LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD MARCH 21 SHOW
The Regional District of the Central Kootenay has signed on to the climate goal of 100% renewable energy by 2050. Now the RDCK has come out with a detailed climate adaptation and mitigation plan. Paris Marshall-Smith from the RDCK tells us a bit about it.
The Wildsight organization has been running Youth Climate Corps activities throughout the Kootenays for a few years now. This year the City Of Nelson will be getting two Youth Climate Ambassadors from the Climate Corps for the season. Cecilia Jaques from the City and Melissa Lavery from the Youth Climate Corps program with Wildsight tell us some of what they will be doing.
March 14th Premier David Eby announced the approval of another LNG project in Kitimat. The plan is highly controversial as LNG expansion is very problematic to meet the province’s (and planet’s) emission ta. To get some more detail we bring back Sven Biggs from Stand.Earth to tell us more.
LINKS
Regional District of the Central Kootenay’s 2023 Climate Plan
Wildsight’s Youth Climate Corps program
Premier Eby’s approval of second LNG plant in Kitimat
Toronto Star article https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/03/14/province-announces-new-energy-framework-on-heels-of-lng-facility-approval.html
The Tyee. Is BC LNG really green?
EVENTS
Thur. Mar. 23, 6 p.m. ET
Community Energy and Democracy
Join Tynette Deveaux, from Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Atlantic campaign for a presentation on community energy in Canada and where it fits in the context of the global energy democracy movement. Find out how communities are reclaiming their power and sowing seeds for more equitable, resilient, and sustainable societies.
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Sunday, March 26th and Monday 27th
11 am to 2 pm In front of Kootenay Coop.
Frack Free BC Art Days of Action
Frack Free BC is a growing movement of people in so-called B.C. working together to hold their government accountable on our province’s biggest climate problem. We’re kicking off 2023 by reclaiming our public space from fossil fuel advertisers and government misdirection – and proclaiming loudly our vision for the future: Frack Free BC! There will be events around the province, including here in Nelson.
In Nelson you can add to the art project on LNG at a table in front of Kootenay Coop from 11 am to 2 pm Sunday, March 26 and Monday March 27th. At noon on Monday, the 27th, there will be a banner unveiling event and everyone is welcome to join in.
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Thursday March 30, 7pm
Deep Dive seminar: Geothermal – an underutilized energy solution
From First Things First Okanagan: Geothermal systems use the earth’s thermal to provide unmatched heating and cooling efficiency. Systems are uniquely dependable, with units lasting up to 25 years. Why is this climate-friendly technology not used more widely in commercial and residential developments?
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEkcu6grzIvGNcV0vzaI16NcwD6qRgo7sl-
ENVIRONMENT NEWS
A coalition of 15 environmental groups, including Environmental Defence, Équiterre, Greenpeace Canada, the David Suzuki Foundation and Climate Action Network Canada, signed an open letter calling on Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland to intervene once again to save public transit systems from financial crisis related to lower farebox revenues due to the pandemic.
They also called on the Finance Minister to accelerate the rollout of the permanent public transit funding program, to put transit systems on a secure financial footing and on a path towards service expansion at a pace consistent with meeting Canada’s climate goals.
https://miningwatch.ca/news/2023/3/15/climate-groups-sound-alarm-public-transit-death-spiral
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Tsleil-Waututh activist Will George has begun serving a 28-day sentence for violating a court injunction when he blocked the entrance to Trans Mountain’s tank farm in January 2021. “Canada is sending me to jail because I was doing the work the colonial government failed to do — protecting my territory and my nation from a catastrophic oil spill. Tsleil-Waututh Nation has worked for a decade to oppose the Trans Mountain pipeline, but Prime Minister Trudeau failed us, so I am left with no choice but to do whatever I can to stop it.”
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Canadian taxpayers may end up taking a loss of $20 billion on the government-owned Trans Mountain Pipeline after costs to expand it skyrocketed, according to analysts at Morningstar Inc.
The federal government will probably get no more than C$15 billion when it goes to sell Trans Mountain — and possibly much less, Morningstar analyst Stephen Ellis said recently.
The government paid Kinder Morgan Inc. C$4.5 billion for the system in 2018 after the midstream company threatened to cancel plans to nearly triple its capacity to 890,000 barrels a day. The cost of that project has soared to about C$31 billion because of a range of factors including supply-chain challenges.
“At a C$31 billion investment cost, no way the pipeline is going to recover costs,” Ellis said.
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Airlines and airports are opposing measures to combat global warming caused by jet vapour trails. New evidence suggests vapour trails more than double the climate impact of jet travel.
While carbon emissions from jet engines contribute to global heating, research suggests the contrails formed when water vapour and soot particles form into ice crystals have an even greater impact.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated in a special report in 1999 that the historic impact of aviation on the climate was two to four times greater than from its CO2 emissions alone.
Airlines tend to ignore non-CO2 effects in the schemes to offset flight emissions. The official tool of the International Civil Aviation Organisation to calculate emissions also does not include contrails in its methodology.
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Finally signed the Blueberry River First Nations (BRFN) Implementation Agreement comes 18 months after the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that the cumulative impacts of resource extraction n on the Nations’ lands breached their right under Treaty 8 to use their territories for hunting, fishing, and cultural activities.
The Blue Berry River’s 38,300-square-kilometre territory is on top of the 130,000 square-kilometre Montney gas field on the B.C.-Alberta border. CBC report this week that the Montney reserve is Canada’s largest single carbon bomb. CBC says it contains enough fracking gas to last the country 140 years.
The agreement assures a C$200-million restoration fund by June 2025 to support the healing of the land. An additional $87.5 million will be paid “as a financial package over three years, with an opportunity for increased benefits based on petroleum and natural gas (PNG) revenue-sharing and provincial royalty revenues in the next two fiscal years.”
The deal sets the stage for renewed drilling in the territories. Fracking gas projects stalled by the courts can now proceed.
It also guarantees limits on new development, protecting more than 650,000 hectares of land from PNG and forestry activities.
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In the US Fossil-fueled electricity plants are expected to make up just 16 percent of new capacity completed in 2023, based on January data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Carbon-free power plants are on track to deliver 84 percent of new capacity — that includes solar, wind, nuclear and battery storage. That’s up from last year, when clean power plants made up 78 percent of new capacity.
Renewables are still a relatively small share of the nation’s total electricity production. Battery storage, has also boomed moving to the second-place spot for new capacity coming online this year.
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In 2021, New Mexico adopted regulations that were viewed as a model for reducing methane emissions from the flaring and venting of natural gas. But on the ground, watchdogs say they don’t see much of a change in oil and gas companies’ practices.
New Mexico’s new rules prohibit routine flaring and venting and require operators to achieve a 98 percent gas capture rate by 2026. February 28 was the deadline for operators to certify that they were on track to comply.
But environmental advocates and lawyers say that in the absence of rigorous state field enforcement, oil and gas companies are continuing wasteful methane flaring and venting. Recent flyovers by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, independent monitoring by environmental advocates and NASA satellite imagery have documented significant methane releases.
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With 2022 data now available, BloombergNEF is confident the global market for internal combustion vehicles peaked in 2017 and is now in structural decline.
This may seem self-evident to those watching the market closely, but is likely still jarring for others. Forecasts for oil demand issued just a few years ago still assumed steady growth in sales of these vehicles well into the 2030s.
At the 2017 peak, 86 million internal combustion passenger vehicles were sold, including traditional hybrids like the Toyota Prius. Battery-electric and plug-in hybrid models were a tiny sliver of the market that year, accounting for just over 1 million vehicles combined.
The picture was quite different in 2022. Combustion vehicle sales were down almost 20% from the peak, to 69 million, and plug-in vehicles jumped to 10.4 million.
Bloomberg says Internal Combustion Vehicles peaked in 2017
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