said the deal set a “powerful example” to others.

“Sharing a common vision for the future, these leaders recognize the importance of providing economic stability and greater climate security for the long term,” he said.

The post US, Canada, Mexico agree climate partnership appeared first on Climate Home News.

Opening parliament after an April election returned Brad Wall as premier, his Saskatchewan Party hit out at critics of fossil fuel extraction.

In its Throne Speech, delivered by lieutenant governor Vaughn Solomon Schofield, the administration did not refer to climate change directly.

But it accused opponents of threatening jobs in coal, oil and gas sectors, “all in the name of some misguided dogma that has no basis in reality”.

That amounted to a dismissal of the overwhelming scientific consensus burning those fuels raises global temperatures and disrupts the climate.

Report: Climate change elevates threat of wildfires

The assertion came as one of the projected consequences of global warming – more frequent and severe wildfires – materialised on the province’s borders.

A blaze that started in neighbouring Alberta, forcing the evacuation of 80,000 people from Fort McMurray, expanded eastwards.

While forest fires are a natural occurrence in the region, the scale of this one is exceptional, burning nearly 5,000 square kilometres (2,000 sq miles) and counting.

That is equivalent to the area of Alberta affected by wildfires in the whole of 2015, itself a worse than average year for fires.

Plumes of smoke rise above raging Alberta wildfires (NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC)

The inferno has edged close to tar sands sites, temporarily curbing production.

It is raising the temperature, too, of national debate on a proposed oil pipeline expansion across the Rocky Mountains.

The National Energy Board conditionally approved the C$6.8 billion Trans Mountain project on Thursday, saying it was in the national interest and environmental risks were manageable.

Environmentalists criticised the body for not taking into account the greenhouse gas emissions from enabling a rise in tar sands extraction.

“The National Energy Board has no business supporting this dangerous proposal after utterly failing to consider the climate chaos associated with tar sands development,” said Marcie Keever of Friends of the Earth US.

Report: Canada’s most populous province passes climate change law

To advocates, however, it is the shot in the arm the economy needs to recover from wildfire damage.

Tim McMillan, CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said: “Getting the green light on energy infrastructure projects such as the Trans Mountain Expansion would be a tremendous stimulus for the Canadian economy.”

It is not a done deal, with Justin Trudeau’s federal administration expected to take a final decision later this year.

While Trudeau has signalled a desire to unite the provinces behind a more ambitious climate policy, his stance on the pipeline remains unclear.

His friendship with US president Barack Obama, who was eventually persuaded to block Keystone XL on climate grounds, will hearten greens. So too will promises to improve relations with indigenous groups, who are largely against the development.

On the other hand, Trudeau supported Keystone XL and has described blocking pipelines as a “simplistic solution” to the complex problem of climate change.

Saskatchewan’s refusal to acknowledge that problem even exists underlines the challenge of rehabilitating Canada’s carbon-cutting policies.

The post Saskatchewan denies climate science as wildfires lick its border appeared first on Climate Home News.

Canada’s most populous province, home to 14 million people, aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions 37% from 1990 levels by 2030 and 80% by 2050.

It is establishing a cap-and-trade system for emissions, expected to launch next March and ultimately link up with Quebec and California’s carbon market.

Under the new law, all the proceeds – estimated at US$2 billion a year – will be invested in green initiatives like installing renewable power and insulating buildings.

Environment minister Glen Murray said passing the act “marks the start of the next chapter in Ontario’s transformation to an innovative and prosperous low-carbon economy…

“This legislation is about enshrining in law our resolve and action to protect and strengthen our environment for generations to come.”

Report: Canada delays new climate plan as provinces rebel

Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau promised to rebuild the country’s climate credibility on his election last November.

Under predecessor Stephen Harper, it had pulled out of international treaty the Kyoto Protocol and gone all out for polluting tar sands extraction.

Yet the policies needed to deliver emissions cuts are largely set at provincial level and each has different ideas.

A new government in Alberta pledged to cap tar sands expansion and levy a carbon tax. It continues to support new oil pipelines, however, which critics argue are incompatible with international climate goals.

That debate only intensified as wildfires ravaged Fort McMurray, a town of 80,000 people, in recent weeks. Studies have linked increasingly frequent and severe wildfires with global warming.

Pipeline supporters said they were more necessary than ever in light of the economic blow dealt by the extreme weather, on the other hand.

Meanwhile, administrations of Manitoba and Saskatchewan are proving sceptical of the climate agenda.

The post Canada’s most populous province passes climate change law appeared first on Climate Home News.

BC premier Christy Clark came to power in 2011 (Pic: University of the Fraser Valley/Flickr)

By Stephen Hui

Whenever Premier Christy Clark is asked about her climate change plans, she touts the success of the policies put in place by her predecessor Gordon Campbell in 2008.

But Clark won’t be able to ride on Campbell’s “climate leader” coat-tails for much longer.

That’s because British Columbia’s carbon pollution is going up while five other Canadian provinces are bringing their greenhouse gas emissions down.

According to the latest projections from Environment and Climate Change Canada, B.C.’s emissions will climb from 64 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2005 to 72 megatonnes in 2020. The province’s legislated emissions target for that year is 43.5 megatonnes.

Report: Canada delays new climate plan as provinces rebel

Meanwhile, Canada’s Second Biennial Report on Climate Change forecasts that emissions will fall in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador between 2005 and 2020. Emissions will stay flat in Prince Edward Island and the three territories over that period.

Since taking over the premier’s office in 2011, Clark’s lack of action on the climate file has taken the province in the wrong direction. In 2013, Clark froze B.C.’s internationally lauded carbon tax for five years.

She continues to champion the development of a liquefied natural gas industry in the province that will make meeting these targets more difficult if not impossible.

It’s time for B.C. to step up and shift the province’s emissions trajectory in the right direction. Clark’s government can shed its “climate laggard” status by increasing the level of ambition for the forthcoming Climate Leadership Plan, due to be finalized later this spring.

Here are four ways the government could make good on the promise of the Paris Agreement and Vancouver Declaration, and deliver the courageous Climate Leadership Plan we need. (For more details, see the Pembina Institute’s submission on the plan.)

Implement all of the Climate Leadership Team’s recommendations

In May 2015, Clark set up the Climate Leadership Team, made up of experts from the business, academic, and environmental communities, and representatives from the B.C. government, First Nations, and local governments. The province released the team’s report in November.

The 32 recommendations of the Climate Leadership Team collectively represent the baseline for an acceptable plan to get B.C. on track to meeting its 2050 targets. In fact, to date they represent the only plan B.C. has to achieve that goal.

They include positive steps such as increasing the carbon tax by $10 per year starting in 2018 (with targeted support for emissions intensive, trade exposed sectors as well as low income, northern, and rural residents), reducing methane emissions from the natural gas sector, powering the electricity grid with 100% renewable energy, setting greener building standards, and transitioning to zero-emission vehicles.

On February 29, Environment Minister Mary Polak made a key observation in the legislature. “I’m not aware of any modelling with respect to reducing GHG emissions that would show a pathway to getting to 2050 targets, such as the ones that we’ve signed on to, without having an increasing carbon price, be that cap-and-trade or carbon tax,” Polak said during a debate.

Act quickly to broaden the carbon tax to cover all emissions

While the Climate Leadership Team recommends broadening the carbon tax to include all accurately measurable carbon emissions in 2021, this can be done earlier.

That’s because the reporting infrastructure for these sources is largely already in place. It’s worth noting that the cost of abatement is low for sources of non-combustion emissions.

Rethink the development of an LNG industry

B.C. should not proceed with the development of an LNG industry unless the government can demonstrate a credible path to meet the Climate Leadership Team’s recommended 2030 target and the province’s legislated 2050 target.

Contrary to claims by the B.C. government and project proponents, LNG is not a climate solution because of inadequate policies in B.C. and importing jurisdictions to prioritize renewable energy, energy efficiency, and methane reductions.

One project, Pacific NorthWest LNG near Prince Rupert, could account for 75-108 per cent of the emissions allowed under B.C.’s 2050 target. Clearly, LNG and associated upstream gas development risks making the province’s — and Canada’s — climate targets impossible to attain.

Fix methane emissions reporting

Methane emissions from the natural gas sector represent a major gap in B.C.’s climate policy framework. Evidence suggests that methane emissions could be substantially underreported in Canada.

The government can address this issue by undertaking an objective, fact-based and statistically valid analysis of methane emissions from B.C.’s natural gas sector.

Time for action is now

Realizing a Climate Leadership Plan that lives up to its name will require input from businesses, organizations, local governments, and people like you. The deadline for public input is Friday, March 25 at noon.

So please take a moment to tell the government that you want to see a courageous plan that incorporates and goes beyond the Climate Leadership Team’s package of recommendations, and commits to strengthening the carbon tax and reclaiming “climate leader” status for B.C.

Stephen Hui is the communications lead for British Columbia at the Pembina Institute, a non-profit think-tank that advocates for strong, effective policies to support Canada’s clean-energy transition. Follow him on Twitter: @StephenHui.

The post Canada’s laggard: British Columbia is failing on climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: White House/Flickr)

By Ed King

Buried away in the newly inked US-Canada climate deal there’s a line that may be President Barack Obama’s most enduring low carbon legacy.

It’s where the White House and Canadian PM Justin Trudeau agree to deliver long term low emission greenhouse gas development strategies by the end of 2016, and to encourage the G20 to follow.

The US document could be ready for publication by November’s UN climate summit; and it will become a guide for measuring US carbon cuts over the decades to come.

“We want to show development of those plans is possible,” said Dan Utech, deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate change.

The White House could have passed this onto the next administration, but “Obama obviously wants to do that before leaving office,” said veteran US climate policy analyst Alden Meyer.

“It’s easy to do the modelling but the key piece is exploring what the investment decisions are,” said Jake Schmidt, head of international climate policy for the NDRC green group.

“There’s the Clean Power Plan [Obama’s flagship emissions policy] but to meet 2025, 2030 and 2050 targets you’ll need to blow past that.”

Last December’s Paris summit saw 195 countries agree to limit warming to below 2C, and ideally 1.5C. To fit that trajectory the US will need to radically up its game over the coming decades.

We already have a sense of what the US plan could say, thanks to the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project (DDPP), which released a new report in November 2015.

Sixteen research teams from countries covering 75% of greenhouse gas emissions collaborated in a modelling exercise to work out how the world’s top polluters could radically cut pollution by 2050.

Specifically, for the world’s second largest carbon polluter, the goal is cutting net greenhouse gas emissions 80% below the 1990 levels by mid-century.

US Deep Decarbonization Policy Report

Building on work by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) researchers emerged with three main findings:

-Deep decarbonization will profoundly transform the physical energy system of the US, with fossil fuel use decreasing by two-thirds from today while decarbonized energy supplies expand by a factor of five.

-In contrast to today’s system, in which more than 80% of energy costs go to fossil fuel purchases, in a deeply decarbonized system more than 80% of energy costs will go to fixed investments in low-carbon infrastructure such as wind generation and electric vehicles.

-US energy costs actually decrease as a share of GDP over time, from about 7% today to about 6% in 2050. While the overall impact on energy costs is modest, the transition to deep decarbonization nonetheless offers significant benefits for the U.S. macro-economy, such as insulation from oil price shocks.

Other significant conclusions were that the net change in consumer energy costs would likely be low, demand for energy would continue to rise and existing or near-commercial technologies would be sufficient.

But we are talking of a profound shift.

The amount of energy used to produce a unit of GDP in the US needs to fall 70% by 2050; electricity needs to be completely decarbonised. Per capita emissions need to drop 5.5% a year.

And the report came with a warning. Government needs to think radical, not always an approach associated with US energy policy.

“Policies that produce incremental changes without facilitating transformation can lead to technology lock-in and emissions reduction dead ends,” it said.

That means not relying on gas to meet carbon goals while ignoring nuclear and renewables, or focusing on the potential of ethanol to replace petrol but not investing in car battery development.

The US commitment to Mission Innovation – a 2015 pledge to double green research and development is one example of the policies needed to unleash a wave of green energy.

But a deeper approach means sectors need to advance together, rather than working on technology in silos, as evidenced by research into emission intensity of electric vehices (EVs).

“EVs that charge on an average US power grid today have one-third lower emissions per mile than fuel-efficient conventional vehicles, but as grid electricity approaches full decarbonization, EV emission intensities become 30 times lower,” said the report.

NOAA: CO2 levels make largest annual leap in 56 years

Plans to develop regulations to slash methane emissions from oil and gas wells are a more immediate sign of Obama’s desire to leave office with tougher climate laws in place.

Oil and gas lobby groups north and south of the border are already groaning at a goal to slash the potent warming gas 40-45% on 2012 levels by 2025.

A crackdown on gas flaring, HFCs and aligning emission standards on heavy-duty vehicles after 2018 are other notable policies outlined.

Politically, the US-Canada alliance looks astute. Should a Republican win the White House, they will have to think carefully about Ottawa relations before dumping climate policy for 4 years.

“If a new US president went rogue on the issue, it would have implications for relationships with key partners around the world, including Canada,” said Meyer. “[Today’s deal] is a good basis for a strong relationship in this area, but there are no guarantees.”

And it’s unlikely to be Obama’s last play as he prepares to leave office.

Report: Greenpeace prepares legal challenge to Norway’s Arctic frontier

Domestically, the battle over the Clean Power Plan will rage. Internationally, he’s set to push a hawkish climate stance, said his advisor John Morton in a press call.

“I can tell you we are working actively on ensuring that in final year of the administration we see continued progress bilaterally and multilaterally,” he said.

Obama travels to Vietnam in May, followed by Japan for the G7 the same month. In September he’ll be in Laos and China for the G20, while there’s also a visit to Buenos Aires planned.

There will be a science ministerial of Arctic nations in the Autumn, which includes Russia, China and Norway. Notably, the two leaders agreed: “If oil and gas development and exploration proceeds, activities must align with science-based standards.”

According to Schmidt, there’s also talk of a trilateral climate deal between the US, Canada and Mexico – perhaps focused on integrating clean energy markets.

He expects Obama to push climate hard on his final “victory lap” of engagements before he has to relinquish Air Force One. There may yet be more to come.

The post Deep decarbonisation: Obama’s greatest climate legacy? appeared first on Climate Home News.

(Pic: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe)

By Ed King

US president Barack Obama and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau will sign off on a series of climate measures when they meet on Thursday say officials.

“There are a number of areas of potential co-operation,” lead US climate envoy Todd Stern told reporters in a briefing call this week.

These include a commitment to “reduce methane emissions by 40 to 45% below 2012 levels by 2025 in the oil and gas sector,” he said.

Further carbon slashing measures including boosting clean electricity trade, while tougher standards for trucks and buses are also on the cards.

Report: Obama makes Arctic appeal for action on climate
Study: Rate of Antarctic ice melt to double by 2050

Obama and Trudeau are also expected to discuss how best to tackle a warming Arctic, which is impacting local communities and opening up northern coastlines to shipping.

“The issues that are important to him and to me are climate change,” Trudeau said in quotes reported by the Huffington Post.

“We’re talking about border issues, as well – making sure there is a smooth flow of goods and people across our shared border that isn’t putting our security at risk.”

Last year Canada handed the leadership of the Arctic Council to the US, which says maintaining peace and security among polar countries is a priority.

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