Climate Change, Carbon Taxes, Decarbonization and ENGOs – Page 47

‘Canada failed terribly, the provinces failed terribly,’ Chiefs disappointed after climate talks with PM, Premiers – by Brandi Morin (APTN National News – March 3, 2016)

March 3, 2016

VANCOUVER — Athabasca Chipewyan Chief Allan Adams stormed out of the meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada’s premiers and Indigenous leaders on climate change in Vancouver Wednesday because he said it fell to shambles.

“I think Canada’s in a crisis and it ain’t going to get any better now. Canada failed terribly, the provinces failed terribly in regards to addressing this issue,” said an infuriated Adam.

According to Adam the meeting didn’t include any talks of taking care of mother earth, instead the focus was placed on economic development and transitioning to a green economy.

Talking climate is cheap. Action is expensive – by Jeffrey Simpson (Globe and Mail – March 3, 2016)

March 3, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the premiers gather on March 3 in Vancouver, they need to get their heads around some inconvenient truths.

They understand, correctly, one inconvenient truth: that global warming is happening and needs, over the long-term, to be combatted. The other inconvenient truths they have yet to acknowledge freely, let alone confront.

Greenhouse-gas emissions that cause climate change have risen in Canada since the 2008-2009 recession. They are rising with sufficient speed that to keep them level will require a huge effort, to say nothing of what would be required to reduce them drastically to meet the emission-reduction goal the Trudeau government set for Canada at the Paris climate conference in December.

The great [Ontario] green carbon tax grab – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – February 25, 2016)

February 25, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

Touted by economists as a wondrous market mechanism that will deliver Canada from the evils of climate change, carbon pricing is emerging out of the political swamps as a regulatory nightmare. It is also shaping up as the Great Canadian Carbon Tax Grab.

In advance of a first ministers’ meeting next week with Prime Minister Trudeau in Vancouver to begin setting national carbon objectives, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne announced that – just as consumers are beginning to benefit from lower oil prices – her province’s cap-and-trade version of a carbon tax will add 4.3 cents to the price of a litre of gasoline. Natural gas prices will also go up $60 a year per household.

More fiscal details are to come in a budget Thursday, but a Globe and Mail report says the government will ultimately collect $1.3 billion a year in fresh revenue from its cap-and-trade taxes on gasoline and natural gas.

Green Illusions – Why Wind and Solar Power Cannot Displace Coal – by John Petersen (InvestorIntel.com – February 22, 2016)

February 22, 2016

http://investorintel.com/

We live in a crazy mixed-up world where half-truths abound as politicians, stock promoters, forecasters and advocates of all stripes blithely ignore the vulgar exigencies of objective truth when it comes to the energy supplies that make our industrialized economies and comfortable lives possible. It’s a golden age of green illusions, a/k/a alternative energy fairy tales.

Since this series of articles will focus on the contrast between objective truths and green illusions, I can’t think of a better way to kick it off than a quote from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass:

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said, “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Naomi Klein stars in ‘This Misrepresents Everything’ – by Peter Foster (National Post – February 18, 2016)

February 18, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

Apart from the stock shots of effluent pipes and belching smokestacks, Naomi Klein’s idea of objectivity about the Alberta oilsands is to find a worker prepared to blow his nose on a banknote in a Fort McMurray bar.

Scenes like this make Klein’s documentary This Changes Everything, which will air on CBC on Thursday night, not just intellectually vacuous but downright objectionable.

The guy using the currency as nasal tissue might well now be out of a job, not just because of the oil price collapse, but because of the prominent role played by Klein in killing the Keystone XL pipeline and thus draining billions from the Alberta economy.

Another Ontario green energy blow-up – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – February 16, 2016)

February 16, 2016

http://www.financialpost.com/index.html

Debris from the exploding Ontario Liberal green energy rocket continues to land on the hapless citizens of the province. Gas plant scandals, soaring power rates, declining electricity output, massive subsidies to money-losing wind and solar, non-stop bafflegab from government ministers: when will it stop? Not now, and maybe never.

Details of the latest meteorite-sized chunk of the Dalton McGuinty/Kathleen Wynne green power blow-up are on display at the blog of energy consultant Tom Adams, who formerly served on the Ontario Independent Electricity Market Operator board of directors and the Ontario Centre for Excellence for Energy board of management

Adams picks up a story that made brief headlines in late 2012 when Windstream Energy, a U.S. company, filed a NAFTA complaint claiming $475 million in damages.

Obama’s Clean-Power Plan Put on Hold by U.S. Supreme Court – by Greg Stohr and Jennifer A. Dlouhy (Bloomberg News – February 9, 2016)

February 10, 2016

http://www.bloomberg.com/

A divided U.S. Supreme Court blocked President Barack Obama’s sweeping plan to cut emissions from power plants, putting on hold his most ambitious effort to combat climate change.

The 5-4 order Tuesday halts the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan until at least the final months of Obama’s presidency — and casts doubt on its ultimate fate before the nation’s highest court by suggesting concern among a majority of the justices.

Utilities, coal miners and more than two dozen states say the agency had overstepped its authority and intruded on states’ rights.

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund asked miners to consider coal demergers – by Peter Ker (The Age – February 7, 2016)

February 8, 2016

http://www.theage.com.au/

Norway’s influential sovereign wealth fund asked mining companies in its investment sphere to consider spinning out their coal assets in 2015.

The fund, which is a top five shareholder in BHP Billiton, made the request just months before BHP spun out South32. The coal push was revealed in the fund’s 2015 annual report. It also shows the fund divested from 73 companies in 2015 for ethical and governance reasons.

The fund has made headlines in recent years for its increasingly strict stance against investing in fossil fuels. It took the stance further in 2015 by asking miners to consider divestments of their own.

No peace in the Great Bear Rainforest – by Peter Foster (National Post – February 3, 2016)

February 3, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

Monday’s agreement on “protection” for B.C.’s so-called Great Bear Rainforest (GBR) is being sold as a shining example of reasonable and responsible compromise between the economy and the environment; a model in which government, aboriginal groups, industry and environmental NGOs hammered out a plan that was good for all involved.

There is no doubt that this vast area — covering 6.4 million hectares of the coast from the north of Vancouver Island to the southern tip of Alaska — is spectacularly beautiful, and home to charismatic animals such as the Kermode or “Spirit” bear, a black bear that, due to a genetic mutation, is white.

The deal itself, however, is far from black and white. B.C. Premier Christy Clark claimed that it might be a model for other resource development issues, of which pipelines are obviously the most contentious.

Trudeau keeps digging himself deeper into a resources hole – by Gwyn Morgan (Globe and Mail – February 1, 2016)

February 2, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a penchant for clever quips. He seems to especially relish combining them with digs at Stephen Harper, like his speech in Davos earlier this month, where he said, “My predecessor wanted you to know Canada for its resources. I want you to know Canadians for our resourcefulness.”

Besides being a gratuitous shot that hardly dignifies his position, it’s an ill-considered message to political and business leaders of countries that pay hundreds of billions of dollars for those resources.

Digging the hole deeper, Mr. Trudeau went on to say, “But Canadians also know … that growth and prosperity is not just a matter of what lies under our feet, but what lies between our ears.”

Let Coal Die. Save Coal Country.- Editorial Board (Bloomberg News – January 25, 2016)

January 25, 2016

http://www.bloombergview.com/

The decline of coal as a source of electric power is inevitable and well under way. This is a good thing, because whether measured by its effect on public health or its contribution to global warming, coal is more harmful than any other widely used source of electricity.

But there’s a human cost to this transition: unemployment in coal country. Over the past five years, as the U.S. coal mining industry has lost 94 percent of its market value, some 15,000 jobs have disappeared in West Virginia and Kentucky alone. West Virginia’s Boone County and Kentucky’s Union County have lost roughly one job for every 24 residents.

Although the pain has been cruelly concentrated, it should be of national concern. That’s not because the government is to blame; more than anything else, the low price of natural gas has undermined the market value of coal-fired power.

Energy East: The pipeline that could tear Canada apart – by Konrad Yakabuski (Globe and Mail – January 25, 2016)

January 25, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Leonardo DiCaprio, who not long ago mistook an Alberta chinook for “terrifying” evidence of climate change, was preaching to the Armani-shirted in Davos last week about the greed of oil companies at whose feet the destruction of the planet must squarely be laid.

“Our planet cannot be saved unless we leave fossil fuels in the ground where they belong,” the actor told a crowd that included Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who spent his week in the Swiss Alps building his own brand – and Canada’s – as a resourceful, rather than resource-full, country.

In the face of this self-congratulation and sycophancy, it takes a certain ballsiness to challenge the notions that the world is on the cusp of a fossil-fuel-free future, that Canada is suddenly a post-resource economy and that all oil extraction is inherently evil, environmentally unpardonable and economically backward.

Court Rejects a Bid to Block Coal Plant Regulations – by Coral Davenport (New York Times – January 21, 2016)

January 22, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/

In a significant victory for President Obama, a federal appeals panel on Thursday rejected an effort by 27 states and dozens of corporations and industry groups to block the administration’s signature regulation on emissions from coal-fired power plants while a lawsuit moves through the courts.

The rule, issued last summer by the Environmental Protection Agency, is at the heart of Mr. Obama’s efforts to tackle climate change. It would require each state to significantly cut greenhouse gas pollution from electric power plants, the nation’s largest source of such emissions.

Once fully in place, the regulation — which would cut emissions from existing power plants by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 — could transform the electricity system, closing hundreds of heavily polluting coal-fired plants and sharply increasing production of wind and solar powers.

China ban on new coal mines barely scratches the surface of tackling capacity – by Kathy Chen and David Stanway (Reuters U.S. – January 18, 2016)

January 18, 2016

http://www.reuters.com/

BEIJING – Jan 18 China’s decision to stop approving new coal mines for three years has been applauded by green groups, but the move is likely to make barely a dent on the world’s biggest coal industry given its vast existing production capacity.

Some estimates suggest China’s surplus capacity could be as high as 2 billion tonnes of coal a year – more than 50 percent of 2015 output – in a country with nearly 11,000 mines.

Beijing wants to cut the share of coal in its energy mix to contain pollution and meet climate change goals, while it is also trying to manage the fortunes of a struggling sector that employs nearly 6 million people.

In Climate Move, Obama Halts New Coal Mining Leases on Public Lands – by Coral Davenport (New York Times – January 14, 2016)

January 15, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration announced on Friday a halt to new coal mining leases on public lands as it considers an overhaul of the program that could lead to increased costs for energy companies and a slowdown in extraction.

“Given serious concerns raised about the federal coal program, we’re taking the prudent step to hit pause on approving significant new leases so that decisions about those leases can benefit from the recommendations that come out of the review,” said Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.

“During this time, companies can continue production activities on the large reserves of recoverable coal they have under lease, and we’ll make accommodations in the event of emergency circumstances to ensure this pause will have no material impact on the nation’s ability to meet its power generation needs.”