BERLIN – Since the Paris climate agreement was signed in 2015, too many policymakers have fallen for the oil and gas industry’s rhetoric about how it can help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Tall tales about “clean coal,” “oil pipelines to fund clean energy” and “gas as a bridge fuel” have coaxed governments into rubber-stamping new fossil fuel projects, even though current fossil fuel production already threatens to push temperatures well beyond the Paris agreement’s limit of well below 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
OTTAWA — The federal government is set to become the official owner of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion after failing to quickly flip the project to another private-sector buyer.
Pipeline owner Kinder Morgan had been working with the government to identify another buyer before July 22.
But with that date set to pass without a deal, it was expected the pipeline company will now take Ottawa's $4.5-billion offer to purchase the project to its shareholders.
Baltimore became the second East Coast city to file a climate liability lawsuit against fossil fuel companies. Its suit, announced Friday, becomes the 12th suit filed across the country aiming to hold the industry accountable for flooding and other harms caused by climate change.
With U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war against Canada showing no sign of abating, the work on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion that’s starting next month may seem like a godsend for a nation striving to reduce dependence on its southern neighbour.
More than a dozen current and former members of the Prime Minister’s Youth Council are calling on Justin Trudeau to halt the federal government’s announced $4.5-billion buyout of the Trans Mountain pipeline from Kinder Morgan.
