Tag Archives: Environmental Defence

Oil and gas, transportation remain biggest obstacles in Canada’s quest to cut emissions

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

Canada’s progress on significantly cutting pollution by 2030 is being undermined by growing emissions from the country’s oil and gas industry, according to the federal government’s annual emissions report to the United Nations.

Overall, Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions rose in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available. However, the federal government was quick to note emissions that year were still lower than before the pandemic.

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Canada lays out new regulations for methane emissions from oil and gas

By Cloe Logan, National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault proposed regulations Tuesday that would help Canada cut back on emissions of methane in the oil and gas industry, a powerful greenhouse gas.

He made the announcement alongside John Kerry, the United States’ special presidential envoy for climate, at this year’s United Nations climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. The pair said Canada and the U.S. will work together to curb emissions of methane — which is 86 times more powerful than carbon for the first 20 years it exists in the atmosphere — in both countries.

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Canada’s largest oil and gas companies’ sky-high net earnings renew calls for windfall tax

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

Sky-high net earnings for Canada’s four biggest oil companies have renewed calls for a windfall tax that Ottawa shows no sign of adopting.

“The gas lobby is clearly very powerful and holds a lot of sway in Canada,” Environmental Defence’s programs director Keith Brooks told Canada’s National Observer, adding the industry is impeding effective climate action and creating deep inequality among Canadians.

Continue reading Canada’s largest oil and gas companies’ sky-high net earnings renew calls for windfall tax

Enviro groups suing Alberta premier say the foreign influence he accused them of is actually in Big Oil

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

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is doubling down on his attacks against the environmental groups he misleadingly claims “campaigned to landlock Alberta energy” using foreign money, but environmentalists are quick to point out the majority of Canada’s oil and gas companies are quietly controlled by foreign corporations seeking to influence climate policy through lobbying and elections.

“The irony of this whole conversation is that the foreign money involved in the conversations about what we should do on climate change or not is, of course, dominated by oil money, most of which is foreign,” said Tim Gray, executive director of Environmental Defence, one of five environmental organizations suing Kenney and his government for misrepresenting the clear-cut findings of a provincial inquiry released last year.

Continue reading Enviro groups suing Alberta premier say the foreign influence he accused them of is actually in Big Oil

Feds press on climate in mandate letters, but environmentalists will wait and see

By John Woodside,  National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The cabinet ministers’ mandate letters published last week hint at a whole-of-government approach to tackling the climate crisis, but the devil will be in the details, many environmentalists say. 

Continue reading Feds press on climate in mandate letters, but environmentalists will wait and see