Dec 14, 2016 - After working on climate and energy issues intensively for the past nine years, I would love to scream from the rooftops about how Canada now has a real climate framework, and how as a nation we are proudly, if belatedly, walking the talk. Instead, I feel immensely disappointed by last week’s First Ministers’ Meeting on climate change both in terms of its limited outcomes, as well as the media focus on the politics of getting to a deal rather than the substance of the deal itself.

OVERVIEW • 

WHAT’S MISSING • 

To view this 6 page, Dec 12, 2016  summary click here: 

Dec 13, 2016 - On Dec. 9, after much deliberation and political theatre, the federal government, eight provinces and three territories signed the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change.

Saskatchewan and Manitoba were notably absent from the list of signatories.

Dec 22, 2016 - After spending the past 13 months focused on international and national climate negotiations, Environment Minister Catherine McKenna will turn her attention in 2017 to the more prosaic work of implementation – ensuring that what was agreed to at high-profile political summits is acted upon.

The pan-Canadian climate agreement signed earlier this month by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and 11 provincial and territorial premiers includes a plan for Ottawa to impose a carbon price on provinces that refuse to adopt their own by 2018.

[Wepage editor's note: A law to INCREASE emissions from 66 to 100 megatons is not a cap, it is legalized climate vandalism.]

Nov 1, 2016 - Alberta’s NDP government moved to put into law Tuesday the costliest aspect of its climate leadership plan – a 100 megatonne-a-year cap on emissions from the oilsands.

The hope is the hard cap that will strand some of the resource will win federal permits for pipelines and Alberta recognition for sacrificing its most valuable asset.

[Webpage editor: The author below is not happy with a recent negative report (see here) about BC's carbon tax. A proposed carbon tax in neighbouring Washington has divided environmentalists in that state.