DARYN CAISTER: The Canadian government has announced it will be spending a small fraction of the Clean Energy Fund on green energy projects. Canada’s one billion dollar clean energy fund will be spent mostly on carbon capture and storage projects amounting in $466 million on technology that’s viability has been very heavily debated. A further $146 million has been proposed for a variety of clean energy projects including test project smart grid technology installations that give consumers far more detailed information and control about their energy use in the home to help encourage voluntary reductions as well as improved efficiency such as turning on and off your heating and cooling by internet from work. Other projects will propose tidal and wave energy projects on the east and west coasts and heat recapture projects from energy plants and solar thermal test projects in Ontario. Funding is currently proposed for 19 projects that will be funded between 2.5 and 20 million each, most of which will go to large companies such as Enbridge Gas Distribution in Ontario, but will include some smaller companies and even the city of Yellowknife itself. The majority of the projects will involve bio-energy projects involving recapturing biomass, and many of which will be installed in smaller communities for the pilot periods. None of the deals have so far been finalized, and the government so far has not committed any of the clean energy grant money, only the $466 million for the CCS projects have been confirmed. Lisa Raitt, Canada’s natural resources minister said with the announcement that “Investments in clean energy technologies are a key part of our approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving the environment”. [ index ]

PETER STOCK: A second lawsuit driven by provincial pesticide bans is heading toward the courts. According to the Canadian Press, a group representing approximately 36 lawn care companies is threatening to sue Ontario Environment Minister John Gerretsen and others wih fraud. The companies assert that peer-reviewed report that backstopped the ban was flawed and that the government’s reclassification of pesticides was based on a methodology that “was not based on regulatory science”. The group’s spokeperson, Jeffrey Lowes, of the kingston ON based-PR firm MREP Communications, claims for instance that one of the scientists listed as a peer-reviwer denies having reviewed the report. She was not even aware that her name was included until the report was issued. The Ontario complain comes on the heels of a $2 million suit filed by Dow Agro Sciences LLC against the province of Quebec. That suit claims that the quebec ban violates trade laws because it prohibits a product without adequate scientific evidence. Ontario’s ban, which took effect last April, prohibits the sale and cosmetic use of more than 80 ingredients and 250 products, as a way of protecting public health and the environment. The Ontario suit will first be heard Feburary 17th in a Kingston court. Geretson’s office said they would not comment until they had reviewed the court filings. [ index ]

DARYN CAISTER: British Colombia has begun to enter the next phase of its battle with the pine beetle, what to do with the destroyed wood. The pine beetle was reached in peak according to experts, leaving BC with a legacy of not only destroyed hectares of forest, but a natural area that has been turned from a massive natural carbon sink, to a net carbon emitter due to the slow release of the stored carbon from all the dead trees. The tar sands in Alberta generated approximately 38 megatons of carbon dioxide last year, dwarfed by the emissions from dead trees in BC measured at a CO2 equivalent of 74 megaton’s. One of the proposed solutions that is being considered by the province is a new process being employed by Nexterra, by turning the dead trees into “syngas” a relatively pollution light fossil fuel alternative. Nexterra is developing small-scale systems for distribution all over British Colombia, and has installed plants in industrial settings, institutions and residential housing areas despite the relatively newness of the technology. CEO Jonathan Rhone says there’s still much work to be done. Climate change expert Andrew Weaver points out that forests as carbon sinks and emitters have been traditionally overlooked in carbon models, particularly carbon mitigation plans, despite what science now knows about their large impact on the carbon cycle although more recently models have taken the effect seriously and integrated detailed forestry data into newer modelling systems. BC’s pine forests have been measured as a net carbon emitter due to the infestation since 2003. [ index ]

PETER STOCK: A political cold front remained stubbornly in place in Quebec, according to a report in the Globe and Mail this week. Relations between the provence and the feds have been frosty since Premier Jean Charest was chastised by environment minister Jim Prentice for Charest’s blunt comments at last December’s Copenhagen climate conference. There Charest described the gap between the Province’s and Federal efforts to reduce green house gases as “a tale of two Canada’s”. Prentice followed that salvo with his own saying that Charest’s “divisive comments” were not helpful in supporting canada’s climate change efforts. Round three was this week, at the opening of an organic waste treatment plant near riviere du loup Standing next to a stoically smiling Prime Minister Harper, Premiere Charest revived the feud, saying : “I think it is important in politics to speak frankly and directly, “I went to Copenhagen to speak to this issue as someone who represents a population, a nation that believes very deeply in this commitment that we made. There is not a single word I would change. Unlike the Federal Government, Quebec subscribes to the Kyoto protocol and has committed to reduce GHG emissions by 20% from 1990 levels by 2020. For his part, Harper stuck to the high road, saying simply:”Our governments don’t always agree but that doesn’t mean we don’t work together when we share objectives,” He pointed to the Cacouna project as a shared initiative to reduce GHG. The organic waste treatment plant will handle up to 20,000 tons of waste annually and generate a renewable fuel called biomethane to be used in the fleet of about 30 municipal vehicles.
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DARYN CAISTER: Sierra Club of Canada is continuing its battle for reform on Canadian pesticide laws. This week the Sierra Club called upon the Canadian government to review “spiro-tetra-mat”, a pesticide marketed as Movento or Ultor under concerns it might be a danger to honey bees. The pesticide, produced by Bayer CropScience, was banned in the US by federal court last month as the result of a suit by Natural Resources Defence Council and the Xerces Society. The pesticide has been identified as potentially interfering with honey bees ability to reproduce, and its approval was fast-tracked by Health Canada in 2008 without public consults for its use for vegetables and fruit that is mostly pollinated by honey bees. The Sierra Club is asking for the Canadian government to take the cue from the US court decision and reanalyze its position on the chemical, particularly due to its incomplete assessment and approval in Canada. The Sierra Club also pointed out that honey bees are already under threat from the so called “colony collapse disorder” and that if this chemical is not a contributing factor to the disorder then it may certainly be a compounding factor to the problem. During the 2008-09 seasons the Canadian Association of Professional Apiculturists reported that Canadian commercial beekeeping operation lost more than a third of its colonies over the winter which was more than twice the baseline rate of mortality. Bee-keepers will be discussing the issues at an upcoming Canadian conference, and Sierra Club is optimistic about its pressure on the Canadian government due to recent reform rulings concerning Canadian pesticide regulations over the past couple of years. [ index ]

PETER STOCK: The much maligned Tar Sands got a reprieve this week when the Conference Board of Canada reminded energy users that they shared responsibility for reversing climate change. The report – titled “ Getting the Balance Right: The Oil Sands, Exporting and Sustainability.” — recommends that energy producers continue to seek and implement new technologies to make oil extraction cleaner. At the same time, long term demand for energy must also be reduced. Len Coad, Director, Environment, Energy and Transportation Policy, and co-author of the report along with Glen Hodgson, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist. Said “The perceived Achilles heel of the oil sands is its higher levels of greenhouse gas emissions. But on a wells-to-wheels basis, oil sands are not significantly dirtier than oil from many other global sources. Furthermore, Canada and the United States will continue to rely on oil products for the foreseeable future, and the oil sands offer advantages as a preferred supplier for North America,” The Conference Board noted that while the Oil Sands was responsible for about 5% of green house gas emissions, transportation – fueld by continued demand for light trucks and SUVs – was around 18% in 2007. Though it should be noted too that that 5% figure is expected to rise as production increases. [ index ]

DARYN CAISTER: Unions and environmental groups are teaming up to protect BC’s forests. Ben Parfitt, the new plans author has brought together forestry union leaders and BC environmental groups to promote a plan that urges the BC government to conserve more forest, reduce wood waste and promote more efficient forest product use under what it claims is a directed effort to stave off greenhouse gas emissions. The plan was formed post Copenhagen with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives as a catalyst. Seeing the precarious future of its product, forestry groups have become much more receptive to government interventiuon to protect the longterm value of its industry in BC, and are using the message of reducing carbon emissions as the rallying cry for its message. A report put out by the group entitled “Managing BC’s Forests for a Cooler Planet: Carbon Storage, Sustainable Jobs and Conservation” was released along with the BC Governent and Service Employees Union, the Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada, the David Suzuki Foundation, the Sierra Club of BC and several other groups. The report calls for longer timeframes between logging periods, increased conservation areas, changing the allowable annual cut rule with a new system based on carbon storage which will be known as the Carbon Cut Calculation and several other progressive policies backed by a wide range of Canadian environmental groups. [ index ]

NAOMI JEHLICKA:  This past Wednesday, a South African government official announced his country’s plan to introduce a new tax on vehicles, in efforts to curb the country’s carbon dioxide emissions. In addition to reducing South Africa’s ecological footprint, the tax is a means to increase tax revenues that have declined sharply as a result of the massive 2008 recession.

Not everybody welcomes this tax; some officials and economists worry that while the tax is founded on good green principles, it could severely affect the struggling auto industry – an industry particularly affected by last year’s world wide recession. Popular car manufactures like BMW, Ford, General Motors, and Volkswagen all have manufacturing plants in South Africa and thus provide a major source of employment for South Africans. Higher taxes generally reduce sale volumes and the availability of jobs, and those opposing the tax worry that economic recovery will be slowed as a side effect of this tax.

Not only does this tax pose a considerable threat to the South African motor industry, but the infrastructure to operate enviro-friendly machinery is non-existent in the country. Like many developing countries, South Africa lacks the correct type of fuel to support eco-friendly engines and cannot afford to implement a massive reconstructing of this framework in time for the legislation’s implementation. Currently, South Africa only conforms to Euro 2 engine emission levels. To put this into perspective, other – though more developed- countries have the infrastructure in place to support euro 5 compliant engines. The National Association of automobile Manufacturers suggests that the introduction of the new tax should go hand in hand with the introduction of Euro 4 enabling fuel, since car designs are limited to older models since hybrid cars and other variants of less-polluting engine vehicles cannot be operated in this region. Despite these concerns, the new tax will come into effect in March 2010.
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NAOMI JEHLICKA:  This past Tuesday, the largest US agricultural advocacy group officially requested that the US Congress prevent legislation regulating greenhouse gas emission. The American Farm Bureau Federation (or AFBF for short), which represents close to 6 million Americans, voiced its firm opposition to federal legislation designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. In a critique of US climate legislation, Phil Nelson, the president of the Illinois Farm Bureau, warns that green house gas regulation “would significantly burden all sectors of the economy in addition to raising the food prices.” The only national greenhouse gas reduction strategy endorsed by the AFBF is a voluntary cap-and-trade system – all other strategies have been greeted with strong opposition from this advocacy group.

While farmers in the United States are sceptical about national legislation curbing green house gas emissions, the same cannot be said for those in Canada. Organizations like the Canadian Federation of Agriculture are active participants in climate-change reduction programs like the federally-run Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Program and many small-scale farmers have joined eco-friendly organizations like Local Food Plus or Ontario’s Own. It is hoped that the CFA will, through its actions, influence other agricultural organizations. [ index ]

NAOMI JEHLICKA:  According to new research from Purdue University, conservation groups sometimes implement ecological conservation strategies with little or no knowledge about local cultures or micro-economic activity, which results in a subpar environmental enforcement strategy. Dr. Melissa Remis, an anthropologist at Purdue University, studies gorillas, and researches issues specific to animal species, forest fragmentation, ecotourism, local culture and industry in the Central African Republic’s Dzanga-Sangha Dense Forest Reserve.

Home to elephants and gorillas, the reserve also serves as a research and tourism destination, as well as a good place for local hunting and logging. It is also close to the town of Bayanga, which is populated with farmers and logging migrants. While conservation groups chide the locals for endangering animals through their hunting practises, Dr. Remis suggests that conservationists should instead seek to understand how local economies and hunting techniques function, since, in some cases, they serve to better the lives of animals.

An example cited in this research is the selective logging practises undertaken by locals in the Dzanza-Sangha forest. Selective logging opens light gaps that results in herbaceous vegetation growth, which helps sustain the antelope – a primary food source for the locals that has been declining rapidly and because of this, the locals have been substituting antelopes for gorillas – a species that is in greater danger than the antelope. According to Dr. Remis, “this is an example where logging at certain low levels could actually help people sustain higher yields for hunting.” This notion reinforces the necessity of working with the locals when devising plans targeted to improve sustainability rather than working autonomously. [ index ]