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Across BC more and more communities are looking at the expansion of methane gas pipelines and delivery as one thing they can control. We hear from Margaret Holm in Penticton how a community group in the Okanagan is working to stop methane gas expansion.
COP 27 is over and Naomi Klein is already calling for a boycott of next year’s climate summit. After 26 years the summit is still failing to demand reductions in fossil fuels, and last year was the first time the word fossil was mentioned in the final statement. Host Keith Wiley talks over some of the politics of this COP with local activist Dave Gregory.
Canada has 12 CARBON BOMBS that are blowing up our climate catastrophe, and at least three of them are in BC. Ricochet.media has a great, tight rundown.
EVENTS AND LINKS
Tuesday December 6
Online 3:30 to 5 pm.
Creating a liveable climate future: an interactive workshop
Join us for an interactive workshop to explore strategies to address climate change using grounded conversations and the cutting-edge climate simulator En-ROADS. The resulting experience is hopeful, scientifically-grounded, action-oriented, and eye-opening.
https://www.westkootenayclimatehub.ca/upcoming-events
Dogwood BC is Calling on the BC Government to Ban Gas from all New Buildings
: Burning gas to heat homes and buildings represents a major source of B.C.’s carbon emissions. Requiring new buildings to be powered by clean electricity rather than polluting gas should be step one for any government claiming climate leadership. But the B.C. government continues to allow FortisBC to hook up 10,000 new buildings each year to gas lines. We cannot move forward on the urgent task of transitioning to a zero-carbon economy if new buildings continue to make the situation worse.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf0psHg2go07qVGNY8zY9CggaAWZJeiqG96-sH9D9SvGa0vng/viewform
Electric School Buses – Urgent Deadline! Please contact your School Board Chair
The federal govt’s $2.75 billion dollar Zero Emission Transit Fund includes money for electric school buses. In BC The ASTSBC (the association that co-ordinates bus purchases) is putting in a funding proposal on behalf of all interested school bus operators in BC for funding. The entire cost of new electric school buses and charging infrastructure could be covered. The ASTSBC needs to submit by the end of November. This means that all school districts must let them know how many electric buses they need for the next three years, and what their infrastructure needs are. The For Our Kids organization is asking citizens to contact local school boards to push for all electric buses.
Report from the UN High Level Expert group report chaired by Catherine McKenna.
INTEGRITY MATTERS: NET ZERO COMMITMENTS BY BUSINESSES,
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ENVIRONMENT NEWS BITS for NOVEMBER 29 2022
Albertans are concerned about the consequences of climate change, a survey commissioned by CBC News suggests.
Twelve per cent of Alberta respondents listed oil and gas as one of the top issues in the October survey. It’s a sharp decline from 2018, when that number was 40 per cent, and the province was recovering from a crash in both oil prices and jobs in the sector.
Now, oil and gas companies are booming with record profits, and the Alberta government is raking in the royalties when it had expected a huge deficit. The boom and bust cycle continues.
According to the poll, 59 per cent of respondents said they thought transitioning away from oil and gas would benefit Alberta’s economy in the long term.
However, sixty per cent said oil and gas will still be Alberta’s most important industry 25 years from now. Those results are largely unchanged from four years ago.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-oil-and-gas-poll-1.6652674
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Canada was one of more than 80 countries to call for the phasedown of unabated fossil fuels as COP27 negotiations went into overtime, but it didn’t appear in the final text of the COP27 agreement.
Instead, the final agreement repeated a pledge from last year’s Glasgow Climate Pact referencing the need for a “phasedown of unabated coal.” But more than 80 countries pushing to name fossil fuels — not just coal — as the root of the climate crisis is significant, environmental activists say.
After 26 years, NO COP statement has directly pointed to fossil fuel burning as the cause for the crisis.
Supportive countries were split on whether the word “unabated” should be included, Canada’s National Observer reported early this week. Using that term would still allow fossil fuel production to grow if companies used carbon capture and storage, a largely unproven technology that traps planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions during the production stage.
Environmentalists, academics and climate scientists warn embracing carbon capture technology could lock-in future fossil fuel production and jeopardize climate goals.
“Consistent with our Emissions Reductions Plan and net-zero policy, Canada gave our support to the position that calls for the phasing out of unabated fossil fuels,” federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault told Canada’s National Observer in an emailed statement.f
Guilbeault acknowledged the “important role” environmental non-governmental organizations played in communicating the importance of the issue and giving it prominence in the media.
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In Prince Edward Island a 40-foot boat is being retro fit to be powered by 30 200-watt solar panels on its roof.
The Isola Solaretto is thought to be North America’s largest solar-powered boat and its been drawing a lot of attention in the Charlottetown harbour where is been worked on for more than six years.
The Isola Solaretto is owned by Ride Solar, the same business that runs solar-powered pedal bus tours in Charlottetown and Halifax.
Steve Arnold, co-owner of Ride Solar, says “We should be able to bring the speed of the boat down to two or three knots on a sunny day, and have the power of the sun equaling the power of the motor,”
Arnold said the boat will be used to take passengers on harbour tours from May 1 to Oct. 30, starting in 2023.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/solar-powered-boat-charlottetown-1.6656199
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Renewables are on track to generate more power than coal in the United States this year. But the question is whether they can grow fast enough to meet the country’s climate goals.
For now, U.S. renewable output is edging higher. Wind and solar output are up 18 percent through Nov. 20 compared to the same time last year and have grown 58 percent compared to 2019, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The government energy tracker predicts that wind, solar and hydro will generate 22 percent of U.S. electricity by the end of this year. That is more than coal at 20 percent and nuclear at 19 percent.
Researchers at Princeton University estimate the country needs to install about 50 gigawatts of wind and solar annually between 2022 and 2024, or roughly double the 25 GW that the United States installed annually in 2020 and 2021.
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