Tag Archives: COP 21 (Paris)

Old Habits – The Quadra Project

Some old habits are difficult to break. Since the global pledge to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, 30 years of half-hearted trying has not stopped them from going up rather than down. The result is exactly as scientific modelling has predicted—global temperatures are rising. The year 2023 was the hottest in about 125,000 years after temperature records were recorded for consecutive months from June to December of 2023, and then for January and February of 2024. The final calculations for 2023 indicate that we have reached 1.32°C above the pre-industrial temperature, exceeding the 2019 record by 0.4°C. Yes, it’s a warmer El Niño year, but that only accounts for 0.2°C of the 1.32°C. New 2024 calculations indicate we have reached 1.48°C above historical levels.

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Mining and conservation can go hand in hand, environment ministers say

By Matteo Cimellaro, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Mining projects and protected land can co-exist, two provincial environment ministers said at a press conference on Friday after two days of meetings with their counterparts from across the country.

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The Quadra Project – 1.5 Degrees Celsius

The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change, adopted by 196 Parties at COP 21 in Paris, on 12 December 2015. It entered into force on 4 November 2016, with the goal of limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, with an aspirational target of 1.5°C, compared to pre-industrial levels.

At the COP 27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in November 2022, only a few countries have updated their required annual carbon cutting emission targets for this year, and the United Nations’ Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, has described present efforts as so “woefully inadequate” that we are setting the world on track to “catastrophe”. Indeed, current CO2 emissions are rising at 1- 2% per year rather than going down 5-7% per year. Even under the voluntary “nationally determined contributions” of individual nations, emissions are expected to rise by 2030, in contrast to the nearly 50% reduction needed to keep the temperature rise at 1.5°C. At present emission levels, we are committed to a global temperature increase of 2.8°C by the end of the century.

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Campaign ramps up to pressure one of Canada’s largest pension firms to divest from fossil fuels

By Cloe Logan, National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

People are pushing the investment firm that manages retirement savings for B.C.’s public sector workers to move roughly $2 billion out of fossil fuels by the end of the year.

The British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI) holds a total of $199.6 billion in managed assets and oversees retirement savings for the province’s teachers, nurses, municipal workers and other government workers, according to its site.

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Recycling isn’t the ‘panacea’ that will save oceans from plastic at UN Ocean summit

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Canada has the opportunity to position itself as a leader in tackling the world’s marine plastics problem at this week’s UN Ocean Conference, experts say. 

However, to effect real change, Canada and its international partners will have to aggressively wean themselves off unnecessary plastics and accelerate the development of a global circular economy to make sure plastic pollution doesn’t end up in oceans. 

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