DARYN CAISTER: Federal environment minister Jim Prentice announced that Canada will be directing coal power producers to plan to phase out production. The government announced that it wasn’t to shift away from coal power across the country, a move that is seen to be a big boon for the natural gas sector in Canada. While Natural gas is still a fossil fuel, it has significantly less carbon emissions and pollution associated with its use for power production. The move was done with the backdrop of a US struggle to shift to cleaner power production, and with the goal of reducing Canada’s reliance on American coal providers. The move was also seen as an attempt to highlight it as an environmental program in the light of widespread criticism of Canada’s energy policy from environmentalists and activists across the country. Ottawa’s plan is to require coal power plants to cease production at the end of the current inventory of plants at the end of their current life spans, effectively prohibiting refurbishment of current facilities and stopping the construction of new facilities. The proposal left open the possibility however that new plants could be built or existing plants refurbished if the upgrades included carbon capture and storage technology. Part of the proposal would also include increasing Canada’s non-emitting power sources by 90% of current inventory by 2020 up from an existing promise of 75%. However the definition of non-emitting in the proposal was left vague enough to include so called “reduced emission” sources which would include natural gas, nuclear and hydroelectric, a decision that could result in a net gain in emissions over current targets of 75% depending on the makeup of the new facilities and sources. [ index ]

DYLAN JERVIS: An Alberta judge has dismissed a motion by the Oil company Syncrude to throw out a case involving the deaths of 1,606 ducks in one of its tailings ponds.

The province argued that Syncrude failed to employ scare cannons and other devices to scare away an incoming flock of birds during late March and April of 2008. The company had received a warning on Thursday, April 17th – but by that time, employees in charge had gone home for their Friday, Saturday, Sunday weekend. The ducks were found on April 28th.

Syncrude has argued that it was a freak snowstorm that forced the birds to land in the tailings pond, eventually leading to their deaths. Provincial prosecutors have rebutted that there was a warning of the snowstorm 48 hours prior to its arrival and should have been anticipated.

Judge Ken Tjosvold ruled that “sufficient evidence” existed to continue with the charges – a provincial charge of failing to store a hazardous material in a manner that prevents it from coming into contact with wildlife, and a federal charge of “permitting the deposit” of a substance harmful to migratory birds. If convicted of the provincial charge, the federal charge will be thrown out – preventing a situation of “double jeopardy”. [ index ]

DARYN CAISTER: Two years after announcing that bisphenol A would be added to Canada’s toxic substances list, the designation has still not materialized. Bisphenol A is a commercial chemical that mimics oestrogen in the body, and is used in everything from Compact Disks to nearly every tin can liner in production including soft drink cans and steel water bottles. At the time of the original announcement two years ago, Canada was the first country to announce that it would be banning the use of the chemical, which lead to a more recent announcement that the American environmental protection agency would be also be investigating the human and environmental impacts of the substance. In the US the move has elicited a strong push back by industry lobby groups, and in Canada a unknown party has apparently held up the listing. The federal government said that they had received an objection to the listing, and refused to disclose the party that has filed the objection, making health and environmental advocacy groups in Canada nervous that Ottawa will quietly try to scuttle the designation due to industry pressure. The chemical is used in the production of plastics, particularly in plastic sealer rings in metal containers and food products. Health agencies that have pushed for the ban of Bisphenol A say that the danger of the chemical is its impacts on gender regulation during animal development, including human and has also produced studies showing its link to breast cancer. These studies however have been in dispute, largely by industry funded studies. Environmental Defence, a Canadian environmental advocacy group make a statement saying that the only reason to hide the identity of the objector was if the party had something to hide and demanded that Ottawa release their identity to the public. [ index ]

DYLAN JERVIS: The provincial Liberal government shut down a motion on Wednesday by the Progressive Conservatives that would have halted wind turbine operations until their health effects are further studied.

Premier Dalton McGuinty stated that the moratorium was unneccessary as “Wind Turbines have been up and running for decades in dozens, if not hundreds, of jurisdictions. [Ontario is] relatively late coming to electricity generation by means of windpower”.

This motion came as 250 people demonstrated outside of Queen’s Park, protesting the presence of turbines near residential areas. They claim that the turbines have sickened 106 Ontario residents.

Currently, wind turbines may be built no nearer than 550m from any home, though some protestors advocate a buffer zone of nearly 2km. [ index ]

DARYN CAISTER: Nova Scotia has announced a $20 reward for shooting coyotes in response to public concern about increased incidents involving aggressive animal incidents with its citizens. Natural Resources minister for Nova Scotia John MacDonell announced the plan but insisted the plan was not a bounty, however he admitted the distinction was thin. A bounty was used for a similar purpose in 1980 in Nova Scotia, which was admittedly a failure; including a position on the government’s website saying that bounties don’t work after the 1980 program had “no impact” on the problem. The government is calling the plan a subsidy rather than a bounty, which has many scratching their heads at the distinction. The plan is said to encourage extra productivity among existing coyote trappers says the government who have been hurt by low prices in recent years, and not intended to encourage new citizens to join the hunt says the government, which is why they don’t want to call it a bounty. The issue has been in the forefront in Nova Scotia since last fall when Taylor Mitchell, a Canadian musician was killed in a coyote attack in Cape Breton. Several non-lethal but life threatening attacks have occurred in Nova Scotia since then. Mr. MacDonell said this week that if the plan works, hunters will kill up to half of Nova Scotia’s approximately 8000 coyotes over the next fall season. The government will also be increasing funding for experts to help catch coyotes deemed dangerous and increasing public awareness and safety education in the province. [ index ]

DYLAN JERVIS: The Government of British Columbia has brushed aside its independent energy regulator in hopes of attracting Green investment to the province.

The Clean Energy Act was unveiled Wednesday exempts most new projects, plans and programs from the oversight of the B.C. Utilities Commission – a watchdog group that has in the past prevented the province from building the hydropower projects.

This “freedom” from the Utilities commission will allow the province to set domestic electricity rates and lessen the regulatory constraints that new power projects have to meet presently.

The Clean Energy act is the latest in a series of actions by both Ontario and B.C. to attract clean energy projects the provinces. [ index ]

LEEANNE MACGREGOR: It has been ten days since an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded killing 11 workers and releasing a steady stream of oil into the ocean to the tune of thousands of barrels of oil a day. Oil rig operator British Petrol initially estimated that the leak was 1,000 barrels per day. But now, those figures are closer to 5,000 barrels, or 800,000 litres per day. The current solution is to drill a well adjacent the gushing leak at the bottom of the ocean in order to release some of the pressure. The plan is time consuming , an estimated 100,000 barrels or 15.9 million litres of oil will have been leaked. The spill is seen as a threat to the Louisiana coastline which contains 40% of US wetlands. Oil is predicted to wash into the wetlands by this weekend. While the cause of the catastrophe has not been determined, some reports point to the practice of deep-water drilling itself as blame worthy. As national coastal oil wells become depleted, the presence of deep-water oil wells has been steadily on the rise. Oil found in deep water reserves is of a significantly higher temperature. Combined with the colder ocean water found kilometres off shore, the whole deep water oil extraction process is extremely high pressure. The disaster has prompted federal officials to call for an immediate inspection of all deep water oil rigs in the Gulf. One slightly less negative outcome of the incident is that, President Obama has decided to postpone implementing his administration’s new deepwater oil drilling plan. [ index ]

LEEANNE MACGREGOR: A new study aims to shock governments into action on the issue of biodiversity loss. The study results released this week show that, disturbingly, virtually all ecosystems world wide are in decline. The study proves that an international agreement to curb ecosystem destruction has, regrettably, failed. In 2002 the international community agreed under the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, (IUCN), to have effective ecosystem protection policies in place by the year 2010. The study shows that while many countries implemented policy to restrict the threats to biodiversity, those measures were simply not enough. Currently about 12% of the world’s land is under protection policy of some kind and only 1% of oceans is protected. The study used a comprehensive set of indicators to show that the world’s biodiversity loss is not decreasing at all. Meanwhile, threats such as loss of habitat, climate change, and colonization by harmful non-native species are all on the rise. The deputy head of IUCN spoke about the results of the study saying, “the role of governments is paramount, but the magnitude and rate of loss of biodiversity means that everyone, from individuals to businesses, must act now…”. When the international community reconvenes on this issue it is expected that new policy initiatives will be directed at unsustainable agriculture, pollution, and the growing scale of cities and transportation networks. [ index ]

LEEANNE MACGREGOR: Last week marked the close of an international climate change conference intended to be the Copenhagen’s counterweight. Last week, 30,000 people from 140 countries took part in the People’s World Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights near the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia. In stark contrast to the climate negotiations in Copenhagen where civil society was increasingly shut out, this gathering emphasized a participatory process. Through the dedication of 18 working groups comprised of delegates from around the world, the Cochabamba Accord was created. This “people’s accord” responds distinctly to the calls being made in the streets of Copenhagen; it recognizes the root causes of the climate change crisis such as unsustainable production, consumption, and trade. The conference resulted in several historic initiatives; The Cochabamba Accord calls for the implementation of a Universal Declaration of Mother Earth Rights, a global referendum on climate change, and a fund to relieve climate debt. The conference comes on the heel of an announcement from the Obama administration that it is reneging on climate relief funding for Bolivia and Ecuador. Both countries are opposed to the Copenhagen Accord and its permissible 4-degree rise in temperature for parts of the global south. Bolivian President Evo Morales delivered a clear message to the UN. He expects to see the Cochabamba Accord at the next climate change summit in Cancun, Mexico seven months from now. While the Cochabamba process received a nod of recognition and some words of approval from the UN, it is unclear whether the Accord will be granted its place at the negotiations. [ index ]