CANADIAN EMISSIONS ROSE FROM 2020 TO 2021 BUT LOWER THAN 2019 BEFORE PANDEMIC.
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is the Nelson’s Climate Resilience Planner, Natalie Douglas, discusses new building code standards in the City to reduce energy use and emissions from new buildings. Mayor Janice Morrison invites input to City Council’s strategic planning. Tom Green from the David Suzuki Foundation reacts to the federal missions report showing emissions rose from 2020 to 201. He also discusses the need for a total emissions cap on the fossil fuel production industry. Local events for Earth Day 2023.
LINKS:
City of Nelson’s news about heightened building code standards.
https://nelson.ca/905/Low-Carbon-Building-Materials
David Suzuki Foundation. Comment on Canada’s Climate Emission Inventory report https://davidsuzuki.org/press/canadas-2021-emissions-inventory-confirms-need-for-oil-and-gas-emissions-cap-clean-electricity-regulations/
ENVIRONMENT NEWS
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A B.C. Supreme Court judge has rejected a logging company’s request for a court order allowing them to probe into the social media of members of a Kootenay environmental group.
Madam Justice Lindsay Lyster released her decision in favour of Last Stand West Kootenay last week, saying granting the request by Cooper Creek Cedar would “not be in the interests of justice” and would suppress legitimate, peaceful protest.
The RCMP C-IRG unit also played a significant role in suppressing legitimate protest when it arrested 19 people who were seeking to prevent large scale clear cutting at Salisbury Creek south of Argenta.
The company had sought a so-called Norwich order requiring a third-party, such as a social media company, to provide information.
She said that granting such as order for information about Last Stand would “would have a chilling effect” on the group and others “engaging in expressive and associational activities in support of their political and social aims,” Lyster wrote in her March 27 judgment.
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During the global climate strike on 3 March, climate activists and public transport workers in Germany went on strike together in around 30 cities.
On the March 3 global climate strike a political alliance took to the streets in Germany: side-by-side, climate activists and public transport workers went on strike. In at least 30 cities, climate activists visited workers’ pickets and brought them along for joint demonstrations. According to Fridays for Future, a total of 200,000 people participated in the nation-wide protests.
Under the slogan #wirfahrenzusammen (“we ride together”), the nationwide alliance between the climate movement and workers demands both better working conditions and more investment in local transport infrastructure.
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There is a lot of talk about the amount of mining and associated destruction that must take place to build the renewable energy systems we need to stop burning fossil fuels. It can be a confusing issue, would it hurt the world more to rebuild new clean energy systems? Some simple analysis is coming out now that debunks this recent scare messaging.
Michael Thomas notes on Distilled.earth that 7 million tons of minerals were mined globally for low-carbon energy, In 2020, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). (These are often referred to as “transition minerals.”) In order to limit warming to 2 degrees celsius, we’ll need to scale up that production to about 28 million tons per year.
Sounds like a major concern, but the other statistics put it in perspective. The world mines and extracts 15 billion tons of coal, oil and gas each year. And it is mostly burned into our atmosphere.
With those numbers Thomas points out the Fossil Fuel Economy takes 535 times more mining than a clean energy economy
https://www.distilled.earth/p/a-fossil-fuel-economy-requires-535x
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Methane in the atmosphere had its fourth-highest annual increase in 2022, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported last week, part of an overall rise in planet-warming greenhouse gases that the agency called “alarming.”
Though carbon dioxide typically gets more attention for its role in climate change, scientists are particularly concerned about methane because it traps much more heat—about 87 times more than carbon dioxide on a 20-year time scale, The Associated Press reports. That makes methane controls one of the best options for quickly scaling back emissions during a decade when scientists are calling for a 45% reduction in climate pollution.
Methane is emitted from sources including oil and natural gas systems, landfills, and livestock, and has increased particularly quickly since 2020. Scientists say it shows no sign of slowing despite repeat, urgent calls from scientists and policy-makers who say time is running out to meet warming limits in the Paris climate agreement and avoid the most destructive impacts of climate change.
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The significant drop in lithium prices since the beginning of the year could mean cheaper electric vehicles (EVs) are coming.
After soaring for two years, the price of lithium carbonate — a key ingredient in EV batteries — sank by more than 65 per cent since January, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.
“Prices peaked at over $85,000 US in November,” mining industry analyst Jean-Charles Cachon said, a level he deemed “unsustainable.” Today, one metric tonne of the battery-grade lithium salt sells for less than $30,000 US.
And it’s not just lithium: other metals that go into batteries, such as cobalt and nickel, are also seeing their prices slide.
One observer said the net effect is “We’ll see more and more electric vehicles selling for $25,000 to $40,000 as the cost of critical minerals falls, and as battery production becomes more ingrained in the industry,”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/lithium-price-drop-electric-vehicles-1.6811105
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Protect Our Winters Canada a group of outdoor skiing enthusiasts dedicated to reducing the climate impact on their favourite slopes is endorsing better public transportation. I’ll take the bus they say and they point out that driving to “the hill” is creating millions of private vehicle trips. POW Canada points out that Whistler has 24,000 visitors a day. With an average group size of 1.9, that amounts to about 12,500 cars on the Sea to Sky each day, requiring over 100 acres of parking (that’s 54 football fields). These cars are pumping a minimum of 700 metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each day – enough to power 88 homes for a whole year.
They say: “For most of us, we drive because we have no other choice. Our public transport systems suck, and there’s simply no convenient way to get out into nature without contributing to its loss.”
They are asking folks to take a Transit survey on their website so they can make the case to governments for better public transportation to resorts and nature.
https://www.protectourwinters.ca/take_the_bus
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Thus Saturday, April 15, 2023, marks the day that the world’s fourth-largest economy has gone post-nuclear. Germany has shut its last three commercial atomic reactors. Europe’s biggest economy has steered itself toward a sustainable green-powered future.
For more than a half-century, a powerful Solartopian movement has fought reactor construction in Germany.
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CleanTechnica is reporting that wind and solar power are now at 12% of global power generation. The online journals says the era of fossil decline has begun. This year’s report is that the carbon intensity of global electricity generation fell to a record low of 436 grams of CO2/kWh in 2022, the cleanest electricity ever. This was due to record growth in wind and solar, which reached a 12% share of the global electricity mix, up from 10% in 2021. Together, all clean electricity sources (renewables and nuclear) reached 39% of global electricity, a new record high.
Solar generation rose by 24%, making it the fastest growing electricity source for 18 years in a row. Wind generation grew by 17%.
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Nichole Dusyk, a senior policy adviser with the International Institute for Sustainable Development, says the future for Canadian LNG is not nearly as rosy as some boosters like the Canadian Chamber of Commerce make out. Competition from renewable energy sources like wind and solar mean that today’s relatively high prices for methane gas, shipped as LNG, like won’t hold.
“High prices are clouding people’s judgment about the long-term economic prospects of natural gas,” Dusyk said in an interview with the Canadian Press.
“The global outlook for natural gas is going down, not going up.”
The Terrace Standard news item
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