Environment news from the Kootenays and the World on Kootenay Coop Radio.
November 14 2023. Affordable climate action. BC failing on climate targets. BC Council advises: stop installing natural gas.
GRAND CHIEF STEWART PHILLIP FROM THE UNION OF BC INDIAN CHIEFS SPEAKS AT THE RELEASE OF THE 2ND ANNUAL BC CLIMATE REPORT CARD.
DOWNLOAD OR LISTEN TO THE NOVEMBER 14 ECOCENTRIC HERE:
Rachel Samson Vice-President for Research at the Institute for Research on Public Policy published a piece with the headline: Climate Policy That Doesn’t Make Life Unaffordable. She explains how climate action should actually make life MORE affordable for middle class Canadians.
The BC Climate Emergency Campaign gave the province failing grades for climate policy in its second annual report. Peter McCartney with the Wilderness Committee is part of the campaign and tells us how the province is headed toward missing all our climate targets.
The B.C. Climate Solutions Council, the official government appointed group overseeing climate policy in the province, recently told the provincial government its Greenhouse Gas Reduction Strategy has a major problem with natural gas, methane, in new buildings. Council Co-Chair Professor Nancy Olewiler explains.
LINKS
Rachel Samson’s article on affordable climate action for Canadians
Friday, November 24th 6:30 Fundraising Dinner for Gaza at Nelson United Church 602 Silica St.
Volunteers are organizing a fundraising dinner on Friday November 24, 2023 at the Nelson United Church (602 Silica St. It is important to recognize that Canada and Israel are both settler colonial states. To learn more about the history and contemporary reality of colonialism in this region and to find out ways you can get involved with local Sinixt initiatives, please visit sinixt.org and bloodoflifecollective.org.
The event will include a dinner and speech/video about humanitarian work in Gaza.
$30 per person – Kids under 6 eat free or by donation – Typical Middle-Eastern drink, main, and dessert. Vegetarian friendly. Doors open at 5:30 p.m Buy tickets in advance at Otter Books or online at NelsonUnitedchurch.ca
Sunday, November 26 2024 Noon to 4 pm at the Prestige Lakeside in Nelson
Winter Cycling Expo…. A chance to learn about cycling through the winter with local experienced winter riders, learn about good gear and safety and enter to win studded tires, helmets or gloves.
The Expo is being put on by Kootenay Boundary Doctors and Nurses for Planetary Health together with the City of Nelson.
Noon to 4 pm and it’s Free.
ENVIRONMENT NEWS BITS AND LINKS
Falling prices of critical minerals will lead to a 40% drop in the cost of batteries for electric vehicles by 2025, with big implications for the pace of global EV adoption, says Goldman Sachs Research.
“The reduction in battery costs could lead to more competitive EV pricing, more extensive consumer adoption, and further growth in the total addressable markets for EVs and batteries,” Nikhil Bhandari, co-head of Goldman Sachs Research’s Asia-Pacific natural resources and clean energy research team, said in the report.
In the Netherlands, tens of thousands of people marched through the streets of Amsterdam calling for more action to tackle climate change. The mass protest came just 10 days before national elections.
Organizers said 70,000 people took part in the march and called it the biggest climate protest ever in the Netherlands.
Greta Thunberg was among those walking through the historic heart of the Dutch capital.
Political leaders including former European Union climate chief Frans Timmermans, who now leads a centre-left, two-party bloc in the election campaign, later addressed the crowd gathered on a square behind the landmark Rijksmuseum.
Preliminary research by Cornell University’s Robert Howarth, reported in The New Yorker by Bill McKibben, finds that “natural” (methane) gas may be 24% worse for the climate than coal in the best-case scenario. That’s thanks to extensive methane leaks at just about every stage of its production, from drilling to transportation. In the worst-case scenario—when LNG makes long journeys on old, polluting tankards—the fuel is 274% worse than coal.
This October was the hottest on record globally, 1.7°C (3.1°F) warmer than the pre-industrial average for the month—and the fifth straight month with such a mark in what will now almost certainly be the warmest year ever recorded.
October was a whopping 0.4°C warmer than the previous record for the month in 2019, surprising even Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, the European climate agency that routinely publishes monthly bulletins observing global surface air and sea temperatures, among other data.
Canada is among a group of top fossil fuel-producing countries on pace to extract more oil and gas than would be consistent with agreed-upon international targets designed to limit global warming, according to a new analysis.
The report, released on Wednesday by the United Nations in collaboration with a team of international scientists, found that countries still plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be required to limit warming to 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels.
The findings are at odds with government commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement, as well as with projections by the International Energy Agency that global demand for coal, oil and gas will peak within this decade.
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