emissions

Tue, 2013-03-12 08:00Jeff Gailus
Jeff Gailus's picture

How Redford Can Walk the Walk, Part 2

This is the second post in a three-part series. For Part 1, Parsing Redford's Little Black Lies, click here.

As Alberta Premier Alison Redford tries her best to hoodwink American politicians into believing Alberta is leading the way on climate change, it’s worth considering where the problems lie and how they might be addressed. The solutions, of course, have nothing to do with more and better public relations, just a commitment to environmental stewardship that Alberta has yet to embrace.

As I wrote in the first part of this column, Redford’s claims about “responsible oil sands development” in her recent USA Today column are patently false. This is because Alberta has failed to implement its own climate change strategy, allowing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the province to grow significantly over the last 20 years despite a commitment to steep reductions.

There are three reasons for this failure. The first is the rampant expansion of Alberta’s tar sands development, which is the fastest growing source of GHG emissions in Canada. GHG emissions from the tar sands more than doubled over the last 20 years, and planned growth under current provincial and federal policies indicates they will double yet again between 2009 and 2020, from 45 megatonnes in 2009 to 92 million tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2020. Environment Canada knows full well that tar sands production, which is expected to double between 2008 and 2015, "will put a strong upward pressure on emissions."

Read more: How Redford Can Walk the Walk, Part 2
Tue, 2013-03-05 12:23Jeff Gailus
Jeff Gailus's picture

Parsing Redford’s Little Black Lies, Part 1

This is the first post in a three-part series. For Part 2, How Redford Can Walk the Walk, click here.

Within weeks of becoming Alberta’s first female premier in October 2011, Alison Redford realized that the tired old propaganda about jobs and Canada’s reputation as a safe and friendly supplier of oil weren’t helping in the battle over the future of tar sands oil in America.

“We heard very quickly that they don’t want to hear anymore the security argument or the jobs argument. We get that,” Redford told the Globe and Mail. “Really, this is about environmental stewardship and sustainable development of the oil sands. We were quite happy to talk about that, [but] that was a shift in the kinds of conversations that Alberta was having.”

What Redford doesn’t seem to have understood is that it’s not about talking the talk, it’s about walking the walk. In a recent column in America’s biggest newspaper, USA Today, Redford tried to convince Americans that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline is part of Alberta’s “responsible oil sands development.”

Read more: Parsing Redford’s Little Black Lies, Part 1
Sat, 2013-02-09 06:00Carol Linnitt
Carol Linnitt's picture

BC's Fracking Problem: Northern Gateway Not Only Concern for BC Residents

The British Columbia government has plans to double or even triple the amount of natural gas produced in the province in order to meet growing international demand. Although the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline is a key issue of concern to British Columbians, widespread fracking for unconventional gas presents another significant challenge that should be on the public's radar, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

As the CCPA reports, BC's gas production targets all but ensure the province will fail to meet its own 2007 emission reductions targets as laid out in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act. Exported gas from BC is expected to contribute the emissions equivalent of putting 24 million new cars on the road, and all for a 0.1 percent projected increase in provincial jobs.

You can watch this animated video here for an overview:

Read more: BC's Fracking Problem: Northern Gateway Not Only Concern for BC Residents
Fri, 2013-01-25 05:00Carol Linnitt
Carol Linnitt's picture

Canadian Scientists Must Speak Out Despite Consequence, Says Andrew Weaver

“If people don’t speak out there will never be any change,” says the University of Victoria’s award-winning climate scientist Andrew Weaver. 

And the need for change in Canada, says Weaver, has never been more pressing.

“We have a crisis in Canada. That crisis is in terms of the development of information and the need for science to inform decision-making. We have replaced that with an ideological approach to decision-making, the selective use of whatever can be found to justify [policy decisions], and the suppression of scientific voices and science itself in terms of informing the development of that policy.”
 
Read more: Canadian Scientists Must Speak Out Despite Consequence, Says Andrew Weaver
Tue, 2013-01-22 17:54Carol Linnitt
Carol Linnitt's picture

Approaching the Point of No Return: The World's Dirtiest Megaprojects We Must Avoid

Canada's tar sands are one of 14 energy megaprojects that are "in direct conflict with a livable climate."

According to a new report released today by Greenpeace, the fossil fuel industry has plans for 14 new coal, oil and gas projects that will dangerously increase global warming emissions at a time when massive widespread reductions are necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change. In conjunction these projects make it very likely global temperature rise will increase beyond the 2 degrees Celsius threshold established by the international community to levels as high as 4 or even 6 degrees.

Read more: Approaching the Point of No Return: The World's Dirtiest Megaprojects We Must Avoid
Tue, 2013-01-22 12:52Carol Linnitt
Carol Linnitt's picture

Oil Change International: The Coal Hiding in the Tar Sands

Thanks to Alberta's tar sands, coal-powered energy production just got cheaper, and dirtier.

That is largely due to an often overlooked byproduct of bitumen upgrading: petroleum coke. The byproduct, commonly referred to as petcoke, is derived from the excess heavy hydrocarbons necessarily processed out of bitumen in the production of lighter liquid fuels like gasoline and diesel. The leftover condensed byproduct, petcoke, bears a striking resemblance to coal, and is being integrated into coal power plants across the US and internationally, contributing a tremendous amount of carbon emissions to the tar sands price tag that has been previously unaccounted for.

That is, until the research group Oil Change International released a research report that calculates the use of petcoke in American energy generation increases the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline's emissions by a staggering 13 percent. 

Read more: Oil Change International: The Coal Hiding in the Tar Sands
Tue, 2012-12-04 12:51Carol Linnitt
Carol Linnitt's picture

Canadian Youth Delegation: Tar Sands Creating "Commitment Issues" for Canada at COP18

Canada's leadership is failing to uphold international commitments to reduce the country's emissions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This failure on the global stage is the direct result of Canada's domestic policies, according to the Canadian Youth Delegation to COP18's recent report "Commitment Issues."  

Canada's determination to develop Alberta's tar sands constitutes the nation's primary obstacle to progress on climate action. Bitumen extraction in the region "invalidates Canada's commitment to limit global warming to 2 degrees celsius since pre-industrial times and sets a dangerous global precedent for extreme extraction," the report states.
 
The Canadian government has participated in several significant international agreements and treaties aimed at reducing global levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, given the country's aggressive oil and gas development, these agreements only serve to highlight Canada's disregard for, rather than participation in, international efforts to prevent dangerous global warming.
Read more: Canadian Youth Delegation: Tar Sands Creating "Commitment Issues" for Canada at COP18
Tue, 2012-09-18 11:58Carol Linnitt
Carol Linnitt's picture

Alberta Bitumen Threatens Health of Communities Living Near Refineries in U.S., ForestEthics Reports

Toxins from refineries processing tar sands bitumen are dangerously polluting the air of local communities in the United States, according to a recent report by ForestEthics. Areas surrounding tar sands refineries - where a higher proportion of society's vulnerable minority, aging and poor communities live - exhibit intense levels of sulfur dioxide (SO2) as a result of the high sulfur content of bitumen feed stocks used in the process. Sulfur dioxide pollution is associated with asthma and heart disease.

"The growing use of Canada's tar sands by U.S. refineries adds another health risk to those already being faced by some of the most disadvantaged communities in the United States," said Aaron Sanger, U.S. Campaigns Director at ForestEthics and author of the report, in a press release.
 
At current rates, the U.S. imports 99 percent of Canadian bitumen exports. That oil is refined near low-income areas, meaning the health effects fall disproportionately on communities with disadvantaged groups. African American and Latino populations suffer higher cancer risks from refinery pollutants than the general population, according to the EPA.
 
The ForestEthics report, Tar Sands Refineries: Communities at Risk, shows that refineries upping their intake of tar sands bitumen have a correlative increase in SO2 emissions.
Read more: Alberta Bitumen Threatens Health of Communities Living Near Refineries in U.S., ForestEthics Reports
Thu, 2012-09-13 12:02Farron Cousins
Farron Cousins's picture

Mega Corporations Understand The Dangers Of Climate Change

While the U.S. federal government might be dragging its feet about climate change, corporations operating in the U.S. fully understand the physical and financial threats posed by extreme climate shifts. According to a new report by The Carbon Disclosure Project, members of the S&P 500 are making great progress in both their acknowledgment of climate change, and in their actions to reduce their own carbon footprints.

The study measured several different markers for corporations, including their willingness to fully disclose their less-than-friendly environmental practices. Overall, the study shows remarkable progress from previous years’ studies.

Here is what they found:

Read more: Mega Corporations Understand The Dangers Of Climate Change
Fri, 2012-06-01 21:00Laurel Whitney
Laurel Whitney's picture

400 PPM Carbon Dioxide Concentrations Breach The Arctic

There's a saying that trouble comes in threes. Earlier this week, the International Energy Administration announced that emissions reached a record high last year, increasing by 1 Gt worldwide. At the Bonn climate talks, experts have warned that the window to curb a global temperature rise of more than 2 degrees is swiftly drawing to a close.

To cap it off, NOAA released the news that carbon dioxide levels have reached a new milestone this spring, tipping the scales over 400 ppm, a concentration the world hasn't seen in the last 800,000 years.

Scientists are seeing these high concentrations at their northernmost stations in the Arctic. Remote sites measure the gas in Alaska, Canada, Iceland, Finland, Norway, and also an island in the North Pacific, Mauna Loa, which has been recording ambient CO2 concentrations since 1959 (and produced the now-famous Keeling curve).

The global average is still around 395 ppm, but the Arctic is seen as an important indicator for global conditions to come, since it is an ecosystem that is much more sensitive to changing conditions.

“The northern sites in our monitoring network tell us what is coming soon to the globe as a whole,” said Pieter Tans, an atmospheric scientist with NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) in Boulder, Colo. “We will likely see global average CO2 concentrations reach 400 ppm about 2016.”

Read more: 400 PPM Carbon Dioxide Concentrations Breach The Arctic

Pages

Subscribe to emissions