Energy

The U.S. and China weren’t always Earth’s biggest polluters.

The Paris Agreement is an essentially forward-looking document. In it, global leaders aspire to 1.5°C of warming, beefed-up financing strategies, and regular check-ins to assure nations are on track to phasing out fossil fuels as quickly as possible.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau marked the Paris climate agreement by committing to take on the “tough work that still needs to be accomplished both at home and around the world to implement the agreement.” Part of that tough work will be re-orienting federal funding to stop making the climate crisis worse.

Given Trudeau’s statements on the seriousness of the climate crisis, you might expect that the multi-billion dollar infrastructure program he ran on in the election would already be targeted to reduce carbon pollution. You would be wrong.

In addition to the articles on the Vancouver Ecosocialist web page (www.ecosocialistsvancouver.org) below are a some other sites with important articles and information on the COP21 conference in Paris and related issues:

Peoples Climate Convergence (Vancouver) : http://peoplesclimateconvergence.org/articles-by-subject

Paris Climate Justice: http://www.parisclimatejustice.org/

If Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s new cabinet ministers needed any reminder of how difficult their jobs are going to be when it comes to rebuilding trust with First Nations, they got it last week.

Working the crowd, when the Liberal caucus gathered for its annual Christmas party, was Chief Roland Willson, a big man with a powerful voice and an intractable problem he wasn’t going to let anyone ignore.

What does a pipe spewing 50,000 kilograms of methane per hour look like? You’d never know, as the highly flammable gas is invisible to the naked eye.But in the northern San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, where a ruptured pipe has been pluming natural gas for nearly two months, residents finally have their chance to see.

December 9, 2015

MEDIA ADVISORY

Press Conference: First Nations Leaders to Call on Federal Government to Stop Site C Dam Project in Treaty 8 Territory in British Columbia

At an estimated $9 billion and counting, the proposed Site C dam in northern British Columbia is an economic, environmental and social catastrophe in the making.

This short but important study by Oxfam documents the connection between climate change and inequality both between and within countries.

Read the full report.....

It was quite a sight: The CEOs of Alberta’s oilsands projects stood with NDP Premier Rachel Notley to announce Alberta’s climate plan before the climate talks in Paris. The CEOs had the widest smiles.