Canada

The five companies that own most of the oilsands production in Alberta should come clean with the public about the "enormity" of the costs — adding up to nearly $2 trillion in a worst-case scenario — of their pollution, says a new study.

"The Big Five need to start publicly disclosing their emissions modelling for the sake of transparency and accountability," reads the report, released Wednesday by the Parkland Institute, an Alberta public policy research network based at the University of Alberta.

'The only way we can get any of those things is if we do all 3 of those things together,' PM says

Feb 02, 2018 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sought to bridge the divide between Alberta and British Columbia on Friday with a vow that climate change and spill protection programs won't go ahead unless the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion is built. 

It's naive to think that reducing carbon emissions is costless, writes Thomas Walkom.

The latest pipeline faceoff between Alberta and British Columbia is more than a constitutional tussle.

It is also a reminder of the unresolved contradictions within Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s climate-change policy.

More specifically, it is a reminder that the core of that policy — the assertion that carbon emissions can be adequately reduced without significant economic cost — is simply not true.

The cosmos must be messing with Justin Trudeau and Rachel Notley. Just as the Kinder Morgan pipeline controversy surges to fever pitch over oil spill impacts, a barge near Vancouver has sunk, spilling diesel into the ocean in the territory of the Squamish Nation.

Media reports about threatened trade wars between B.C. and Alberta and commentary on the role of Justin Trudeau's government will now be accompanied by pictures of containment booms, spill responders and affected First Nations.

January 29, 2018

“Regardless of your views on this particular pipeline (we are opposed, in case that wasn’t clear), anyone who thinks their locally-elected government or local First Nations shouldn’t get railroaded by a US corporation just because they have a federal approval should be very concerned about these recent developments.”

January 30, 2018

VANCOUVER, BC, Coast Salish Territories – West Coast Environmental Law applauds a new provincial plan announced today to restrict the transportation of diluted bitumen in BC unless the science shows that spills can safely be cleaned up. A proposed regulation limiting increased bitumen shipments by pipeline or rail is a welcome safety measure for the environment and public health, say the environmental lawyers, and an important warning for Kinder Morgan if it continues to pursue its Trans Mountain pipeline and tankers project.

The B.C. government has introduced new oil spill regulations that include restrictions on transportation until "the behaviour of spilled bitumen can be better understood."

The measures announced Tuesday could complicate Texas-based energy giant Kinder Morgan's plan to expand its Trans Mountain oil pipeline from Alberta to the B.C. coast.

January 25, 2018

Canadian governments are sitting by and watching as endangered species disappear, in what one environmental lawyer calls a “slow moving catastrophe.”

The latest blow comes as a deadline for provinces to outline plans to protect threatened caribou habitat blew by without a single province meeting the deadline.