Yes or no?

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 4:19 PM - 0 Comments

Megan Leslie didn’t get an answer from Joe Oliver yesterday, so she asked him again this afternoon to clarify his understanding of climate change. And then she asked him again. And then she asked him again. Here’s how that went.

Megan Leslie: Surely the minister knows the basics of his file and he must know that hydrocarbons are a leading cause of climate change. So can the minister tell us if he agrees with the scientific link between hydrocarbons and climate change, yes or no?

Joe Oliver: Mr. Speaker, what I said yesterday, as the government’s policy, is that we will only approve projects that are safe for Canadians and for the environment. We are in favour of projects which will create jobs and economic activity and which will be nation builders for Canadians right across this country, from coast to coast to coast.

Continue…

Do you believe?

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 30, 2012 at 4:37 PM - 0 Comments

Megan Leslie’s second question for the Natural Resources Minister this afternoon.

Mr. Speaker, we really do have a minister for the 19th century because the Minister of Natural Resources fails to understand the impact of Conservative inaction on jobs, on the environment and on future generations. Instead, he attacks people who actually care about the environment. It makes me wonder if the minister actually believes in climate change. Is the minister a believer or a denier?

Joe Oliver said—”since we are into theology”—that he wished to inform the House that he believed “no project in Canada should go ahead unless it is safe for Canadians and safe for the environment. He proceeded with his complaints about “radicals” who are “are opposed to any development of hydrocarbons,” none of which seemed to answer Ms. Leslie’s question.

See previously: Pop quiz

The question of the weekend

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, January 14, 2012 at 4:37 PM - 0 Comments

Liberals are spending much of the day discussing the concept of “evidence-based policy”—this curious and revolutionary and courageous notion that the government’s actions and promises should acknowledge demonstrable reality. Munir Sheikh, the former chief statistician, addressed the convention this morning. Delegates have spent the rest of the day in sessions dedicated to discussing this novel approach in the context of various policy areas.

One of these sessions was to deal with the environment, which thus seemed like something of a test: could the Liberal party have a discussion about evidence-based environmental policy that didn’t deal with the preferred prescription of the vast majority of expert analysts?

The answer is: almost. But with a few minutes to spare in the hour a young man from the riding of Mount Royal stood and put the Liberal soul up for discussion. Continue…

Dewar on the environment

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 3:24 PM - 0 Comments

Paul Dewar wins the endorsement of Linda Duncan and releases his platform on energy and the environment, which includes cap-and-trade, the elimination of oil subsidies and a “green grid.”

Paul Dewar’s Greening the Grid Agenda would prioritize working with provincial and territorial governments to promote renewable energy innovation and development.  It will support regional interconnections that will enable the sharing of renewable energy sources, enhanced grid reliability and development of local green energy initiatives and the reduction of costs to consumers through enhanced grid efficiency and the avoidance of unnecessary new generation.

Paul Dewar aims to build a truly “smart” electricity system that will leverage Canada’s existing knowledge of electricity systems to make our country a green innovation leader.  The green grid is the backbone Canada will need to spur the development of a green economy in areas such as new renewable energy, energy efficiency, electricity system management, and green vehicles.

We don’t really want to fight climate change

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 at 2:49 PM - 0 Comments

Stephen Gordon invokes the law of revealed preference to explain Canada’s withdrawal from Kyoto.

Notwithstanding economically illiterate attempts to pretend otherwise, higher consumer prices for GHG-emitting goods and services are an essential component of any serious attempt to reduce emissions … It doesn’t matter what Canadians tell pollsters about how much they are concerned with climate change; what matters is the choices we make. And whenever we have been offered the choice of accepting personal inconvenience in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or of making sure that fossil fuels are cheap and plentiful, we have consistently and overwhelmingly chosen the latter.

Leading the world

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, December 13, 2011 at 10:14 AM - 0 Comments

France is unimpressed.

“Canada’s announcement that it is withdrawing from the Kyoto protocol is bad news for the fight against climate change,” ministry spokesman Bernard Valero told journalists. ”It is out of the question to relax our efforts or to break the dynamic of the Durban agreement,” he said.

China too. The Guardian, New York Times and CNN take note. John Ibbitson says we should all be ashamed. NDP MP Laurin Liu says the Environment Minister was sidelined at Durban.

Canada out of Kyoto

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, December 12, 2011 at 6:14 PM - 0 Comments

Freshly returned from Durban, Peter Kent announces a withdrawal from Kyoto.

“We are invoking Canada’s legal right to formally withdraw from Kyoto,” Kent said outside the House of Commons. ”This decision formalizes what we’ve said since 2006, that we will not implement the Kyoto Protocol.”

Canada signed Kyoto in the late 1990s, but neither the current Conservative government nor their Liberal predecessors met targets. Kent says the move saves Canada $14 billion in penalties for not achieving its Kyoto targets.

Andrew Leach has tried to sort out the idea that staying in Kyoto would actually mean, so far as penalties might be concerned. More from Andrew here and here.

Full statement from the Environment Minister after the jump. Continue…

The Commons: The tiny, perfect Conservative

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 8:42 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. She is a pair of dimples in a room full of jowls.

Meet Michelle Rempel, the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of the Environment. She is short and smiley and perfectly patronizing. She speaks without holding a script, gestures with confidence and seems even to listen to what her counterparts are saying (even if only in search of a turn of phrase she can turn back on her opponent). Only 31 and barely six months into her first term in Parliament, she is already feigning indignation like she was born here. And so the government side is surely thankful that Peter Kent has been out of town this last little while. Continue…

Peter Kent versus the world

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments

The Environment Minister spreads the good word.

Environment Minister Peter Kent repeated his sharp criticism of Kyoto at a high-level session of the Durban talks. “Kyoto, for Canada, is in the past,” Mr. Kent told a large audience of delegates and climate negotiators on Wednesday. “For Canada, the Kyoto Protocol is not where the solution lies,” he said. “It is an agreement that covers fewer than 30 per cent of global emissions.”

As he spoke, six Canadian activists stood up and silently protested by turning their backs on him, wearing T-shirts that said: “Turn your back on Canada.” Security guards quickly rushed over and escorted them away, leading them through a narrow corridor at the back of the room and then evicting them from the conference. But the protesters won louder applause than Mr. Kent, whose speech was greeted by a smattering of polite applause from delegates.

Earlier this week, Mr. Kent promised the Harper government wouldn’t withdraw from Kyoto during the Durban conference, but wouldn’t comment on what might happen after the talks. Officials from Brazil, Germany, India and South Africa are unimpressed.

After Kyoto

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 1:20 PM - 0 Comments

Andrew Leach considers the past, present and future of Canada’s involvement in international climate negotiations.

So, while Canada is right to abandon Kyoto, and Canada is right that an effective treaty to address global carbon emissions needs to include most/all countries, I don’t think they’re on the right track in demanding an agreement with binding targets for all countries.  First, it’s unlikely you’ll see binding emissions targets imposed on developing countries. That makes it less likely that Canada will have a role in formulating whatever agreement does come around if they’ve disavowed interest based on that condition..  Second, an agreement with binding emissions targets for everyone is, in my view, the last thing Canada should be pushing for.  Canada should, and I will write more on this later, be pushing for an international standard by which a facility operated in the UK, in Alberta, or in India would face the same effective carbon price, or the same reward for reducing emissions. That doesn’t mean carbon tax – it means a system which measures effort, and doesn’t reward historic emissions.

In a follow-up, he explains what withdrawing from Kyoto means in practical terms.

The Commons: Convictions without courage

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 28, 2011 at 6:04 PM - 0 Comments

Fred Chartrand/Canadian Press

The Scene.“Kyoto is in the past,” Peter Kent intoned today at an announcement about something else. Not that he was confirming his government’s intention to withdraw from it. But not that he was denying it either. “This isn’t the day,” he explained.

Doing stuff is easy. It’s justifying the doing that’s hard. And so Mr. Kent is not yet ready to say for sure that the government is willing to do something about what it now only implies. The correct day for that is apparently scheduled to be a month from now, just before Christmas. But then someone who knew as much went and told the evening news. Only now Mr. Kent is insisting on pretending that didn’t happen. ”I wonʼt comment on a speculative report,” he said this morning.

He will say that the previous Liberal government’s decision to commit to the protocol was “one of the biggest blunders they made.” And the Prime Minister did once dismiss the whole thing as a “socialist scheme.” And the Conservative platform in 2006 didn’t even mention it. And successive governments have now spent more than a decade successfully ignoring it. And the current government has said it won’t extend past next year its commitment to it. But let it not be said that the government is prepared to actually withdraw from it. At least not yet. At least not that Mr. Kent is willing to say.

Not that the government’s unwillingness to announce a decision stops the opposition from lamenting that decision. Continue…

The Commons: Looking on the bright side of global warming

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 4, 2011 at 5:53 PM - 36 Comments

The Scene. For sure, Peter Kent’s task is an unenviable one. He who must stand and take responsibility for the Harper government’s oft-lamented environmental policy—he who must be regularly derided by the opposition’s critics—is owed all of our empathy and perhaps even some of our charity.

But if anyone is to hold the title of Environment Minister, it might as well be Mr. Kent. He may lack the swirling bombast and fierce dismissiveness of John Baird, but after so many years in front of a television camera, he is an unflinching pitchman. And having, as a journalist, spent so many years listening to the spin of political and professional communicators, he is now an awesome weaver of words and assertions.

Continue…

Deep oceans may mask global warming

By macleans.ca - Monday, September 19, 2011 at 12:55 PM - 24 Comments

According to a new analysis from the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Earth’s deep oceans might absorb enough heat to flatten the rate of global warming for up to a decade, even during a longer-term warming period. The new study says ocean layers deeper than 300 meters are the main location of “missing heat” during periods like the past decade, in which global air temperatures didn’t show a major trend. The 2000s were our planet’s warmest decade in more than a century. But the year with the warmest global temperature, 1998, wasn’t matched until 2010, even though greenhouse gas emissions climbed during that decade. The new study suggests the heat may have been building up in the ocean.

EurekAlert!

The quiet cuts

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, August 4, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 17 Comments

Environment Canada is due to shed somewhere between 300 and 700 jobs.

He said the department was eliminating 300 positions, rather than the more than 700 positions cited by the unions. Attrition will cover many of the losses, while others affected will get help to transition to new jobs.

“While difficult, this decision will allow our government to continue to invest in clear air and a healthier environment for Canadians,” Morris said, adding that the department has no fewer employees than when the Tories took office in 2006.

The list of those affected includes two biologists, seven chemists, 45 computer scientists, 37 engineers, 19 meteorologists and 92 physical scientists.

Towards 2020

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, August 3, 2011 at 11:27 AM - 44 Comments

While officials told Environment Minister Peter Kent in January that existing measures left Canada short of its emission targets, the National Round Table on the Environment finds the government has overstated projected reductions.

The report, produced by an independent arm’s-length agency, broke out eight specific federal policies and their estimates, and found that the government made reliable estimates for only three. The other five were “likely overestimated,” according to the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

All in all, the package of climate policies the federal government has adopted will likely have half the effect claimed when each policy was introduced, the report suggests.

Policy alert

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 6, 2011 at 5:51 PM - 84 Comments

In the Speech from the Throne that followed its reelection in 2008, the Harper government stated its intention to “develop and implement a North America-wide cap and trade system for greenhouse gases.” A year later, the Harper government claimed to be “working in collaboration with the provinces and territories to develop a cap and trade system that will ultimately be aligned with the emerging cap and trade program in the United States.” At present, the government’s climate change website describes cap and trade as an “option” (though one that will “only” be implemented if the United States does likewise).

Nonetheless, when John Baird turned up at the National Press Theatre yesterday afternoon, apparently to restate his party’s doubts about Michael Ignatieff’s patriotism, he described cap and trade (at least as proposed by the Liberal party) as both “dangerous” and “unCanadian.”

I wondered aloud if this description indicated the Conservative side was renouncing any intention of ever bringing in a cap and trade system in Canada. Below, Mr. Baird’s answer in its entirety. Continue…

The Liberal platform: simplicity itself

By John Geddes - Sunday, April 3, 2011 at 2:50 PM - 64 Comments

The most telling moment in Michael Ignatieff’s launch event for the full Liberal platform today in Ottawa came in an off-the-cuff comment he made after a video presentation on the party’s education policy.

Up on a big screen above a crowd arranged in a circle around Ignatieff, a series of Liberal candidates, all women, had been delivering brief presentations on the various key themes in the platform.

Wendy Yuan, who is trying to unseat NDP incumbent Don Davies in the hotly contested Vancouver-Kingsway riding, wrapped up her pre-taped pitch on education with a favourite Ignatieff slogan: “You get the grades, you get to go.”

The audience in the basement conference room of a downtown Ottawa hotel dutifully let loose with a longer than average burst of applause.  “That sounds pretty popular,” Ignatieff crowed. “You get the grades, you get to go. It’s like all these policies—they’re simple, they’re easy to understand, they address a real need of Canadian families.”

Continue…

This week: Newsmakers

By Charlie Gillis, Chris Sorensen and Nicholas Köhler - Friday, February 4, 2011 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments

A breath of fresh Canadian air
The usual right vs. left political jabber of American talk TV was punctuated this week by a few clear-eyed statements courtesy of Canada’s first female prime minister. On Real Time With Bill Maher, former Progressive Conservative leader Kim Campbell called Republican Jack Kingston‘s views on global warming “absolute rubbish,” pointing out to the Georgia congressman that scientists didn’t set out looking for a non-existent problem just to torture right-leaning politicians. When the conversation shifted toward the evolution vs. creation debate, Campbell asked if Kingston was concerned about the alarming rise of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms in hospitals. He squirmed. “That’s evolution,” she said to applause. Does 132 days as PM preclude Campbell from a future in politics?

Lolita’s lepidopterist
In addition to writing great novels, Vladimir Nabokov was a self-taught expert on the evolutionary biology of butterflies—though, like any amateur, the Lolita author faced skepticism from the scientific establishment. Now one of his most audacious theories has been proven right. A paper published by the Royal Society has endorsed Nabokov’s hypothesis that butterflies are not indigenous to North America, but rather arrived in a series of “waves” from Asia. The new research was made possible by gene-sequencing technology Nabokov never had. Said Naomi Pierce, a Harvard expert who co-authored the study: “It’s really quite a marvel.”

Single White Premier seeks less idiotic press
With three female premiers and a female prime minister, Julia Gillard, Australian voters seem fairly accustomed to the idea of women in politics. The media? Not so much. The country’s biggest national newspaper, the Australian, ran a front-page story about Tasmanian premier Lara Giddings‘s first day in office that zeroed in on her comments (in response to a reporter’s question) about the challenges of snaring a husband when you’re a busy politician. The headline read: “Leftist Lara still looking for Mr. Right.” Critics shook their heads. “Why on Earth was this suddenly relevant the day Giddings became Tasmania’s first female premier?” asked one Sydney Morning Herald columnist, noting Giddings was previously an unmarried treasurer and an unmarried attorney general. “It was not as if she had landed from Mars.”

Continue…

'Canada has a credible plan for addressing our environmental challenges.'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 28, 2011 at 4:35 PM - 188 Comments

In the wake of a recommendation from the National Roundtable on the Environment and Economy that Canada move forward with a cap-and-trade system and a recommitment from the Liberals that they will move forward with cap-and-trade if elected, Peter Kent delivered his first major speech as Environment Minister this afternoon in Toronto.

The prepared text, after the jump. Continue…

'It's bait and switch'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 10, 2011 at 10:25 AM - 73 Comments

Steven Chase looks at the government’s rhetorical turn towards “ethical oil.”

Environmental activists say the Harper government is adopting a classic diversionary tactic to redirect attention away from the oil sands’ poor environmental record. “It’s a rhetorical device; it’s bait and switch,” said Ed Whittingham, executive director of the Pembina Institute. “It’s designed to make us forget about the negative environmental impacts we have in Canada because you are comparing to a completely lower standard in other countries.”

Laura Payton has more.

Check back later

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 7, 2011 at 11:11 AM - 18 Comments

Peter Kent casts his eyes forward.

Canada, which has committed to roughly matching U.S. efforts on fighting climate change, is watching carefully as the Obama administration rolls out new emission rules for power plants and refineries. Mr. Kent said Canada will draw up its own emission standards for petroleum refineries – including oil-sands facilities – but added there’s no schedule yet. “Our focus for the next several years is going to continue to be on maintaining the economic recovery and we will do nothing in the short term which would unnecessarily compromise or threaten to compromise that recovery,” Mr. Kent said. “It is not our intention to discourage development of one of our great natural resources. We know it can be developed responsibly.”

… The minister added that he plans to follow up a Conservative pledge to regulate pollutants by unveiling a proposal – “I hope some time this year” – for national air-quality standards based on a provincial agreement reached in 2010 by his predecessor. This would include rules for public reporting, modelling and monitoring air quality.

Peter Kent explains the greenhouse effect

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 9:04 AM - 210 Comments

Whatever his qualifications and future as Environment Minister, in cannot be said that Peter Kent doesn’t understand the problem he is now charged with addressing. Indeed, reporting for CBC in 1984, he hosted an extensive report on the looming threat of global warming. Twenty-six years later, it holds up rather well—either because of the foresight of the reporting or because the discussion has progressed so little since.

Parts 2 and 3 after the jump. Continue…

Mitchel Raphael on the MP who's a Glee addict and the GG's fire alarm

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 4:00 PM - 0 Comments

MP dilemma: Rick Mercer or Glee?
Heritage minister and Canadian cinema fan James Moore held his fourth movie night for MPs, this time showcasing Incendies by Quebec director Denis Villeneuve. Moore’s fellow MPs are very thankful that he has exposed them to some incredible Canadian films they might otherwise not have seen. Plus, they get to meet stars and directors: Villeneuve himself was on hand for this screening, as was actress Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin. Some MPs get their CanCon via Air Canada, such as NDP Megan Leslie, who appreciates being able to watch homegrown movies while flying. Airline travel has had another kind of impact on the viewing habits of Steven Fletcher, minister of state for democratic reform. He confessed to Capital Diary that while flying over the summer, he watched a lot of Glee. Back on the ground, however, there’s a problem: Glee is on TV at the same time as Rick Mercer’s show. Patriotically, Fletcher says that he opts for Mercer—so long as they are new episodes.

Encyclopedic knowledge
The Canadian Encyclopedia celebrated its 25th year at Ottawa’s Government Conference Centre. Moving online in 1999 has had some unforeseen benefits, notes editor-in-chief James Marsh. He says that while the encyclopedia tries to take the long view, certain political events, like prorogation, require immediate action. “When I went and read our own article on prorogation I thought, ‘I still don’t understand this.’ ” Online, the solution was easy: “We expanded that entry.” Marsh tries to plan ahead, and is currently ensuring the site has lots of info for the upcoming 200th anniversary of the War of 1812. All prime ministers are mentioned in the encyclopedia, as are finance ministers and politicians of lasting influence. The most looked-up article in the encyclopedia? The one on Pierre Trudeau, says Marsh. Montreal rookie MP Justin Trudeau is “in there, but it’s more for being famous than it is for anything else [at this point].” In attendance at the celebration was former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Flora MacDonald. “I think it’s so important that Canadians celebrate their history and this is one of the ways we do it.” While she was minister of communications in the ’80s, MacDonald provided funding for the encyclopedia.

Firefighters arrive at GG’s first public event
The first official public event for newly installed Governor General David Johnston was the launch of a joint initiative by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and the National Round Table on the Environment and Economy (NRTEE) to look at the effects of global warming in Canada. Johnston, as it happens, was the founding chair of the NRTEE. The event was held at the Canadian Museum of Nature, where, just as the GG was being introduced, the fire alarm went off and a recorded voice instructed everyone to evacuate the building. At first the GG was taken to a gallery on the third floor, so he was one of the last ones out of the building. British Ambassador Anthony Cary, however, was one of the first out. Once firefighters arrived and confirmed that it had been a false alarm, the event was back on. Johnston took the podium and quipped, “I have been a university president for 26 years and this is the first time I emptied the room even before I spoke. There were many times they emptied while I was speaking.”

Baird happy for Tewksbury
Olympic gold medallist Mark Tewksbury was on the Hill for a reception for Special Olympics Canada. He is currently completing a $200,000 overhaul on his heritage home in Montreal, thanks in part to the government’s home renovation tax credit, he said. Government House leader John Baird piped up, “See, Canada’s economic action plan is working.”

Save the planet: Stop eating meat

By Katie Engelhart and Nicholas Köhler - Tuesday, March 30, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 88 Comments

Photograph by Mike Kemp/Getty Images

One drizzly Thursday last May, the townsfolk of Ghent, a Flemish burg of some 250,000 souls famous for its stoverij—a stew of beef braised in beer—gathered outside a centuries-old slaughterhouse in the town’s historic core to sample soy fritters, pick up a map of local vegetarian eateries, and to watch as a boy in a banana costume did valiant battle against another dressed as a beefsteak. This was Ghent’s inaugural Donderdag Veggiedag—Thursday Veggieday, literally—a weekly holiday from the evils of beef, fish, pork and poultry introduced last year by city council, which declared that the moratorium on animal protein would be “good for the climate, your health and your taste buds.” Said a representative of the Ethical Vegetarian Alternative, Belgium’s largest vegetarian organization and a partner in the city initiative: “If everyone in Flanders does not eat meat one day a week, we will save as much CO2 in a year as taking half a million cars off the road.”

Though meatlessness in Ghent each Thursday is encouraged rather than required, the policy has made vegetarianism pervasive: 95 per cent of the city’s children at 35 local schools, as well as the city’s elected councillors and civil servants, now submit to the Veggiedag menu each week. One poster promoting the policy depicts a polar bear adrift on a shrunken hunk of ice declaring with relief: “Oef! It’s Thursday.”

RELATED ARTICLES
Where’s the beef? — Scientist takes a second look at UN numbers that have led many environmentalists to forego meat
Stop eating meat? Not bloody likely. — Just how successful can this meatless movement be?
Stop eating meat: the recipes — Going flexitarian? Just veggie-curious? Here are some meatless dishes worth trying.

Donderdag Veggiedag was a global first, putting medieval Ghent on the cutting edge of efforts to combat climate change by changing the way people eat. But elsewhere, too, the moderate meat movement is gaining ground. A Meatless Mondays organization founded in the U.S. has now opened branches in Holland, Finland, Canada, Taiwan and Australia. Following Ghent’s lead, cities like São Paulo and Tel Aviv have created city-wide schemes. Last year, Baltimore became the first city in North America to mandate Meatless Mondays in its school cafeterias, for environmental as well as health reasons. A similar proposal has just been made for New York City schools.

Continue…