TYLER IRVING:  On Monday, a series of hoaxes perpetrated by the New-York based culture-jamming group the Yes Men shone a harsh and embarrassing light on Canada’s position at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The hoax started with a fake press release from realistic mock-up of Environment Canada’s website. The press release announced a new initiative called Agenda 2020, which would lower Canada’s emission targets to 40% below 1990 levels by 2020, in line with what is recommended by the IPCC. That was followed by a second fake press release which denied the targets, but included links to more fake websites, including a story in a mock-up of the Wall Street Journal and a video purportedly released by the Ugandan delegation.

In an e-mail to media, a spokesperson for Environment Minister Jim Prentice suggested the hoax was the work of the environmental group Equiterre. Dmitri Soudas wrote that “more time should be dedicated to playing a constructive role instead of childish pranks.” For his part, the founder of Equiterre, Steven Guilbeault, denied that he had anything to do with the hoax and demanded an apology. This led to a heated between the two men when they met in a hallway at the conference.

Finally, by the end of the day, Yes Men member Mike Bonnano told the Associated Press that his group was responsible for the hoaxes. A press conference was held on Tuesday where it was revealed that they had help from some unnamed Canadian activists and a group called the Climate Debt Agents, led by a Ugandan student delegate. The Yes Men also held a Q-and-A session over twitter, moderated by the Associated Press. When asked by one user why they stopped now, the group’s cryptic reply was “Who says we’re stopping?” [ index ]

TYLER IRVING:  In the middle of the beating Canada is taking on the international stage, Prime Minister Stephen Harper will make his official visit to the Copenhagen talks today. As recently as last month, Harper had said that he would not attend the conference, but changed his mind when other world leaders, such as U.S. president Barack Obama, announced that they would be attending. Harper will meet with other world leaders and with members of Canada’s official delegation. No public events are planned.

All week, leaders from Canada’s lower levels of government have been undermining the federal position. On Wednesday, Quebec’s Premier, Jean Charest, said that while the federal government may have the power to agree to treaties, it can’t bind the provinces to them. Charest is co-chairing a meeting state, provincial, city, and other sub-national officials in Copenhagen. His comments were echoed, although less forcefully, by Nova Scotia premier Darrell Dexter. On Thursday, he was quoted in the Canadian Press as saying “We are looking to partner with the federal government in order to meet Canada’s goal, but the fact that Canada may not sign on to a protocol does not excuse the individual jurisdictions from taking appropriate action.”

At the city level, Toronto Mayor David Miller has also been speaking out against the federal government’s position. In Copenhagen to chair a meeting of the world’s 40 largest cities, he found the time to officially accept one of Canada’s many “Fossil of the Day” prizes, which are awarded by a group of 400 non-governmental organizations to countries that do their best to block progress on reaching an agreement. At the ceremony, he described himself as an “embarrassed Canadian” and said that while Canada may not be acting, Canadians are doing so through their cities.

The federal government is doing its best to avoid the negative publicity from comments like these. Last month, Environment Canada set up a war room to combat negative publicity arising from the Copenhagen conference. The augmented staff includes former Financial Post journalist, Deirdre McMurdy. [ index ]

LEEANNE MACGREGOR: A new report produced jointly by Canada and the U.S. shows a steady drop in water levels in the Great Lakes. The report determines that drier climatic conditions throughout North America are the chief reason behind a 20% drop in the quantity of water coming into Lakes Huron and Michigan in the last 60 years. Lake Erie lies lower and receives water from more northern lakes and so its levels have remained largely the same. A spokesperson for a Great Lakes monitoring group says that the upper Great Lakes region has experienced less ice in the wintertime and increased evaporation resulting in near drought-like conditions. The report states that overall warming of the region is responsible for the declining water levels. While the focus of global climate change in Canada is drawn to the arctic ice melt, the findings of the report indicate that a climate change strategy for the Great Lakes will be needed soon. [ index ]

TYLER IRVING:  Documents uncovered Tuesday by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation suggest that the federal government has seriously considered abandoning the targets it set out in the 2007 green plan.

The documents compare the green plan, known as “Turning the Corner,” with the American Clean Energy and Security Act, also known at the Waxman-Markey bill after its drafters. They point out that the American act provides special allowances for energy-intensive industries that are considered to be particularly vulnerable to international competition, including the oil and gas sector. As the most energy-intensive oil production operation on the planet, Canada’s oil sands could be at an economic disadvantage if tough targets are imposed. According to the CBC the papers recommend lowering the reduction targets for that sector to 15 megatonnes, rather than the 48 megatonnes currently outlined in “Turning the Corner.”

Sought for comment in Copenhagen, Environment Minister Jim Prentice did not deny the existence or validity of the documents, which were prepared for cabinet ahead of the climate summit. Although he said he had not seen them, he would not rule out special treatment for the oil and gas sector as part of a new green plan. Such exemptions would enrage environmentalists, who have already made their displeasure with Canada’s position known at the international climate conference. However, they are being welcomed by one group; earlier this week, the president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers told the Globe and Mail that “we need to make sure that climate policy doesn’t disadvantage the oil industry in terms of competitiveness.” [ index ]

TYLER IRVING:  On Monday, the province of Alberta lifted a moratorium on the planning of new nuclear power plants. Energy Minister Mel Knight made the announcement at the same time as releasing the results of a poll conducted as part of the province’s public consultation process. In a telephone survey of 1024 citizens conducted by Innovative Research Group, 45% of respondents said that they wanted new nuclear power plants considered on a case-by-case basis. Knight said that is exactly what the government plans to do, but added that no public money is being considered for the projects.

While there are currently no nuclear power plants in western Canada, the Ontario-based company Bruce Power has expressed interest in constructing a plant in the Peace River area. If approved, the project could cost as much as $10 billion and take up to 9 years to construct. The company’s CEO said the move was good for the industry.

Many environmental groups in Alberta oppose nuclear generation, including the Coalition for a Nuclear Free Alberta and Citizens Advocating the Use of Sustainable Energy (CAUSE). While these groups are very disappointed in the Alberta government’s positions, other NGOs, such as the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, see the lack of public money as a deal-breaker for any actual project. The Sierra Club’s Lindsay Telfer said that withholding public money “hits the final nail in the nuclear energy coffin for the province.” [ index ]

LEEANNE MACGREGOR:  Toronto city councillors approved a bill last week that will tax the use of billboards within city limits. The driving forces behind the move to tax billboards were to compensate the urban environment for the visual strain caused by private advertising, to democratize urban public space, and to promote a pedestrian friendly aesthetic in the city. The 11 million dollars generated by the billboard tax was originally supposed to be earmarked for the promotion and support of arts initiatives in Toronto. When the city’s budget is discussed in the New Year, the funds will be officially designated. A large majority of city councillors support the allocation of billboard taxes to arts spending. The watchdog group that will be lobbying for arts spending with the tax, BeautifulCities.ca, says that billboards were one of the last advertising agents allowed to use the public environment without having to give anything back to the community. Other rules of conduct for billboard users are also now enforced; there are requirements for the distances between billboards and the type of electronic signs permitted in certain parts of the city. The bylaw has been heralded as one of the world’s first effective bylaws targeting illegal, or un-taxed, billboards in public space.  [ index ]

LEEANNE MACGREGOR:  A new report from the Environmental Protection Agency shows that the quality of drinking water in the US could be dangerous to human health. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, only 91 contaminants are listed along with their presumably safe content in drinking water. Meanwhile, over 60, 000 chemicals are used in the US. No chemicals have been added to the list of risky drinking water contaminants since 2000. That’s because the laws regulating tap water are over 35 years old. The laws simply are not comprehensive enough to force every new chemical to be verified for its compatibility with human drinking water. Complicating matters, chemicals that were proven safe for humans in large doses are now proving to be very harmful in minute amounts, and the reverse is also true. The EPA says that information about chemicals and how they interact with human biology is constantly changing and the current laws are neither stringent nor flexible enough to protect citizens from harmful chemical contamination. Presently it is up to individual municipalities and states to go above and beyond the federal tap water laws, but only if they choose to. [ index ]

LEEANNE MACGREGOR: Japanese whaling ships clashed this week with anti-whaling organization, Sea Shepherd, in the Southern Ocean between Antarctica and Australia. Every year since the international agreement that banned whale hunts, Japan has exploited a loophole in their text which allows for the use of lethal force in the task of researching whales. Whale meat is traditionally consumed in Japan, however many countries feel it is a breech of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. According to the wording in the International Agreement, Japan is allowed to kill up to 1000 minke whales, 50 endangered fin whales, and 50 humpback whales annually for the purpose of research. Consequently, every year, the hardline anti-whaling activist group, Sea Shepherd, has confronted whaling fleets on the open ocean to put their ship between the harpoons and the whales. The tactics used by Sea Shepherd typically cause weeks of delays for whaling fleets and in some cases damage to the ships. This year the Japanese whaling companies have entered the Southern Ocean with military escort ships and military air surveillance. New Zealand and Australia have responded to the militarization of Japan’s whaling fleet by condemned the violence at sea from both whaling vessels and protestors; they are very slowly pursuing an end to the whale hunt through the diplomatic process of the International Whaling Commission. [ index ]

LEEANNE MACGREGOR: Climate talks this week responded to demands by developing nations for global warming compensation funds. Twenty seven European Union nations have agreed to spend 10 billion dollars on climate change relief in poorer countries over the next three years. Following the announcement, Japan pledged 15 billion in short-term relief. The pledges will be effective only if a comprehensive climate deal is achieved in Copenhagen. Meanwhile, the US announced its backing of a deal that would see developed countries raising 100 billion dollars in annual climate aid by the year 2020. The Swedish government has admitted that the funds it is willing to contribute would be partially a re-packaging of money already allocated for aid. It is suspected that other countries giving aid are doing the same. Both proposals fall far short of what the United Nations and the G-77 group of developing, poor and emerging nations call which is for 400 billion dollars in aid by 2020. While the deals proposed by rich nations are a disappointment, some poorer countries are feeling the pressure to accept a deal before it is taken off the table at the end of the talks. In taking the aid, however, countries would be agreeing to a list of requirements set by the UK, the US, and other developed nations, primarily to kill the Kyoto accord which exempts poor nations from making emissions reductions. Poor countries accepting this deal would have to allow measurement, reporting and verification of emissions curbs. [ index ]

LEEANNE MACGREGOR:  A UN report was leaked yesterday showing that the current pledges made by individual countries add up to produce an average temperature increase of 3 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels. Until this report, countries were publically aiming to make emissions reductions to limit global temperature change to no greater than 2 degrees average. The leaked document is a culmination of a week of negotiations to set a global limit on temperature increase. 102 of the world’s poorest countries, including some members of the Group of 77, the African bloc and the Alliance of Small Island States, have been holding out for a commitment to emissions cuts that would result in a 1.5 degree increase. Developing and poor nations are being accused of causing a stalemate at the Copenhagen talks. On Tuesday, France and Ethiopia announced their joint proposal to adopt the developed world’s agreement that would see temperature rise halt at 2 degrees. The move by Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, to accept the proposal has been praised by the US as cooperative while members of the G-77 have accused Zenawi of selling the African bloc short. A global average temperature rise of 2 degrees has drastic implications for the African continent where temperatures will rise by 3-4 degrees. The difference between a 2 and a 3 degree rise is that 170 million more people in coastal regions will suffer floods and 550 million more worldwide will be at risk of hunger. South Pacific Islands like Maldives and Vanuatu, which have 80% of their land mass near sea level, could disappear completely with an average 3 degree temperature increase. The leaked UN document states that bigger cuts to developed countries emissions were, quote, “possible and necessary”. [ index ]

SHAK HAQ:  York Region is cracking down on a program set up to turn garbage into fuel after a Toronto Star investigation uncovered truckloads of waste being dumped into a landfill instead. Last year, York Region decided to take part in a groundbreaking initiative to divert household garbage from landfills to the Dongara Pellet Plant in Vaughan. The plant was designed to turn garbage into pellets that could be used to provide heat in industrial settings. According to the Star it is unclear who is purchasing these pellets. The undercover investigation revealed that excess waste totaling 10,000 tonnes was diverted to incinerators and landfills in Niagara Falls, Ontario and Niagara Falls, New York. The Dongara plant cites machinery breakdown as the reason for the diversion.
As part of the original initiative, York Region was paying $94 a tonne to turn garbage into pellets versus $65 a tonne for sending garbage to a dump, initially considered to be a worthwhile “green” investment. However, in light of recent findings, the region will be cutting in half the amount of garbage it sends to the Dongara Pellet Plant saving approximately $80,000 a month of taxpayer money. The 20-year contract between Dongara and York has been reworked to ensure taxpayers pay only landfill rates for excess garbage sent to landfill.
According to the York Region environment commissioner, Erin Mahoney, the reduction of waste sent to the plant is to ensure it is all being processed. The region is implementing a strict plan to help Dongara reach full capacity. Until then, York Region staff contact Dongara every morning to decide how many loads of garbage it can handle and send all surplus to the Green Lane Landfill in southwestern Ontario.nbsp;[ index ]

SHAK HAQ:  On Wednesday, a conference was held to discuss the collapse of sockeye salmon populations in the Fraser River, British Columbia. The conference was organized by Simon Fraser University and the Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council and was prompted by a shocking decline of the Fraser sockeye run over the summer. The predicted 11 million salmon run turned out to be a run of one million. Jeff Reynolds, a spokesperson for the conference, cited this as the lowest return in more than fifty years and stated, “Fraser River sockeye are almost unable now to replace themselves.”
According to scientists, the early 1900s saw Fraser River salmon runs of nearly 40 million. In 1913, railroad construction caused a massive decline cutting off the fish from their spawning beds. By 1916, less than 2 million had returned to the Fraser. The stocks eventually rebuilt through the 1940s and 1950s, and by 1958, the run reached about 20 million. Overfishing in the 1960s caused stocks to fall again and runs oscillated between four to eight million. By the early 1990s runs averaged 24 million sockeye and scientists predicted the Fraser salmon was returning to its natural levels of productivity. Runs began to decline 15 years ago, but this summer was much greater than expected.
Experts have pinpointed a few possibilities for the decline, but more research is required for conclusive results. They cite ocean conditions in the Strait of Georgia as one possibility and climate change as another. A third possibility was sea lice from neighbouring fish farms, despite the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada ruling this out. According to experts only sockeye in the Fraser River are declining. They note that sockeye is doing well to the north of the Fraser, in Alaska, and to the south, in the Okanagan River. [ index ]

SHAK HAQ:  Toronto has been selected to showcase its green initiatives along with nine other cities at the Copenhagen Climate Conference. The city will be featured in a three-minute video that will play throughout the day in the main square. The video presents various clean energy efforts including the deep lake water cooling project, the wind turbine at Exhibition Place and the solar-powered parking slip machines. It briefly shows the planned Transit City streetcar network and the re-cladding of aging towers with insulation. Mayor David Miller sees this as, “an amazing opportunity to have Toronto’s name be known around the world as a green leader.” Miller is acting as the chair of the C40 cities’ initiative on climate change.
On Wednesday, he signed the Hopenhagen petition and urged Torontonians to do the same. The Hopenhagen petition is a movement generated by the International Advertising Association representing the global advertising industry in support of the United Nations. The petition is a global initiative in response to the Copenhagen Climate Conference that hopes to build a better future for our planet and a more sustainable way of life. Last week Miller told city council, “all of the cities have taken actions, real actions that fight climate change, create jobs, lower costs. And by having such a mass of mayors there, we’ll have a significant impact, I believe, on whether nations will come to an agreement.” [ index ]

SHAK HAQ:  According to the Toronto Star, 33 million Christmas trees across North America end up in the wood chipper once the holidays are over. In Burnaby, B.C. Jeff Ferguson and business partner, Sean Macalister hope to change this with their newly launched Evergrow Christmas Trees Co. The company rents live trees to customers, drops them off in a pot, then picks them up after Christmas and replants them. In their inaugural year they had 200 trees slated for rental and were sold out in two weeks. They are charging between $90 and $150, which includes delivery and pick-up. Currently, they offer a choice between fir or spruce trees with sizes ranging from 1.2 metres to 2.3 metres in height. They hope to offer trees up to 2.7 metres next year.
A graduate of the UBC forestry program, Ferguson aims to present a third alternative to cut trees or plastic, which he argues have an equally wasteful impact on the environment due to the plastics from which they are made and the energy used transporting them from factories in Asia. Eventually, he hopes his initiative will spread across Canada much like its popularity in England, California and Oregon.
Critics are skeptical of the viability of the trees being replanted as evergreens are fairly sensitive to soil changes and transplanting always puts a plant at risk for survival. Ferguson responds with, “they might go through some shock for a few months, but they should survive.” [ index ]

SHAK HAQ: Climate negotiations at the 15th conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change were off to a somewhat rocky start this week. Arguments over who should pay the cost of carbon reduction have led to rifts between the world’s richest nations, its poorest, and rapidly developing nations who find themselves somewhere in between. The trouble stems from the fact that the 1992 Kyoto Protocol calls for legally binding commitments from rich western nations, but relatively little action from countries that were poor when the agreement was signed. The latter group includes nations like India and China, despite the fact that they have experienced dramatic economic growth in the last two decades.

On Tuesday, the so called “Danish text”, a leak of a draft document prepared by a group of rich countries including the U.S. and Demark, caused outrage when it proposed abandoning the Kyoto Protocol in favour of a new agreement that would place an more equal burden on all nations. The Convention’s Executive Secretary, Yvo de Boer, was forced to make a statement reminding participants that only officially tabled proposals are under consideration.

In response, the tiny pacific nation of Tuvalu tabled issued a proposal which aimed to keep the global mean temperature rise to just 1.5 degrees Celsius above 1990 levels, which is significantly lower than the 2 degrees favoured by rich countries. However, thi proposal also called for limits on fossil fuel use for rapidly developing countries like India and China, who thus far have not faced strict restrictions. Opposition from those countries ultimately resulted in the proposal’s rejection. The defeat was strongly felt by the world’s poorest nations, which include many island states that are considered to be particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels.

Previously, China has acted in concert with the so-called G77 group of the world’s poorest countries, of which it is a member. Despite the break in solidarity, many cling to hope that an agreement can still be salvaged. Heads of state from the world’s wealthiest nations, including the U.S. and Canada, will begin to arrive next week. [ index ]

TYLER IRVING:  We may not yet know whether to call them the oughties, noughties, or something else entirely, but according to the United Nations World Meteorological Organization, the first decade of this century has been the warmest since record-keeping began 150 years ago.

The announcement was made on Tuesday at the Copenhagen conference by the head of the WMO, Mark Jarraud. He went on to state that based on preliminary data, 2009 is on track to become the fifth-warmest year on record. Most areas in the world experienced the warmer temperatures, with the only exception being North America, which cooled slightly compared with previous years. Overall, the combined air and sea surface temperatures of the earth have attained a level of 0.4 degrees above the average from 1961 to 1990, which is used by the WMO as a reference.

While this may not sound like much, the rise in temperatures is being described as a factor in many phenomena, including devastating floods, severe droughts, snowstorms, heatwaves and cold waves. In addition, the last three years have seen Arctic sea ice retreat further than ever before. The complete report from the WMO will be released in 2010. [ index ]

TYLER IRVING:  On Monday, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) issued a finding that greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons, endanger the health of future generations. This paves the way for the EPA to regulate emissions of those gases under the Clean Air Act.

Greenhouse gases have always been a thorny legal issue because unlike other pollutants such as Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) or leaded gasoline, direct health effects have been difficult to demonstrate. This has led to GHGs being largely exempted from environmental legislation. In 2007, the American Supreme Court decided that greenhouse gases are air pollutants, but left it up to the EPA to decide whether or not the threat to human health was significant enough to merit regulation. The EPA made that decision last April, but followed it up with a 60-day period of public consultation. That period ended in June and the final ruling was made Monday.

The finding is significant in that it could allow the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases through existing laws, rather than waiting for Congress to pass new ones, such as the Waxman Markey bill that is currently before the Senate. However, on Wednesday, the EPA’s current Administrator, Lisa Jackson, said from Copenhagen that America will pursue both new laws and regulation under old ones, saying “this is not an either/or moment; this is a both/and moment.” [ index ]

TYLER IRVING:  The Bella Centre, where the United Nations climate change conference is being held, has seating for 15,000 people. Approximately 10,000 more are waiting outside. But down in the back alleys of Copenhagen, a group of about 50 people gathered for the Climate Sense Conference, a gathering of the world’s few remaining climate change deniers.

The two-day conference was sponsored by the Danish Group Climate Sense and by the U.S.-based Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT). Featured speakers include scientists from the universities of Adelaide and Western Australia, as well several American politicians and Lord Christopher Monckton, a former advisor to then-Prime Minister of Great Britain, Margaret Thatcher. Among other things, they argue that the current phase of warming is part of a natural solar cycle, and that rising CO2 levels are due to volcanoes rather than human activity.

CFACT has received UN accreditation as an NGO, despite the fact that its members often publicly denounce the world organization. In the past CFACT received funding from groups such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron, but its executive director, Craig Rucker, stresses that other non-profits also receive funding from corporate partners. In the British newspaper the Daily Telegraph, he was quoted as saying that he hopes that the world has the courage to “do nothing until the science is clear.” [ index ]