Countries around the world, including Canada, are officially under pressure to further ratchet up their commitments under the Paris Agreement, the UN’s climate change executive secretary Simon Stiell told delegates at the annual climate negotiations in Dubai.
The latest grim findings from climate scientists estimate that based on current trajectories, the planet has roughly six years before blowing past the Paris Agreement’s goal to hold global warming to 1.5 C, Stiell said during the COP28 opening ceremony.
But . . . . "the devil is in the details" and . . . ."In total, over US$400 million was announced. So far, that’s about 0.1 per cent of what’s needed each year, developing countries say, pointing to needs of at least US$400 billion."
Nov. 30, 2023
In what is widely seen as an extraordinary win on the first day of the annual UN climate change negotiations, countries have begun breathing life into a climate finance fund agreed to last year — although the devil is in the details.
U.S. oil and gas companies extracted record amounts of planet-warming oil and gas in 2023 — a year that was the globe’s hottest in recorded history.
New reporting from The Guardian on Monday found that the U.S. government is planning for oil and gas production levels to stay at “near-record levels” until mid-century.
Earlier this month, the CEO of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) stood before the Calgary Chamber of Commerce and pledged our national retirement fund’s continued support for the Alberta oil and gas industry.
The UN climate summit—hosted this year by the United Arab Emirates, a major oil producer—begins Thursday in Dubai. It will review the progress on countries’ 2015 Paris Agreement commitments toward limiting rising global temperature to 2 C, preferably 1.5 C, above pre-industrial levels. It will also define what new commitments countries can agree on to avoid planetary catastrophe.
“This (IEA) report is a stunning rebuke to all the Canadian oil executives and politicians claiming that they can simply slap on some government-funded carbon capture and continue with business as usual in a world rapidly weaning itself off of oil and gas," said Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist for Greenpeace Canada, in an email Thursday.
A new executive team is ready to take the reins at the Ontario Federation of Labour in a historic year for the labour movement.
Laura Walton, Ahmad Gaied and Jackie Taylor were elected president, secretary-treasurer and executive vice-president at the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) convention on Tuesday, November 21.
