Tag Archives: Gov of Canada

Energy, Indigenous Nations

BC and First Nations unite to defend tanker ban

 Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter 

The BC coast is “not for sale.”

BC Premier David Eby and coastal First Nations sent that message to Ottawa on Wednesday as they called on the federal government to uphold the oil tanker ban on the province’s north coast.

Eby and First Nation leaders stressed oil spills would cause irreversible environmental harm, the destruction of critical marine ecosystems and significant economic damage to First Nations and coastal communities.

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Cost of Climate Change, Politics

‘Climate negative’: Canada’s energy transition progress stalls in first Carney budget

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

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first budget did not deliver new investments on climate or clean tech. In fact, some experts say it takes a step backwards.

The “climate competitiveness strategy” Carney has been teasing spanned 10 pages out of the 406-page document. It committed to improve the federal government’s emissions reduction workhorse — the industrial carbon pricing system — but provided precious few details on how it would do so, while leaving the door wide open to ditching the proposed cap on oil and gas sector emissions and weakening greenwashing rules. 

“This is the most climate negative budget we’ve seen in more than a decade since the Harper era,” Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood, a senior researcher at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, told Canada’s National Observer during the budget lockup in Ottawa.

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Animals

Canada’s wildlife woes show nature is foundational in nation-building

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Wildlife populations are plummeting while risks to nature rise across Canada as governments loosen environmental regulations to fast-track major projects, a World Wildlife Fund study shows.

A little over half of the 910 vertebrate species monitored between 1970 to 2022 are in decline, according to WWF-Canada’s latest Living Planet Report, which tracks changes in national wildlife populations across different habitats. 

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Energy, Politics

Feds, BC are shifting LNG risks to public purse, report claims

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Ottawa and the British Columbia government are shifting financial risks of LNG companies onto the public purse while weakening commitment to the “polluter pays” principle, a new report suggests.

The federal and provincial governments are on track to provide almost $4 billion in support for fuel expansion of LNG exports on the West Coast, despite forecasts that global demand for the fossil fuel will peak well before most projects come online. 

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