Canadian Climate Change Policy: Let's Be First Among the World's Worst Polluters

onOct 17, 2007 @ 07:12 PDT

The Throne Speech authored by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised yesterday a 20-per-cent reduction in greenhouse gases (GHGs) by 2020.

But you’ll have to forgive the gathered world leaders if they fail to leap to their feet and applaud Canada’s apparent embrace of sensible climate change policy. A decade ago, this country – which vies with the U.S. and Australia for the title of the worst per capita polluter among major world economies – promised to reduce GHGs by seven per cent below the 1990 level. Today, as Prime Minister Harper’s speech confirms, we are dumping our airborne garbage at a rate that is 33 per cent above that 1990 benchmark.

So, Mr. Harper proposes a new target that won’t even bring us back to the benchmark and a new deadline that is eight years later than the one Canada committed to in Kyoto.

No wonder the clapping was contained to the members of Prime Minister Harper’s own minority Conservative government. Everyone else is hanging their head in shame.

By Richard Littlemore

uk/Tory Leadership Contender Robert Jenrick’s Pro-Coal and Anti-Net Zero Record

ByAdam Barnett and Sam Bright

onJul 25, 2024 @ 07:44 PDT

The Conservative candidate has changed his tune on climate action, recently attacking Labour’s net zero policies and arguing for new fossil fuel extraction.

Dutch and U.S. Climate Deniers Join Forces as Europe Shifts to the Right

ByNina Tea Zibetti, Alexander Beunder, Merel de Buck and Jilles Mast

onJul 24, 2024 @ 22:00 PDT

Clintel’s fifth anniversary conference in town outside Amsterdam offers a glimpse of the group’s transatlantic ties.

uk/Labour Urged to Release Cumbria Coal Mine Documents by Ex-Net Zero Tsar

ByPeter Geoghegan and Lucas Amin

onJul 24, 2024 @ 07:07 PDT

The government is being taken to court for failing to publish the evidence provided to ministers before they backed the controversial scheme.

Enquête : Les initiatives de l’industrie de l’aquaculture visant à promouvoir des pêcheries durables en Afrique de l’Ouest sont entachées de « conflits d’intérêts massifs »

ByBrigitte Wear, Hazel Healy and Michaela Herrmann

onJul 23, 2024 @ 04:04 PDT

Les responsables de campagne critiquent des programmes volontaires « fortement défectueux », tandis que l’analyse de DeSmog révèle l'absence de représentation de la société civile ou des communautés locales affectées par les dommages causés par l’industrie des farines et huiles de poisson.

Series: Spotlight on Industrial Aquaculture