|
Home > News > What's New
CAN-Rac News Releases
| Publications
| Photos | Twitter | Facebook
Tory budget ‘walks away' from renewable energy, environmentalist says
March 11, 2010
Gloria Galloway, The Globe and Mail
The new federal budget is titled “Leading the Way on Jobs and Growth,” but environmentalists say it fails badly when it comes to creating new employment in fields that deliver energy from renewable sources like sun, wind and water.
Even before the new fiscal plan was released last week, the U.S. federal government was outspending Ottawa by a per-capita ratio of 14 to 1 on the technologies that many believe will be the energy sources of future generations.
In Canada, a four-year, $1.43-billion ecoEnergy program, introduced in 2007, provided money to companies for the development of new clean-energy sources. But that expires in 2011 and the new budget offered nothing to replace it.
As a result, said Tim Weis, the director of renewable energy and efficiency at the Pembina Institute, the budget has widened the gap between what is spent federally in the United States and Canada to 17.8 to 1 – again on a per capita basis. more
Wacky winter a signal of years to come: Climatologist March 10, 2010
Margaret Munro, Canwest News Service
It's beyond shocking," David Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment Canada, told Canwest News Tuesday. Records have been shattered from "coast to coast to coast."
"It is truly a remarkable situation," says Phillips, noting that he's seen nothing like it in his 40 years of weather watching. He also warns that "the winter than wasn't" may have set the stage for potentially "horrific" water shortages, insect infestations and wildfires this summer. more
Budget deep freeze will lead to end of climate research lab March 10, 2010
Shawn McCarthy, The Globe and Mail
Scientists who study climate change from a remote post on Ellesmere Island are planning to shut down their cash-strapped project after the federal government refused to refinance a key climate-change research foundation.
“It's quite clear we have a government that says they believe this is an issue but really don't care about it,” said Andrew Weaver, a world-renowned climatologist from the University of Victoria. more
B.C. fuels fight with Ontario over bioenergy March 10, 2010
Justine Hunter, The Globe and Mail British Columbia's quest to replace Ontario as the top destination for clean-energy investment dollars will now be headed up directly by Premier Gordon Campbell.
The B.C. Premier plans to introduce a new Clean Energy Act this spring to exploit his province's beetle-killed forests as a bioenergy alternative, and to open up new energy trading opportunities across Western Canada and into the U.S. more
Budget fails to protect environment, groups say March 5, 2010
CBC Environmentalists say Thursday's federal budget missed an opportunity to create green jobs and took a step backward in protecting the environment.
Tim Weis, director of renewable energy policy for the Pembina Institute, said based on their respective budgets for 2010-11, the U.S. will outspend Canada 14 to 1 per capita on renewable energy and 2 to 1 on energy efficiency. more
Budget puts climate action on ice March 5, 2010
Shawn McCarthy, The Globe and Mail The Harper government has taken a pause in financing federal action on climate change.
In his budget speech Thursday, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was literally silent on the issue – climate change was not mentioned, though the government has in the past described it as one of the major challenges of the age. more
Climate Action Network Canada Response to Budget 2010 March 4, 2010
Climate Action Network Canada  Just when we thought that it couldn’t get any worse, today’s budget is a monumental failure of this government to do what it takes to address climate change in a meaningful way. more
Pembina Reacts to 2010 Federal Budget: Canada hits rock bottom on investments in environment For release March 4, 2010
The Pembina Institute  “This deeply disappointing budget offers virtually nothing to create clean energy jobs or live up to our climate change commitments.
Today’s budget invests 14 times less, per capita, in renewable energy than President Obama’s proposal — making no improvement on last year’s ratio. As governments worldwide are making major investments in clean energy, Canada continues to fall even further behind. more
Harper Budget Ignores Green Solution to Climate Change March 4, 2010
Greenpeace Canada  The Harper government is not being accurate in its new budget when it
claims that that renewable energy is helping Canada to meet its
“ambitious climate change objectives”. The budget failed to make any
meaningful investment in renewable energy, and the government’s climate
change target is far from ambitious. more
Environmentalists back Avatar for Oscar March 4, 2010
Martin Mittelstaedt, The Globe and Mail With the Oscars looming, environmentalists are appealing directly to Hollywood to select Avatar as the year’s best feature film, linking the blockbuster movie’s storyline of ravaging a planet to obtain a rare and costly mineral to Canada’s mining of the oil sands. more
Harper Government Misses Boat on Green Energy March 3, 2010
Greenpeace Canada The Harper government claims “Canada must keep step as the world races
forward” but the world is leaving Canada behind in the race to
establish a green energy economy. more
Pembina Reacts: Speech from the Throne March 3, 2010
The Pembina Institute Unfortunately, today’s speech fails to
clearly signal an improvement in the government’s poor track record on
climate change and investment in the clean energy economy. more
Ontario Campuses Participate in International Teach-in for Climate Justice March 1, 2010
Sierra Youth Coalition  Today, hundreds of students at campuses across Ontario, with the support of the Sierra Youth Coalition will launch a Teach-in For Climate Justice. Using an alternative style of educational forum faculty at participating campuses will dedicate a portion of their classes to engage in a discussion around climate change and climate justice in a momentous event engaging thousands of students over the next two weeks. more
Feds' stimulus environmental rule changes challenged February 26, 2010
CBC  An environmental lobby group has formally begun legal action to force the federal government to abide by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act in stimulus projects funded by Ottawa. more
Report: Finishing the coal phase out: An historic opportunity for climate leadership February 2010
Ontario Clean Air Alliance Ontario now has a significant surplus of coal-free electricity, making it possible for the province to complete the coal phase out ahead of the G20 Summit in Toronto this June. read the report
Bernier urges skepticism on climate change February 24, 2010
CBC Scientific evidence still doesn't clearly explain climate change and it's normal to be skeptical, claims former Conservative cabinet minister Maxime Bernier in an open letter published Wednesday.
Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe questioned the credibility of Bernier's views on environmental science.
"Mr. Bernier's expertise lies more in Joe Louis than climate change," Duceppe said, referring to the sweet, chocolate-coated vanilla pastries invented in the Beauce region that Bernier represents. more
Campaign on tar sands extraction targets oil investors
February 22, 2010
BBC
London - Campaigners against the extraction of oil from tar sands are encouraging people to lobby their pension schemes if they hold shares in Shell or BP. more
Climate sceptics are recycled critics of controls on tobacco and acid rain February 19, 2010
Jeffrey Sachs, guardian.co.uk Today's campaigners against action on climate change are in many cases backed by the same lobbies, individuals, and organisations that sided with the tobacco industry to discredit the science linking smoking and lung cancer. more
Arguing With A Climate Change Skeptic? There's An App For That
February 17, 2010
Treehugger For anyone who has been stuck in a conversation with someone who passionately says something about climate change that is utterly uninformed, you'll know how nice it is to not only be able to talk about the science that proves them wrong, but now you can actually show them research on it right there in the middle of the moment. more
Sierra Club blasts Wall over remarks February 17, 2010
Bruce Johnstone, Leader-Post  The Sierra Club of Canada blasted Premier Brad Wall's call for a "tech fund'' to invest in carbon reduction technologies, like carbon capture and storage (CCS), as a waste of time and money. more
Oil Sands Money Doesn't Change Quebec Concerns About Global Warming  February 17, 2010
Environmental Defence and Équiterre
The majority of Quebec residents surveyed are less likely to vote for
the current government because of the Prime Minister's climate change
policies, according to a new poll released today by environmental
groups Equiterre and Environmental Defence. It also shows that the
appointment of a Quebec MP to oversee the Natural Resources ministry
won't change the majority of people's negative views of the oil sands. more
Ontario Power Generation confirms Pickering nuclear station to close in 10 years February 16, 2010
Keith Leslie, The Canadian Press Greenpeace Canada applauded Ontario Power Generation for admitting it was too costly to keep the Pickering nuclear station open for more than another 10 years.
"For once OPG has told the truth about a project being uneconomic and saved the ratepayers millions if not billions of dollars," said Greenpeace energy watchdog Sean-Patrick Stensil. more
Ontario wants Ottawa to fund green programs February 16, 2010
The Canadian Press Ontario is asking the federal Conservative government to use next month's budget to fund green energy projects in the province.
Premier Dalton McGuinty says if Ottawa is going to provide financial support for unproven technologies to capture carbon emissions in Western Canada, it should also support green energy initiatives. more
Sierra Club files complaint over unlabelled Canwest oilsands ad features February 11, 2010
The Canadian Press The Sierra Club of Canada has filed a complaint with the Advertising Standards Council that alleges Canwest tried to hide the fact articles on the oilsands that ran in several of its 11 major dailies were paid for by Shell Canada.
Instead of being labelled advertising features, the stories were entitled "a special information feature, in partnership with Shell Canada." more
Poll shows Canada to be losing its influence February 11, 2010
Olivia Ward, Toronto Star Canadians are famously apologetic.
Now an international poll, released Thursday, gives them one more reason to be self-effacing. Since last year, it finds, views of Canada's influence have worsened in some of the world's most powerful countries – and at home. more
Shell Canada’s Disguised Advertising Techniques Can’t Hide the Truth about the Tar Sands
February 10, 2010
Sierra Club Canada Sierra Club Canada filed a complaint with Advertising Standards Canada
today alleging Shell Canada and Canwest have violated the Canadian Code
of Advertising Standards. Over the last three weeks, Canwest has run a
series of full page features described as, "A six-week Canwest special
information feature on climate change, in partnership with Shell
Canada." Sierra Club Canada was at first confused by the one-sided
nature of the "information" and contacted the Ottawa Citizen only to
find out the “features” were in fact full-page advertisements. more
Closure of Pickering good for green energy; fixing Darlington wrong: Greenpeace
February 9, 2010
Greenpeace Canada News reports indicating Ontario Power Generation (OPG) will not rebuild the four Pickering B nuclear reactors is another blow to the future of the Canadian nuclear industry and could provide an opportunity for expanding green energy, if the McGuinty government allows it, says Greenpeace. more
The race for green growth
February 9, 2010
Scott Brison,
National Post
In his State of the Union address, Barack Obama said that "the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy." Stephen Harper doesn't seem to get it, however. Where everyone else sees opportunity, he sees only costs. Mr. Harper was alone in Davos insisting that measures to address climate change will hurt the economy with "real impacts on jobs and economic growth," and that "there are serious tradeoffs with economic imperatives in the short term." more
Canada should take page out of South Korea's green playbook
February 4, 2010
Keith Stewart, WWF Canada
 Canada and South Korea may be co-chairing this year's G20 meeting in Toronto, but the two countries are worlds apart on their approach to greening the economy. more
Mr. Harper’s New Climate Change Target
by Graham Saul, Climate Action Network Canada This
weekend, Prime Minister Harper submitted a new target for reducing
greenhouse gas pollution to the United Nations and officially signed-up
to the Copenhagen Accord, the controversial agreement that came out of
the UN climate change conference in December. The new target
is a significant weakening of Canada’s commitment to reduce greenhouse
gas pollution, but there is no point in debating whether or not it’s
strong enough because the Prime Minister has no intention of meeting
his target. more
Quebec's rift with Ottawa over climate change grows
February 4, 2010
John Ibbitson and Rhéal Séguin, The Globe and Mail Global warming is fracturing national
politics as Ottawa and Quebec escalate a war of words over federal
reluctance to act against climate change. “The only federal plan is to align with the United States,” Mr. Charest
told reporters. “However, I never in my life thought that aligning our
policies with the United States was good enough for Canada.” more
|
