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A water treatment pond at the McKay River Suncor oil sands in-situ operations near Fort McMurray, Alberta, as seen in 2014.
Canada takes a swing at cutting oil and gas carbon emissions
Canada’s oil and gas industry is the country’s top pollution emitter, and critics, including Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault, say it’s not doing enough to reduce emissions.
The draft regulations are a step forward in the fight against climate change – and fighting words. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who leads a province dominated by the oil and gas industry, said she was “pissed” about the proposed regulations and vowed to challenge them in court. She also claimed Guilbealt “has a deranged vendetta against Alberta.” Predictably, the oil and gas industry also opposes the rules.
The Liberals are staking their claim on the climate file ahead of the 2025 election, which is due by October 2025. Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, who is up in the polls by about 20 points, says he’ll scrap the regulations, which means the Liberal plan faces long odds against seeing the light of day.
Premier Danielle Smith tours Jasper, Alberta, Canada, in July.
Chemtrail conspiracy takes flight over Alberta
British journalist Christopher Hitchens once described conspiracy theories as “the exhaust fumes of democracy.” But it is doubtful he was referring to so-called “chemtrails.” A slightly unhinged school of thought now has it that vapor trails in the sky are sprayed deliberately to poison or control the people below.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was asked about chemtrails at a town hall in Edmonton last weekend and, after being heckled for saying no one is allowed to spray anything over the province, conceded she’d been told the source might be the US Department of Defense, according to Global News.
A reporter who contacted the Pentagon was told they didn’t know what Smith was talking about and referred him to the North American Aerospace Defence Command, which said it is not conducting any flights that involve spraying chemicals.
One health expert dismissed the idea as a baseless, “ridiculous” conspiracy theory, while federal Liberal MP Randy Boissonnault said Smith’s comment was “simply bonkers.”
The premier later clarified that there is no evidence of chemtrails and she was simply sharing what she’d been told.
But, then again, she would say that …
Specialists tend to the body of a victim outside a damaged shopping center hit by a missile strike in Belgorod, Russia, on Feb. 15, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Missiles hit Russian border city, ex-FBI informant in Biden bribe case faces charges, Gaza needs new ‘Marshall Plan,’ UK slips into recession, Bangkok’s air becomes unbreathable
7: At least seven people, including a one-year-old girl, were reportedly killed on Thursday by an apparent Ukrainian missile strike in Belgorod, the closest major Russian city to Ukraine. This is not the first time Belgorod has been targeted amid the Russia-Ukraine war – dozens were killed in a strike there last December, as Ukraine seeks to show that it can still strike Russia, even as Moscow’s forces slowly push forward the front lines in the Donbas. Meanwhile, the US warned that the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka, which has seen some of the worst fighting recently, is at risk of falling into Russian control.
25: Alexander Smirnov, a former FBI informant, has been charged with lying about President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden accepting payments from Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings. The US Justice Department said Smirnov gave the false statements because he disliked Biden. If convicted, Smirnov faces up to 25 years in jail.
20 billion: The damage from the war in Gaza so far is estimated to be roughly $20 billion, according to a UN trade body official. The estimate is based on satellite images, but for an exact number, there will need to be an on-the-ground investigation. The official said that the Las Vegas-sized Gaza strip will need a “Marshall Plan” of its own after the Israel-Hamas war, in reference to the US-led effort to rebuild Europe after World War II.
0.3: The UK economy fell into a recession at the end of 2023, dealing yet another blow to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as he hopes for reelection in a vote widely expected later this year. Data released Thursday showed GDP fell 0.3% in the final three months of last year, after shrinking 0.1% in the previous quarter.
156: The air in Bangkok was so polluted on Thursday that city employees were ordered to work from home for two days, and private sector workers were strongly encouraged to do the same. How bad was it? The Thai capital’s Air Quality Index hit 156. When levels go above 100, it’s considered to be unhealthy for sensitive groups, while levels above 150 are dangerous for everyone.
An Afghan man works in a poppy field in Nangarhar province in 2016.
Hard Numbers: Afghans' fewer poppies, Trump's lead in key states, Lake Titicaca’s lower water level, New Delhi's smog, Japan's new frigates, Swifties' tents
95: Once the world’s top opium supplier, Afghanistan has slashed its cultivation of opium poppies by a whopping 95%, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. The drop follows a Taliban edict banning opium cultivation.
5: Former President Donald Trump is leading in five of six battleground states in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, according to new polls by The New York Times and Siena College. The numbers indicate that Biden is trailing among registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. The president remains ahead in Wisconsin by the smallest of margins: two percentage points.
29: Over the past seven months, Lake Titicaca’s water level at the Peru-Bolivia border has fallen 29 inches to near-record lows. According to scientists, climate change is exacerbating this year’s El Nino phenomenon, layering heat on top of heat in South America’s largest freshwater lake.
471: In more bad environmental news, primary schools in New Delhi have been closed through Nov. 10 due to high pollution levels. On Sunday, the capital recorded an Air Quality Index reading of 471, a level considered hazardous.
12: The Japanese Ministry of Defense will acquire a total of 12 new Mogami class frigates over the next five years. The vessels will be used to defend the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, which are controlled by Japan but also claimed by China and Taiwan.
5: Die-hard Taylor Swift fans have been camped out in tents for 5 months for a chance at front-row seats to the singer’s Eras Tour concerts in Buenos Aires on Nov. 9, 10, and 11. Some Bad Blood has been reported between the tent dwellers and locals who say the Swifties should get jobs rather than spend days waiting for their idol – but despite the potentially Delicate situation, fans appear able to Shake it Off.
Security personnel stand guard in front of the India Gate amid the heavy smog in New Delhi.
India’s push for climate justice
India, the world's third largest emitter of carbon dioxide, is one of the countries worst affected by climate change. But it takes issue with those now asking it to clean up its act. Why, the Indians ask, should we give up our right to get rich by burning fossil fuels like you developed economies have done for generations?
That's precisely the message that India's energy minister had for the US and other wealthy nations at a recent Zoom summit after they pressured Delhi to set a future deadline for net zero emissions. For India, he explained, such targets are "pie in the sky" aspirations that do little to address the climate crisis the country faces right now.
High stakes. The impacts of climate change will be severe for India. Parts of the country are set to become unbearably hot in the coming years. Torrential monsoon rains are becoming more frequent and unpredictable, as are droughts, which will hinder the agriculture's sector ability to feed 1.4 billion people and employ nearly 60 percent of the labor force.
Melting glaciers may alter the course of the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra rivers, making it harder for farmers to irrigate crops. And tens of millions of Indians live in low-lying areas that could be underwater in a couple of decades.
Taking action. Faced with such grim prospects, India says it's doing its part to turn the tide. The country is one of the few currently on track to meet its emissions reduction target in the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, and is very close to achieving its objective of using 40 percent of renewable energy sources by the end of the decade.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been internally recognized for driving India to become a global climate champion. His government has spurred massive public and private investment in clean energy, especially solar, where India is now a major player due to ultra-low prices. But that's not the entire story.
Coal remains king. India still burns a lot of coal. In fact, coal powers about half of the country's electricity generation. As the Indian economy grows, so will demand for coal — and the air in megacities like Delhi and Mumbai will get even more toxic.
And it's not just coal. Eliminating dirty household fossil fuels for cooking, heating and lighting would fix India's air pollution problem without any changes to industrial or vehicle emissions. But an attempt by the government to force hundreds of millions of low-income Indians to use more expensive green alternatives would likely be met with the same fierce resistance that farmers have shown to Modi's new laws to make the agriculture sector more business-friendly.
To drastically cut emissions, India needs cash. Delhi believes that rich nations should spend less on going "net zero" themselves and more on helping developing countries realize their climate action plans with less stringent requirements. Why, the Indians ask again, should wealthy nations demand that we all go green but only we stay poor, when you still get most of the available climate finance money, and yet it is we who will suffer the most?
For India, it's high time to shift the burden of paying for climate action to those who caused Earth to warm in the first place. But will that argument convince rich countries to divert funds intended to reach their own targets so India won't have to choose between economic growth or saving the environment? We may find out in a couple of weeks at Joe Biden's Earth Day Summit.Coronavirus and the climate
As governments around the world grapple with COVID-19, the planet continues to warm. How is the pandemic likely to impact climate policy within and among the world's largest countries?
For now, pollution is way down. Around the world, smog has decreased dramatically as coronavirus-lockdowns idle factories and park millions of cars, scooters, boats, and airplanes. This is temporary, of course, but it's a chance for people, at least those allowed outside, to see what clean air and water look like.
...but so is attention to climate policy. At the moment, most governments will have to get back to you about climate policy, and the UN has already postponed its planned November global climate summit, mothballing global coordination on climate responses until mid-2021.
Looking ahead, as governments craft responses to the economic fallout from coronavirus, we'll hear vigorous debates about whether and how much climate considerations should be part of those plans. Here are two main arguments.
One: this is a unique opportunity to act on climate, so don't screw it up. The pandemic boosted governments' powers to reshape economies and societies. They could use the moment to make both much greener.
Two: economic recovery trumps environmental concerns. Forcing companies to spend more to go greener in exchange for government rescue money will make it much harder to get workers back to work. Worry about the half a billion people facing poverty first.
So far, we've seen a little bit of both among the world's major economies. The EU, for example, still plans to move ahead with its Green Deal and pledges to tighten its emissions targets, despite pushback from some eastern member states fearful of the cost. In the US, meanwhile, the Trump administration has relaxed emissions enforcement, and Congress failed to agree on any green conditionalities as part of the $2.2 trillion March rescue plan, though another package is now in the works. China, for its part, has massively ramped up coal-fired power generation to reinvigorate an economy that just shrank for the first time in 40 years.
And that's part of the problem. Absent coordinated action among the world's largest economies to deal with climate change, it will be hard to flatten the curve of global warming, so to speak. Greenhouse gases, like viruses, don't respect borders.
The November wildcard: US President Donald Trump and his election opponent Joe Biden differ sharply on climate change. In his first year as president, Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Accords, arguing that the deal left "American workers — who I love — and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production." Biden, by contrast, has pledged to recommit the US to the Paris Agreement on day one of his presidency.
Even as countries around the globe continue to grapple with responses to the economic fallout of the pandemic, what happens on November 3 in the US will have a dramatic impact on global climate cooperation.
'Most Pasir Gudang factories have broken the law', says Johor health committee chairman
JOHOR BARU (THE STAR, ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - Most chemical factories in Pasir Gudang have committed offences under the Environment Quality Act, according to State Health, Culture and Heritage Committee chairman Mohd Khuzzan Abu Bakar.