For all the political noise coming from municipalities and provinces in opposition to various pipeline projects, in reality they may lack any legal leverage to stop the projects or insist on conditions.
Tuesday, May 17 - In the spring of 2015, B.C. Premier Christy Clark challenged jurisdictions around the world to meet or beat her province’s world-leading climate action plan. Now her government is wrestling with rising CO2 levels while Alberta and Ontario have moved aggressively to reduce their provincial greenhouse gas emissions.
Local First Nations leaders were quick to call the federal Liberals hypocrites for formally adopting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) while construction proceeds on the Site C dam.
But a pair of constitutional law professors from the University of British Columbia (UBC) say they shouldn't be so quick to judge.
May 10 2016 - Opposition to Kinder Morgan is not limited to British Columbia. In fact, the effort by First Nations, municipalities, and environmental groups to stop the proposed Trans Mountain pipeline from the Alberta tar sands to the Pacific coast is just one part of a rising tide of resistance to the corporate behemoth that bills itself as “the largest energy infrastructure company in North America.”
In the 1960s, Vancouver’s historic downtown was at risk of being razed for modern road projects – only for an extraordinary protest movement to turn the tide, helping transform it into one of North America’s most ‘liveable’ cities.
Canada’s symbolic signing of the Paris climate agreements Friday was a hopeful and necessary step. Yet symbolism and rhetoric need to be followed by urgent action here at home if we are serious about avoiding a catastrophic four to six degrees Celsius of warming.
Pipelines and fracked gas are not the pathway to Paris solutions; they are the path to increased wildfires, water shortages and other increasingly unmanageable climate impacts.
