January 20, 2013

You are here: Home / Archives for Canada

Canada Becomes The First Country To Withdraw From Kyoto

December 13, 2011 By 1 Comment

From its perch above one of the world’s biggest polluters, Canada’s conservative government decided it would be too expensive and pointless to meet its obligations to the Kyoto protocol.

Neither the U.S. nor China, who provide much of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, are signatories and the new climate agreement in Durban may have made it easier for Stephen Harper’s government to push the eject button.

BBC News:

[Canada’s Minister of the Environment Peter Kent] said meeting Canada’s obligations under Kyoto would cost $13.6bn (10.3bn euros; £8.7bn): “That’s $1,600 from every Canadian family - that’s the Kyoto cost to Canadians, that was the legacy of an incompetent Liberal government”.

He said that despite this cost, greenhouse emissions would continue to rise as two of the world’s largest polluters - the US and China - were not covered by the Kyoto agreement.

Canada will formally withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the minister of the environment has said.

Peter Kent said the protocol “does not represent a way forward for Canada” and the country would face crippling fines for failing to meet its targets.

The move, which is legal and was expected, makes it the first nation to pull out of the global treaty.

The protocol, initially adopted in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, is aimed at fighting global warming.

“Kyoto, for Canada, is in the past, and as such we are invoking our legal right to withdraw from Kyoto,” Mr Kent said in Toronto.

He said he would be formally advising the United Nations of his country’s intention to pull out.

‘Impediment’

He said meeting Canada’s obligations under Kyoto would cost $13.6bn (10.3bn euros; £8.7bn): “That’s $1,600 from every Canadian family - that’s the Kyoto cost to Canadians, that was the legacy of an incompetent Liberal government”.

He said that despite this cost, greenhouse emissions would continue to rise as two of the world’s largest polluters - the US and China - were not covered by the Kyoto agreement.

“We believe that a new agreement that will allow us to generate jobs and economic growth represents the way forward,” he said.

Beijing criticised Canada’s decision. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said it went “against the efforts of the international community and is regrettable”.

Mr Kent’s announcement came just hours after a last-minute deal on climate change was agreed in Durban.

Talks on a new legal deal covering all countries will begin next year and end by 2015, coming into effect by 2020, the UN climate conference decided.

“The Kyoto Protocol is a dated document, it is actually considered by many as an impediment to the move forward but there was good will demonstrated in Durban, the agreement that we ended up with provides the basis for an agreement by 2015.”

He said that though the text of the Durban agreement “provides a loophole for China and India”, it represents “the way forward”.

Canada’s previous Liberal government signed the accord but Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government never embraced it.

Canada declared four years ago that it did not intend to meet its existing Kyoto Protocol commitments and its annual emissions have risen by about once third since 1990.

 

Source: http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/canada_becomes_the_first_country_to_withdraw_from_kyoto_20111212/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Truthdig+Truthdig%3A+Drilling+Beneath+the+Headlines

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16151310

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: ,

Border Deal Fuels Concerns In Canada

December 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

OTTAWA—Armed U.S. police officers will for the first time be allowed to operate in Canada along with the RCMP as part of far-reaching changes in Canadian-American border operations to be unveiled next week by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Barack Obama.

The joint action plan to be announced at the White House will also break new ground by introducing exit-entry records that will track the movements of everyone who leaves the United States or Canada, with the information available to authorities in both countries.

In the months and years ahead, the deal between Ottawa and Washington will reshape security, travel and commercial arrangements at the border in a variety of profound ways — some of which have already raised alarms among Canadians.

The agreement, which has been the subject of confidential negotiations since last winter, is intended to reverse the economically damaging border tie-ups that have been growing since Sept. 11, 2001, while upgrading anti-crime and anti-terrorist security for both countries.

In contrast to the silence from Canadian negotiators, some U.S. officials have been open about what the new reality at the border will look like in the years ahead.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder revealed last fall that the deal will authorize Canada and the U.S. to designate officers who can take part in police investigations on both sides of the border. The pilot project, Holder said, will improve the two countries’ ability to deal with the “unprecedented” threats along the border from terrorists, human smugglers, illegal firearms traffickers and drug dealers.

The model for the joint policing program is the Shiprider project, a three-year-old plan under which the RCMP and U.S. Coast Guard join forces and ride in each others’ vessels when patrolling boundary waters.

As part of the measures to improve security and streamline border practices, the Beyond the Border blueprint is also expected to include greatly increased information-sharing between Canada and the U.S., including the exit-entry plan.

This secretly devised shake-up of border operations has sparked widespread concerns.

“It’s contemptuous of Canadian citizenry to unveil a program in which we’ve had essentially no input,” said Micheal Vonn, policy director of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association.

“This process has really been conducted behind closed doors. We’ve had no white papers, no reports — nothing that we could point to to say, ‘Here are the pros and cons, here are the drawbacks, here are the things we are considering,’ ” she said.

Vonn said the call for comment by Foreign Affairs earlier this year was not a real consultation, because it was based on the loosely worded framework agreement for a border overhaul signed by Harper and Obama in February — not the actual pact negotiated in the months since by officials from Ottawa and Washington.

Still, Foreign Affairs’ consultation exercise drew 1,000 individual responses, nearly half from Canadians who opposed further integration of cross-border law enforcement. Exchanging more personal data across the border also worried individuals who responded to the proposed Canada-U.S. deal.

“Their submissions generally questioned the need to share more information, and they sought assurance that any information sharing would be governed by Canadian privacy laws and that practices and procedures would respect the due process of law and Canada’s civil liberties,” according to a summary of the submissions compiled by Foreign Affairs.

These fears have been underscored by the federal privacy commissioner’s office, which told Foreign Affairs “the experiences of many Canadians in recent years at border crossings and airports highlight ongoing concerns over the protection of privacy rights while travelling.”

This has ranged from increased instances of individuals being delayed, detained or denied entry to the United States to “the tragic rendition of a Canadian citizen to torture in Syria,” the commission said, in a reference to Maher Arar. The Syrian-born Canadian citizen was held and tortured in Syria after being detained and sent there in 2002 by U.S. authorities. “Maher Arar, despite having been cleared of any wrongdoing in Canada, remains on the U.S. no fly list to this day,” the commission said in its June submission.

Assistant privacy commissioner Chantal Bernier said it’s crucial that the agreement include measures that give Canadians a recourse to challenge or correct personal information in border data bases that they believe to be erroneous.

“In any agreement, Canadian privacy protections and practices need to be protected,” Bernier added. “For instance, if there is a lower standard or higher standard of privacy at play, the higher standard has to win out. And in general, our sovereignty needs protection as this unfolds.”

Another question, she said, is whether the U.S. gives as high a priority to protecting personal information as Canada, which has a privacy watchdog reporting directly to Parliament. “The United States does not have a privacy commissioner,” she noted in an interview.

Stuart Trew, trade campaigner with the Ottawa-based Council of Canadians, said further integration of Canada and U.S. police operations is worrisome at a time when Canadians are still waiting for the establishment of recommended controls on information-sharing by Canadian police and intelligence agencies.

“The mechanism for holding the U.S. agents accountable is vague,” he said of the joint policing project included in the border deal. “It’s difficult to know how you would file a complaint, for example, against a U.S. agent and whether there is any accountability in that respect.”

Government officials point out that the joint policing plan will be modelled after the Shiprider cross-border marine policing plan, which requires a Canadian officer to be in charge when the team of mixed U.S. and Canadian police are operating in Canada, and vice-versa on the American side.

“The Prime Minister and the president did say that, of course, even though we would be cooperating in certain areas, our respective jurisdictions and laws would apply, whether that’s our law here, the Charter, etc., or Canada’s privacy rules,” said Andrew MacDougall, a spokesperson for Harper. “Each country would respect its standards on that front. You can look for greater cooperation while respecting our own national laws and standards.”

Besides security, the agreement expected to be announced in Washington on Dec. 7 will cover a wide range of measures on border infrastructure, harmonized product standards, intelligence-gathering and commercial transport.

In a major step to ease border congestion, U.S. officials say next week’s deal will authorize pilot projects in the Ontario cities of Sarnia and Fort Erie for pre-screening of cargo before it reaches nearby U.S. customs facilities. By inspecting shipments away from the border, officials hope that most of the pre-cleared trucks could move quickly through customs when crossing into the U.S.

The agreement is also expected to earmark $1 billion for investment in improved border posts, call for harmonized information requirements on both sides of the border and improve trusted travelers programs such as NEXUS.

Source: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1094483-border-deal-fuels-concerns-in-canada

Filed Under: Police, Politicians, Politics, USA Tagged With:

Environmentalists Attack Pacific Pipeline Plan

November 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

OTTAWA — Environmental groups attacked a proposed pipeline from Canada’s oil sands to the Pacific coast on Tuesday, saying it would attract tanker shipping and risk oil spills along a pristine coastline.

A report by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Pembina Institute and the Living Oceans Society said the project posed risks to communities, salmon-bearing rivers, and coastal ecosystems, including the habitat of a rare white bear.

“The Northern Gateway pipeline is not worth the risk for the communities, rivers and Pacific coastline of British Columbia,” said Nathan Lemphers, a policy analyst with the Pembina Institute.

The pipeline, proposed by Canadian company Enbridge, would transport oil from Alberta’s tar sands through nearly 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) of rugged mountain landscapes to Kitimat on British Columbia’s northern coast, for eventual shipping to Asia.

Up to 220 supertankers each year would sip from it, the report estimated.

“History has shown that oil tankers come with oil spills. It is not a question of if, but when, a spill will happen,” said Katie Terhune of the Living Oceans Society.

Source: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/29/environmentalists-attack-pacific-pipeline-plan

Filed Under: Corporations, Corruption, Health, Ocean, Politics, Propaganda, Safety Tagged With: ,

UK Secretly Helping Canada Push Its Oil Sands Project

November 29, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Canadian interests and oil lobby win coalition’s support for highly polluting process in run-up to European fuel quality vote

The UK government has been giving secret support at the very highest levels to Canada‘s campaign against European penalties on its highly polluting tar sands fuel, the Guardian can reveal.

At the same time, the UK government was being lobbied by Shell and BP, which both have major tar sands projects in Alberta, and opened a new consulate in the province to “support British commercial interests“.

At least 15 high-level meetings and frequent communications have taken place since September, with David Cameron discussing the issue with his counterpart Stephen Harper during his visit to Canada, and stating privately that the UK wanted “to work with Canada on finding a way forward”, according to documents released under freedom of information laws.

Charles Hendry, the energy minister, later told the Canadian high commissioner: “We would value continued discussion with you on how we can progress discussions in Brussels,” with Hendry’s official asking the Canadians if they had “any suggestions as to what we might do, given the politics in Brussels”.

Canada’s vast tar sands – also known as oil sands – are the second largest reserve of carbon in the world after Saudi Arabia, although the energy needed to extract oil from the ground means the process results in far more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil drilling, as well as causing the destruction of forests and air and water pollution.

Nasa scientist James Hansen says if the oil sands were exploited as projected it would be “game over for the climate”.

The European proposal is to designate transport fuel from tar sands as resulting in 22% more greenhouse gas emissions than that from conventional fuels. This would make suppliers, who have to reduce the emissions from their fuels by 10% by 2020, very reluctant to include it in their fuel mix. It would also set an unwelcome precedent for Canada by officially labelling fuel from tar sands as dirtier.

The UK and Canada’s shared opposition to the European plan puts the UK in a minority among EU countries and will be deeply embarrassing as a new round of global negotiations on tackling climate change begins in Durban, South Africa on Monday. Chris Huhne, the energy and climate change secretary, claimed on Thursday that the UK was showing “leadership” in the UN negotiations, while Canada’s prime minister has blocked climate laws. The revelations are also the latest blow to Cameron’s claim to be the “greenest government ever”.

The vote to approve the European fuel quality regulations takes place on Friday. In advance of that, William Hague, the foreign secretary, has also given support to Canada, sending an “immediate action” cable in September to the UK’s embassies there asking “to communicate our position and seek Canadian views on what might be acceptable”.

However, the Department for Transport, in which the Liberal Democrat minister Norman Baker has responsibility for tar sands issues, has released only two presentations made to it by Shell, both heavily redacted. The DfT rejected requests to release at least six other relevant documents on the grounds of commercial confidentiality and adverse effect on international relations, as did the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), where Shell also met ministers.

BP has lobbied ministers, too. Its vice president in Europe, Peter Mather, has been, in his own words, “bending the ear” of Baker. Mather also sent a letter in which he wrote: “The regulatory burden would be considerable at a time when the industry is already creaking under the weight of a heavy regulatory regime.”

John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: “The scale of oil industry lobbying exposed in these documents is quite extraordinary. It’s especially worrying that Baker held a secret meeting with Shell about this key European vote on tar sands. But worse still, he’s now covering up what was discussed.”

Colin Baines, toxic fuels campaign manager at the Co-operative, the UK mutual business group which targets tar sands as part of its climate change campaigning, said: “It is very disappointing that the UK government is supporting Canada’s efforts and we hope it has a rethink and puts tackling climate change ahead of Canada’s trade interests when it comes to vote on the European commission’s commonsense proposal.”

The documents were obtained by the Co-operative under environmental information regulations, a type of freedom of information law. They include letters to and from ministers, diplomatic correspondence and notes of meetings.

Baker said: “The government is staying true to its aspiration to be the greenest ever by seeking to secure the best deal it can for the environment from the discussions ongoing in the EU about the fuel quality directive.

“We believe that means tackling all highly polluting crudes equally, not simply oil sands from one particular country. These certainly represent a problem, but so do other crudes, and it makes no environmental sense to ignore these.

“This is not about protecting one particular country – we want to deal with all crudes, not just one type, and in a way that is based on robust and objective data, related to their carbon emissions.”

Like Baker, Canada also argues in the newly revealed documents that it is unfair to single out one nation and that other types of oil can be as dirty as tar sands.

But Baines says these arguments are “myths”, as the European proposal does not name any nation and on average fuel from tar sands is a greater source of carbon by a clear margin, according to a Stanford University study for the European commission.

Furthermore, the European commission proposal allows for changes in the emissions designated for fuel types.

Canadian ministers and diplomats state they support an “overarching ambition” to reduce carbon emissions. But Canada has admitted it will fail to meet its Kyoto protocol target of a 6% cut compared with 1990 levels: in 2009 its emissions were 34% higher.

In September, Lord Sassoon, the UK Treasury minister for commerce, spent two days in Calgary, a few hundred miles from the vast oil sand pits excavated by 1,500-tonne diggers. The International Energy Agency expects production to treble in the next 20 years. Sassoon met politicians and oil executives to discuss boosting trade with the UK and told reporters that Alberta is “one of the main focuses of British business”. Alberta’s energy minister, Ron Liepert, told Sassoon privately he “was grateful for UK efforts” on the tar sands issue in Europe.

The new British consulate-general in Calgary was announced by Hague on 18 October, the same day as Canadian energy minister Joe Oliver said: “[The British] have been very, very helpful and we’re pleased about that. Many European companies are heavily invested in the oil sands and they also would be concerned.” The new documents and diplomatic sources suggest the Netherlands, Spain and Poland are among those backing the British-Canadian position.

In London, a senior Canadian diplomat, Sushma Gera, told BIS: “Canada will not hesitate to defend her interests,” perhaps via a World Trade Organisation dispute, a possibility also raised by Shell in its presentation to DfT.

Bill McKibben, a leading US environmentalist, who was arrested in August protesting against a major oil sands pipeline called Keystone XL said: “The UK seems to have emerged as Canada’s partner in crime, leaning on Brussels to let this crud across the borders. This will be among the biggest single environmental decisions the Cameron government makes.”

Greenpeace’s Sauven, along with the head of Friends of the Earth, Andy Atkins, and David Nussbaum, leader of WWF-UK, have written to Nick Clegg, deputy prime minister and Lib Dem leader.

The letter says: “We ask you to intervene personally on this, to ensure that your party’s green ambitions are more effectively upheld across Whitehall.”

Source:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/27/canada-oil-sands-uk-backing

Filed Under: Capitalism, Corporations, Corruption, United Kingdom Tagged With: ,