Limiting global temperature increase to 2 degrees is a good objective because above that amount the likelihood of runaway climate change (melting of Greenland and the Arctic; release of methane from permafrost in the North) is really serious. So this news that the US is not interested in this issue is depressing. Not that communiques coming out of the G8 […]
Read moreChalk up another gimmick for Elizabeth May, with the Green’s carbon tax plan that promises, literally, the world, but falls apart upon examination. Don’t get me wrong: carbon tax may well be the way to go, because of its ease of administration compared to other schemes. But a major issue is that we have little idea empirically on how large […]
Read moreHugh Mackenzie’s piece on gas price gouging set off a chain reaction in the mass media. The oil execs were scrambling to come up with any and all excuses to justify their outrageous abuse of market power, and their even more outrageous profits. The lame response essentially boils down to this: it’s just market forces. Indeed, it is just “the […]
Read moreTwo articles below look at two major items exempted from the Kyoto Protocol: air travel and deforestation. First, the Independent looks at the emission impacts of deforestation in poor countries (though emphasizing that air travel accounts for only a very small percentage of global emissions). Second, the Globe comments that despite its small share of the total, air travel is […]
Read moreIt truly boggles the mind how people can contemplate flying to Iceland in order to board a boat to watch global warming happen in Greenland. So this is capitalism’s response to climate change. Sigh. A holiday at the end of the Earth: tourists paying to see global warming in action By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor Published:Â 03 May 2007 Bored […]
Read moreHow Denmark Paved Way To Energy Independence Thirty-Year Plan Uses Wind, Taxes, Pig Fat; Consumers Pay More By LEILA ABBOUD April 16, 2007; Page A1 HORSENS, Denmark — Nothing goes to waste in the new Danish Crown slaughterhouse in eastern Denmark. Even the inedible fat of 50,000 pigs killed and processed here each week is used to heat the plant. […]
Read moreI have to say I have a soft spot for Margaret Wente. Sure, she is a conservative who sounds off frequently on issues that she really has no business writing about. But, boy. is she a good writer and she has a knack of connecting with the same deeply embedded conservative populism that Harper likes to mine. Today I was […]
Read more   The rich world’s policy on greenhouse gas now seems clear: millions will die Our governments have set the wrong targets to tackle climate change using outdated science, and they know it George Monbiot Tuesday May 1, 2007 The Guardian Rich nations seeking to cut climate change have this in common: they lie. You won’t find this statement in the […]
Read moreJeffrey Simpson has a good column in today’s Globe on the new Conservative climate-change plan. He makes the same point that I did about the impossibility of meeting Kyoto’s first-round targets and the importance taking our second-round targets seriously. He also points out how thin all of these climate-change “plans” have been. To me, a “plan” is a set of […]
Read moreIs this mischief on the part of the Globe’s editors or a simple mistake? The way I read the headline below is literally: that Harper’s newest climate change plan would “cut emissions 18 per cent by 2010”. Sounds good, right? The Tories must have seen the light and, while they would still miss the Kyoto targets, are aiming for a […]
Read moreThis is a fascinating story arising out of BC’s newfound religion on climate change. It seems to me that the devil is in the details when it comes to carbon trading. A hard cap must be set and must be enforced with strong penalties. Allocating emission rights based on past performance is problematic, as it rewards those who are the […]
Read moreA number of key critical points on the federal government’s “analysis” of the economic impacts of Kyoto – http://www.ec.gc.ca/doc/media/m_123/toc_eng.html – have already been made, including by Erin. http://progecon.wordpress.com/2007/04/20/inconvenient-truth/ A lot hinges on whether continued adherence to the protocol means that very large cuts have to be made to domestic emissions in a very short period of time – a key […]
Read moreA lovely counterpoint to last week in Canadian politics on greenhouse gas emission reductions, Kyoto and Minister Baird: Norway Plans to Go ‘Carbon Neutral’ April 20, 2007 — Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday proposed to make Norway the first “carbon neutral” state by 2050 and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by 30 percent by 2020. “We are committed […]
Read moreAl Gore has famously and correctly characterized the scientific consensus about global warming as “An Inconvenient Truth”. In today’s Financial Post, Buzz Hargrove identifies another “inconvenient truth” for Canadian progressives: “it is impossible to achieve Kyoto targets in the time frames spelled out in Kyoto.” Canada’s Kyoto commitment was relatively modest and achievable. However, after signing it, the Liberal government […]
Read moreFrom today’s FP – I’ve dropped the misleading headline – this is a much more reasoned piece than some recently and widely circulated short quotes from Buzz on the implications of Kyoto for workers. Friday, April 20, 2007 Â As the president of the Canadian Auto Workers Union, I often find myself taking controversial positions, usually with a strong opinion […]
Read moreSome good points in this piece. I just love Baird’s argument that “275,000 Canadians would lose their jobs, gasoline prices would jump 60 per cent and natural gas prices would double.” Sounds like just what has happened over the past couple of years as the result of the oil boom. Did 250,000 manufacturing workers lose their jobs because of […]
Read moreThe framing of the Kyoto Accord by the Harper government, that is. I suppose this is progress for Harper, who had essentially dismissed climate change a year ago, but as the polls moved he has had to follow. I’m not as pessimistic about the economic fall-out if we are creative in developing just transition strategies for affected workers and are […]
Read moreOTTAWA — Canada’s greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution will continue rising for several more years and remain well above Kyoto targets beyond 2020 if government plans leaked to Canadian Press and reviewed by the Climate Action Network Canada/Réseau action climat Canada (CAN-RAC) are implemented. The organization expects the federal government’s proposal for a new national GHG target to be […]
Read moreA report by Felix Salmon from the front lines of Columbia University on some issues arising out of the Stern review. I’d love to see a transcript of this session. Stern, Sachs, and Stiglitz on the Economics of Climate Change … I managed to ask Stern the question I’ve been wanting to ask him for a couple months now … […]
Read moreBill C-30 – the Clean Air Act – is a strange beast – a government bill which was fundamentally re-written by the three opposition parties to finally move Canada towards a real national action plan to prevent catastrophic climate change.The media are so focused on the politics of climate change that little attention seems to have been paid to the […]
Read moreGeorge Monbiot takes us behind the curtain of the IPCC report-making process, and who is really pressuring whom to censor what: The Real Climate Censorship Posted April 10, 2007 It’s happening, it’s systematic, and it is precisely the opposite story to the one the papers are telling. By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian, 10th April 2007. The drafting of […]
Read moreThe New York Times reports on the inequities generated by global warming below. The April edition of The Atlantic also featured a story on the same theme, but it was really poorly done. While the article makes a few interesting observations of what might happen in different parts of the world, Gregg Easterbrook, from Brookings, was more inclined to treat […]
Read moreThe presentations from the Ottawa Economics Association’s 2007 Policy Conference are now available online. They include a fascinating exposition on China’s manufacturing sector, a business perspective on Canadian manufacturing, Buzz Hargrove on the Canadian economy, and the Fraser Institute’s take on global warming.
Read moreAir travel is a beast for the climate change file, one that is going to be difficult to tackle as we move ahead. For consumers, it is deeply entrenched as a means of getting around the globe, and may be particularly hard to reduce because it would require strong international collaboration. In Monbiot’s book Heat, he argues we need to […]
Read moreThe “uh oh” file is growing, as the next IPCC report comes out this Friday. In it are more graphic descriptions about what warming could mean for the planet and by region. Scary stuff that will hopefully take our governments to the next level beyond recognition and half-measures to something more meaningful. Below are some previews from the Toronto Star […]
Read moreOf more than passing interest given Harper’s ramped up subsidies to ethanol – more of a farm support program than a genuine climate change solution it would seem (though perhaps we should be more supportive of the newer biotechnologies which can convert wood and agricultural wastes to ethanol.) http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2043724,00.html If we want to save the planet, we need a five-year […]
Read moreI’ve posted below an interesting commentary from Dennis DesRosier in favour of gas tax increases as an alternative to the proposed incentive increases. His chart shows a near perfect correlation between monthly gas prices and % monthly auto sales going to entry level ( fuel efficient) vehicles. It strikes me that – to reduce the emissions intensity of motor vehicles […]
Read moreMathematically, we are all related through our common ancestors. This is because of the power of 2 – that we each have two parents, four grandparents, and so forth back as far as you can go. Assuming no in-breeding, and an average of 20 years per generation, this works out like this: by 20 generations past (approx. 400 years ago), […]
Read moreThe Guardian on Livingstone’s latest for the city of London: Cleaning up the Big Smoke: Livingstone plans to cut carbon emissions by 60% · Londoners given 20-year target to go green · Flights could drastically affect success of campaign David Adam and Hugh Muir Tuesday February 27, 2007 The Guardian A detailed plan to slash London’s carbon emissions by 60% […]
Read morehttp://www.canadianlabour.ca/index.php/briefs_to_parliament/1096 The Canadian Labour Congress today submitted to the Parliamentary Committee looking at Bill C-30, the Clean Air Act which deals with greenhouse gas emissions. Our brief sets out a broad labour perspective on climate change issues – focusing on the need for a planned transition to a more environmentally sustainable economy. Labour supports sticking with Kyoto, deeper emissions reduction […]
Read more