DYLAN JERVIS: Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has announced that his party will make green energy technology a centerpiece of its next campaign. Speaking to more than 350 people in Regina on wednesday, Ignatieff told the audience that the Liberals would be making the “most significant investment in clean technology” that the country has ever seen. Mr. Ignatieff’s tri-partite approach includes investment in new technologies and new industries, upgrading the energy infrastructure through a “smart”-energy grid, and by making the federal government a model of environmentally responsible behaviour. However, when pressed by reporters, Mr. Ignatieff wouldn’t put a dollar figure on how much the Liberals might commit to their plan, though he said it was “not huge in dollar terms” and would create new jobs and tax revenues. The announcement comes a year after his predecessor Stephane Dion lost the federal election due to the political mishandling of the proposed “green shift” carbon tax. Mr. Ignatieff insists that the proposed investment in clean technology is not a peripheral part of his economic strategy, but rather a key piece of it. [ index ]

DYLAN JERVIS: Environmentalist David Suzuki was among four activists to receive the Right Livelihood Award on Tuesday for his work to raise awareness about climate change. The prestigious award, known as the “alternative Nobel”, was established in 1980 to recognize work not acknowledged by the Nobel Prize. The awards will be presented in a ceremony at the Swedish Parliament on Dec. 4, six days before the Nobel Prizes are to be handed out. Mr. Suzuki says that while he’s proud to receive the award, he feels humiliated that Canada has become an international Pariah when it comes to climate change. “I think Canadians have always seen ourselves as responsible international citizens but we have become so reviled among the international community” says Mr. Suzuki. Mr. Suzuki is best known in Canada for his television series The Nature of Things, as well as his radio series and books about nature and the environment. He is also a Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation – an organization devoted to protecting the environment. Mr. Suzuki is currently at work on a film about climate change. [ index ]

DARYN CAISTER: Vancouver announces a deal with Nissan to bring a new line of electric cars to Canada in 2011. The Nissan LEAF, which stands for “Leading Environmentally friendly Affordable Family Car” will be available in Vancouver a year ahead of the rest of Canada as part of a deal that was worked out between the city, BC Hydro and the provincial government. Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson was eager to announce the plan this week as an ongoing part of his ambitious plan to make Vancouver the “greenest city in the world” by 2020. Vancouver already allows electric traffic on some of its streets in the form of slower city designed electric cars and hybrids. The LEAF is unique however in being capable of traveling 160 kilometres on a full battery and a top speed of 145 kilometres per hour. The car will also be charged in about 8 hours at home with a regular home power plug, and will be capable of being up to 80% charged in about a half hour at a quick-charge station according to Nissan. Part of the deal between the various partners in BC will be an agreement to help promote zero-emission vehicles in Vancouver and other areas of BC. On the city’s side of the agreement will be the rapid implementation of charging infrastructure around Vancouver to service the anticipated new vehicles. Other initiatives in Vancouver promoting new electric vehicle traffic will include as yet unspecified changes to its building and parking bylaws to allow for the new charging stations. Mayor Robertson promises these new regulations will be a “first for North America” to allow Vancouver to aggressively move ahead with the policies and infrastructure to needed to properly support the initiative. [ index ]

DARYN CAISTER: Toronto’s controversial downtown-airport express train gets OK’d by province. The train line which will run from the city centre Union Station to Pearson Airport was given the go ahead by Ontario’s environment minister this week with some unusual conditions. Minister John Gerretsen stipulated in the approval of the project that the new trains much employ so called “clean diesel” technology which currently does not exist, either by purchasing them strait out, or converting the trains to the technology as it becomes available. The regulations for the technology are based on an American EPA “Tier 4” emissions standard that is set to be in effect for all new train traffic by 2015 and is expected to reduce the particulate matter emitted by current diesel technology by 90% and nitrogen oxides by 80% compared to current standards when used in combination with low-sulphur fuels. The controversy of the plan stems from calls by locals along the proposed new trackline, public school boards, and Toronto’s own Medical Officer of Health that the trains will adversely affect the heal of residents living the full length along the track. Metrolinx, the body that proposed the new line assessed the health risks of using diesel as well, concluding that diesel trains would possibly cause acute health effects such as respiratory irritation for local residents along the full length of the line. Opponents to the plan want to see the trains electrified, but Metrolinx claims that this would cost too much. The plan as it stands is expected to cost $875 million dollars to construct, with estimates to convert the system to electric varying widely around an additional $200 million. Opponents of the plan say that while the increased up-front cost may be significant, the long term cost of switching the trains over to a cleaner technology at some unspecified time in the future which would still produce far more pollution than an electric system would end of costing far more. Toronto municipal figures cite an estimated 5 million annual car trips to the airport from areas that would be accessible to new line, of which it hopes to reduce by about 1.2 million car trips a year. [ index ]

DYLAN JERVIS: Prime-minister Stephen Harper announced on Wednesday that the federal and Alberta governments have pledged $769 million to retrofit a coal-fired electricity generation plant to capture and store some of its carbon dioxide emissions. The energy company TransAlta will build Project Pioneer at a plant west of Edmonton and Premier Ed Stelmach has touted the project as among the first of its kind in the world. According to the proposal, CO2 will be captured using a chilled ammonia process and stored more than 2.5km underground. The proposal also states that the technology will capture up to one million tonnes of CO2 per year starting in 2015. This announcement comes just days after the federal and Alberta governments pledged $865 million in public funds to Shell Canada for its Quest carbon capture pilot project. However, Graham Boje, a Shell Canada vice president, has since said that further technical investigation is needed before a “final investment decision is made”. Similar to the TransAlta Carbon capture project, the Quest project is expected to capture and store one million tonnes of CO2 every year. [ index ]

DYLAN JERVIS: Though Union station’s new bike storage station opened earlier this summer, the city of Toronto is trying to spread the word about the facility in the heart of downtown. Aware that the bike station’s opening may have been obscured by the city workers strike this summer, The city hosted an open house at the York street location in which the bike station’s high-security doors were opened, along with an offer of coffee, muffins and brochures to entice new members. The $400,000 Union station facility is a pilot project that has space for 180 bikes. It features a rack of tools, a vending machine that dispenses air tubes, as well as a change-room where people can transform themselves from bike grunge to office chic. There are currently 90 members who have bought the $25 lifetime membership that gives them 24-hour access to the station. The facility will accompanied by an even larger bike storage station at Toronto City Hall to be built next year and will be able to accomodate 400 bikes. [ index ]

DARYN CAISTER: Toronto Star newspaper reports catching York Region contracted garbage diversion company secretly dumping and incinerating city refuse. The report was the most recent in a series of reports by the Toronto Star newspaper in an attempt to reveal the reality of GTA region city waste diversion claims. For the past year the paper has published over 100 articles on Toronto’s city green bin program, culminating with a suit filed by Toronto’s top waste official Geoff Rathbone for its reporting of the issues. In this most recent case, the paper secretly monitored waste diversion practices in York Region, just outside the city of Toronto. York Region was claiming an 85% waste diversion rate by apparently diverting most of its waste to a private company hired to turn city waste into reusable coal substitute pellets. The company was hired last year with an apparently 20 year contract with York Region to process the majority of its waste. Toronto Star reporters monitored the company outside its Dongara plant and watched City of Vaughn garbage trucks drop off city waste outside the plant, only to watch the company come out later and re-load the same waste into trucks. On 2 occasions the Toronto Star reported following the trucks to a landfill site outside St. Catharines Ontario, and on another occasion takes across the Canada/US boarder to an incinerator plant in Niagara Falls, New York. York’s claim of 85% diversion is near the best in Ontario, and well above Toronto’s goal of 70%, which currently stands closer to 40%. The actual rate of diversion in York Region is unknown at this time, but Dongara’s operations president confirmed that some garbage was being shipped out to dumps when the company couldn’t deal with the daily delivery form the city, and had do dispose of it otherwise as per provincial regulations. Even without the dumping, the 85% diversion figure is not accepted by the province as Ontario does not recognize the company’s pellets as diversion. [ index ]

DARYN CAISTER: Jim Prentice denied reports that dozens of counties walked out of Canada’s climate presentation. Federal Environmental Minister Jim Prentice said that reports from several sources including Canadian news agency’s that dozens of countries representatives walked out of the Canadian presentation an international climate change meeting in Bangkok this week. The meeting was set up to try to lay some groundwork for the upcoming global climate meetings coming up this Fall in Copenhagen where the ending of the Kyoto protocol and what will follow it will be discussed by global leaders. The focus of Canada’s international climate change position centres on balancing climate change needs with economic prosperity and support for technological solutions to current climate and environmental problems such as its outspoken support for highly controversial Carbon Capture and Storage technology. At the Bangkok conference, Canada presented its support for scrapping Kyoto and developing an entirely new international treaty, which was the point at which some Canadian press reported many developing nations walked out of the room on reports from a South African negotiator and the notes of other government representatives taken at the meeting. Jim Prentice this week insists that this was not the case, but admitted that many countries were not represented at the presentation. Mr. Prentice said however that many of the absent countries left ahead of Canada’s presentation because they had already indicated that they were unprepared to discuss the legal implications of a single legal undertaking with which to build on Kyoto and predict its implications. Many of the countries that were absent for the Canadian presentation were representing developing nations who largely favour a new deal that extends and compliments the existing Kyoto agreement. Mr. Prentice also added that while Canada was looking for ambitious international action in Copenhagen, that the majority of the efforts will hinge on China and the United States which together represent almost half of global emissions. [ index ]

LEEANNE MACGREGOR: A new report from the UN cites coastal ecosystems as one of the most intense carbon sinks on earth. The Blue Carbon Report released this week highlights the need for countries to preserve coastal ecosystems to ensure better carbon sequestering potential. Coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, salt marshes, and seagrass beds, although making up only 1 per cent of the world’s sea bed, store an estimated 1,650 million tones of carbon dioxide annually, – that’s nearly half of global emissions from total worldwide transportation. The report estimates that up to 7% of coastal carbon stores are being lost annually to pollution and the clearance of mangroves for development. With 50% of the world’s population living within 100 kilometres of the sea, human population growth is considered a main contributor to poor ecosystem health. Coastal habitat destruction is occurring at fifteen times the rate of rainforest destruction. Details of the report will be discussed at this December’s climate conference in Copenhagen. [ index ]

LEEANNE MACGREGOR: The pacific nation of Palau is the first to place a ban on commercial fishing of sharks and stingrays in it’s territorial waters. Palau’s shark sanctuary covers 380,000 square kilometres and extends 300 kilometres off its shore. The large area will shelter 120 species of shark including hammerheads, leopard sharks, oceanic sharks, and white and black tip reef sharks, as well as stingrays, all of which are either endangered or vulnerable. Despite their best efforts, Palau’s coast guard patrol is extremely small and it is expected that illegal fishing will be an issue. Palauan President Johnson Toribiong says this policy change is to draw the world’s attention to the worsening plight of sharks. The popularity of shark fin soup in south East Asia, particularly in China, has been putting pressure on the shark population since the mid-80s. Extremely lucrative, shark fin has a market value of up to $12,000 per kilo. Because they are slow to mature and have a low fertility rate, sharks are vulnerable to over-fishing. It is estimated that over half of migratory sharks are overexploited or depleted. Palau is considered a leader in marine conservation and it is widely hoped other countries will follow its stance on shark fishing. [ index ]

LEEANNE MACGREGOR: The international seed bank, the Millenium Seed Bank Project (or MSBP), has reached its first target of collecting 10 per cent of the world’s wild flowering plant and tree species. The project aims to protect ecosystems from future biodiversity loss. Seeds from China’s rare pink banana were recently obtained by the project and can be stored for up to 100 years in their special seed bank facilities. With the partnership of 54 countries, the seed bank project is attempting to collect and preserve all of roughly 300,000 wild species world wide. The organization keeps a sample of seeds in the species’ country of origin and an additional sample at its headquarters in Sussex, England. The organization focuses on collecting the world’s endemic, endangered, and at-risk species with the goal of preserving them for future restoration and ensured viability. The project is also interested in conducting medical and genetic research using their specimens. Not all countries have been willing to participate in the MSBP. The fact remains that seeds have been designated “intellectual property” by the most recent World Trade Agreement and many countries are hesitant to allow seeds to leave their borders. The next goal of the MSBP is to collect and preserve 25% of species’ seeds by 2020. [ index ]

LEEANNE MACGREGOR: Rene Ngongo received the Right Livelihood Award this week for his work in confronting the issues that are destroying the Congo rainforest. The world’s second largest tropical rainforest, the Congo rainforest has been threatened by civil war, population pressure, and corporate exploitation. A biologist and forest enthusiast, Ngongo started an NGO in the Democratic Republic of Congo that addresses forest depletion on many levels. His organization has worked with locals living off the land to teach alternative agriculture methods such as agroforestry, planting crops within the forest matrix instead of using the slash and burn technique of land clearing. Ngongo has been heavily involved in reforestation efforts, especially in urban areas. He cultivated his own tree nursery and launched several projects to include locals and school children with tree-planting in abandoned urban spaces, public parks, and schools. Ngongo’s independent research into the illegality of much of the forestry and mining activity in the Congo rainforest contributed to a UN report on the subject and also jeopardized his personal safety. Ngongo disseminates information via a weekly radio show which highlights the relationship between humans and the rainforest and will continue lobbying government for stricter corporate and illegal monitoring on a national and international level. [ index ]