Tag Archives: COP 26 (Glasgow)

Energy

The silent strength of Indigenous renewable energy micro-grids

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

For the first time since the 1970s, silence descended on the tiny, isolated village of Old Crow in Canada’s Arctic in August. For the first time since the 1970s, silence descended on the tiny, isolated village of Old Crow in Canada’s Arctic in August.

For generations, the community of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation in the Yukon, about 100 kilometres east of the Alaskan border, had suffered the incessant drone of diesel-powered generators to meet its electricity needs.

But the fly-in community, 120 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, was quiet for the first time in decades as the nation brought its solar energy micro-grid online, said Chief Dana Tizya-Tramm at an official COP26 side event Thursday.

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Forests, Indigenous Nations

Deferring 2.6 million hectares of BC’s most at-risk old growth forests

British Columbia is considering whether to defer logging on 2.6 million hectares of the provinces most at-risk old growth forests. 

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Cost of Climate Change

Hopes of climate success at COP26 fuels Canada’s new environment minister

By John Woodside,  National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

With a plan to eventually deliver promised international climate financing now complete, Canada’s newly minted Climate Minister Steven Guilbeault is “cautiously optimistic” about the success of upcoming United Nations talks in Glasgow, he said at a press conference Friday.

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Rivers & Oceans

Canada’s marine protected areas aren’t as safe as you think

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

As the globe’s “do or die” UN climate conference gets underway next week, Canada must scale up efforts to meet its ambitious ocean conservation targets to simultaneously prevent the wholesale collapse of marine biodiversity and tackle climate change, experts say.

As the largest ecosystem on Earth, the ocean is critical to regulating the climate and helping produce oxygen, rain, drinking water, and food, as well as sustaining livelihoods for three billion people.

An invaluable asset for mitigating the climate crisis, the ocean absorbs about 30 per cent of the carbon dioxide produced by humans while weathering an increasing number of marine heat waves, ocean acidification, oxygen and biodiversity loss, and pollution and plastics.

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Cost of Climate Change

Preventing biodiversity collapse critical to COP26 climate goals, say world leaders

 National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

In the run-up to the UN’s crucial climate conference at month’s end, global leaders have laid the foundation for an international framework to protect nature and halt the collapse of biodiversity worldwide while also curbing global warming and protecting human health.

More than 100 nations committed to the Kunming Declaration on Wednesday, a promise to put the natural world on a path to recovery by 2030.

Continue reading Preventing biodiversity collapse critical to COP26 climate goals, say world leaders →