Tag Archives: Canada emissions

Environment

A UBC Professor Explains What To Look For At COP 28 & Why He Does Not Believe In Overshoot

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With the COP 28 only a little more than a week away, the University of British Columbia held a press conference about key issues. In the breakout session, Cortes Currents asked Dr Simon Donner a former COP delegate and professor from the Department of Geography and Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, two questions.

  1. Many people on Cortes and Quadra Islands believe in the Overshoot theory. What do you say to people who believe that Climate Change is a symptom of a much larger problem: there are too many of us living on a planet with rapidly diminishing resources?
Continue reading A UBC Professor Explains What To Look For At COP 28 & Why He Does Not Believe In Overshoot →
Disaster, Environment, Opinion

The Quadra Project: Canada’s Forest Fires of 2023

Forest fires in British Columbia, Northwest Territories, Yukon and elsewhere in Canada reached record levels in the summer of 2023. They also coincided, for the months of June, July, August and September, with the highest recorded temperatures since the Eemian Interglacial Period 120,000 years ago. So 2023 is likely to become the hottest year ever recorded since we humans have existed as an identifiable species.

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Energy, Environment

New emissions targets may sink LNG’s pitch as a shipping fuel

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The fossil fuel and shipping industries just got a serious shot across the bow over relying on liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a transition fuel.

On Friday, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) finalized stricter global emissions standards for the maritime industry while closing a significant regulatory loophole driving up the use of LNG as a shipping fuel.

LNG has lower CO2 emissions than other fossil fuels used in shipping but it also emits significant amounts of methane, a short-lived but powerful greenhouse gas responsible for more than 25 per cent of current global warming.

Continue reading New emissions targets may sink LNG’s pitch as a shipping fuel →
Forests

Logging pollution is on the rise — but don’t expect to find it on the accounting books

By Natasha Bulowski, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

As the world uses more and more wood over the next few decades, the planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions associated with logging will rise, new research predicts.

Yet many of these emissions are not currently attributed to the logging industry because widely used accounting methods leave the impression that wood harvests only marginally increase carbon emissions or don’t increase them at all, according to new research published in Nature.

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Environment, Transportation

Most Canadians on board with government cash for zero-emission shipping

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Canadians are generally pretty foggy about how much shipping emissions are fuelling the climate crisis. 

But as soon as they learn that the sector produces a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, the majority are on board with government investment in zero-emission ports, an Abacus Data poll indicates. 

Continue reading Most Canadians on board with government cash for zero-emission shipping →