Daily Archives: December 18, 2015

solutions, Politics, Sustainability, reconciliation

Fixing the Broken Review Process for Tar Sands Pipelines

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PRESS RELEASE from Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador (AFNQL), Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs (AMC), Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) via CNW Telbec, Dec 17, 2015

 

Open letter to the Right Honourable Prime Minister Trudeau Re: Fixing the Broken Review Process for Tar Sands Pipelines

WENDAKE, QC, Dec. 17, 2015 /CNW Telbec/ - Kindly accept our sincere congratulations on your election victory. There are real opportunities now for the federal government to finally recognize First Nations’ rightful place at the core of Canada’s past and its future. One such opportunity is the critical roadmap provided in the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). We are pleased that your Government is committed to implement all 94 Calls to Action.

First Nations and Canada have a lot of work to do regarding measures needed to finally put us all on the path of reconciliation and partnership. We focus here on one such measure – the overhaul of the review and assessment process for Tar Sands export pipelines.

The current system, a product of the unconstitutional Omnibus Bills C-38 and C-45 which First Nations vigorously opposed, has: recklessly compressed pipeline reviews; sidelined critics; excluded essential considerations such as climate change; and violated Indigenous rights and sovereignty. Meanwhile, the National Energy Board (NEB) is no longer an independent arbiter in such reviews. It has become a politicized and industry-captured ‘rubber stamper’ that pays only lip service to the respect for the positions and rights of First Nations. All of these changes unravel opportunities for First Nations who are directly impacted by regulators like the NEB to offer them and industry vitally important information about the lands and resources. The current restrictions further damage the relationship with First Nations and undermine the public trust, legitimacy and openness of the federal environmental assessment process.

All of the current NEB reviews of proposed Tar Sands export pipelines suffer from the same major defects identified above, including the reviews of TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline (potential for 1,100,000 bpd of Tar Sands), Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline (potential for 760,000 bpd of Tar Sands) and Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline (expanded potential to at least 890,000 bpd of Tar Sands).

The current review and assessment process for the above pipelines has violated:

  • The Crown’s Constitutional consultation and accommodation duties.
  • The Aboriginal Title, Aboriginal Rights and Treaty Rights of First Nations, which are all protected by the Constitution of Canada as well as the Royal Proclamation.
  • The Principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (which we were very happy to hear that Canada will finally implement).
  • The bans instituted by a number of First Nations, including under their inherent authority and jurisdiction over their territory pursuant to their own Indigenous laws and customs, refusing passage to the pipelines as a result of the unacceptable risks and impacts that they present for such First Nations.

The following remain some of the most egregious flaws in the NEB process:

  • The lack of anything close to adequate funding for First Nation participants has been a critical defect of the NEB process. In the case of the Energy East review for example, the NEB recently slashed the amount of funding available in half, from the long promised but inadequate amount of $80,000 to the truly meagre amount of $40,000. Such inadequate funding severely limits First Nations’ meaningful participation and represents both a failure of the Federal Crown’s duty to consult as well as a breach of the rules of natural justice. Even the originally insufficient amount of $80,000 promised by the NEB had led many First Nations to sign agreements with TransCanada in order to obtain the necessary funding to study the pipeline. First Nations should not be forced to deal with TransCanada just to be able to properly understand and assess the impacts of the pipeline. Making matters worse, TransCanada has often unfairly and falsely portrayed such agreements in the media as being illustrative of First Nations’ support for the pipeline. If the NEB was lacking in the necessary funds as it claims, then TransCanada should have been required to provide the NEB with the necessary funding to make up the difference – rather than permitting TransCanada to have a say in how First Nations’ studies will be funded.
  • The NEB has demonstrated a clear bias in favour of pipelines by almost never rejecting a pipeline project, even shamefully giving conditional approval to the Northern Gateway project despite it being firmly opposed by First Nations across BC. A number of recent events seem to confirm such bias, including the NEB having accepted TransCanada’s demand this summer that the NEB continue to study the pipeline even though TransCanada has yet to file a complete project description. The NEB has even recently asked First Nations to file Oral Traditional Evidence – once again before TransCanada has even filed a complete application. In addition, the NEB has immunized pipeline company proponents from cross-examinations in a number of recent hearings (including Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain and Enbridge’s Line 3). Public hearings that are bereft of the necessary analytical rigour clearly favour industry. The evidence of such bias in favour of industry is only compounded by the crass revolving door of personnel between the NEB and the industry it is supposed to regulate, as in the case of the recent appointee to the NEB who had most recently been contracted by Kinder Morgan to submit evidence to the NEB on the economic benefits of the Trans Mountain project. The NEB’s conflict of interest issues need to be urgently resolved.
  • Finally, and perhaps most importantly, despite longstanding criticism by First Nations and others, the NEB continues to exclude from its analysis one of the biggest impacts of the Tar Sands pipelines: their heavy contribution to climate change as a result of the expanded Tar Sands production that the pipelines will allow. First Nations were never consulted on the original decisions to exclude such a critical issue from the NEB reviews and the NEB’s continued refusal to reconsider such exclusion makes their reviews completely devoid of legitimacy. Overly rigid and prescriptive processes diminish and frustrate the ability for concerns of First Nations to be heard. Our Indigenous laws tell us that actions have consequences. Mother Earth is giving us signs that she is out of balance. Climate change is one of these signs. At a time when our First Nations are already suffering major climate change related impacts to their ways of life, the full consideration of climate change impacts has to be a major focus of any new review and assessment process for the pipelines.

In light of your Government’s stated positions in respect to such matters, our First Nations in British Columbia,Manitoba and Quebec call for the establishment of a new pipeline review and assessment process, to be developed and implemented in collaboration with First Nations, that will enable a thorough and objective environmental assessment of these pipelines that respects our rights under the Constitution of Canada as well as under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The crafting of a new Canada-First Nations review and assessment process for these pipelines needs to also be part and parcel of a greater collaboration between First Nations and Canada. Aimed at ensuring that the already unsatisfactory environmental regulatory framework in Canada – further weakened by the Harper government’s Omnibus Bills C-38 and C-45 – is transformed into a system that we can all be proud of. Conscious of newcomers’ legacy of broken promises and the taking of First Nations’ land and resources without consent, First Nations wish to see a new relationship based on the protection of First Nations’ alliance with Mother Earth. Environmental regulatory frameworks should be the hallmark of building strong and healthy relationships between First Nations, governments, regulators and industry.

Before proceeding with such desperately needed reforms, however, we insist on the immediate cancellation of the NEB review processes for Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain, Enbridge’s Line 3 and TransCanada’s Energy East Tar Sands pipelines. Such reviews will need to be completely re-thought in line with the above reforms to be established collaboratively by First Nations and Canada. We are encouraged that Liberal MP Terry Beech, Burnaby North-Seymour, has already said there will be no decision on Kinder Morgan in January, and that Kinder Morgan will have to go through a new, revised process.

Finally, we applaud your recent announcement of an oil tanker ban on the North Coast of British Columbia, which would mirror under Canadian Law the ban instituted by a number of First Nations pursuant to their Indigenous Laws. We look forward to the swift legally enforceable implementation of the ban under Canadian Law as well as a rejection of Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Tar Sands pipeline permit approval. We can only hope that your Government will be just as open to listening to and cooperating with First Nations on the key issues set out in this letter as you have been in the Northern Gateway file.

In Peace and Friendship,

Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador (AFNQL)
Regional Chief Ghislain Picard

Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs (AMC)
Grand Chief Derek Nepinak, llb, ba (Hons)

Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC)

c.c.
The Honourable Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs
The Honourable James Gordon Carr, Minister of Natural Resources
The Honourable Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment and Climate Change
Mr. Peter Watson, Chair/CEO, National Energy Board

 

SOURCE Assembly of First Nations of Quebec and Labrador

Preventing Ecocide, Ecocide ALert, Politics, Activism, Fascism/Corporatism

Coal or Climate? Vancouver Approves Giant Coal Export Facility on Eve of New Climate Deal

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By James Wilt, reposted from DeSmogCanada, Dec 15, 2015

Isn’t it ironic? A little too ironic?

On the very same day the UN climate summit kicked off in Paris, Vancouver’s port authority approved a cost-saving amendment allowing for the proposed Fraser Surrey Docks terminal to export massive amounts of thermal coal to Southeast Asia on ships rather than barges. The irony hasn’t been lost on environmental activists.

“It was just such a stark contradiction in the timing around this most recent approval where the port authority is improving a new thermal coal port on day one of global climate talks,” says Laura Benson, Dogwood Initiative’s Beyond Coal campaign director. “One foot’s going backwards into the 19th century and one foot’s trying to move ahead into a brighter future where we can fight climate change.”

Fraser Surrey Docks, owned by a Macquarie Group-managed investment company, currently exports lumber, steel and containers. Since 2012, the company has pushed for permission to construct a new $50-million coal-loading terminal to export up to eight million tonnes of thermal coal — which is burned to generate electricity, unlike metallurgical coal which is required to smelt steel — to Asia from mines in Montana and Wyoming’s Powder River Basin.

A company update from late 2012 anticipated shipping would start in 2013. It hasn’t exactly turned out that way. The Vancouver Port Authority is now facing lawsuits from Voters Taking Action on Climate Change (VTACC) and the Musqueam Indian Band over an alleged failure to adequately consult.

“The port is both the landlord and the regulator,” says Kevin Washbrook, the director of VTACC. “They have an interest in seeing these projects go ahead. So there’s no public assurance this process isn’t biased in favour of the industry. Rather than going through the show of attending the open houses, we’ve been saying from the start the port needs to sit down with the public and talk about these concerns and engage local governments from the start.”

Coal prices have cratered in recent years, stymieing Fraser Surrey Docks’ efforts to find a customer to buy into the barging scheme. The company’s amended proposal allows it to also load coal directly onto ocean-going vessels, which doesn’t resolve concerns about climate change, traffic in the Fraser River or ramifications for air quality. “We can’t build these coal ports and avoid runaway climate change: it’s contrary to what we need to do,” Washbrook says.

In late 2013, Port Metro Vancouver hired Edelman — a public relations firm that previously represented other pro-coal organizations — to help boost its image. Unfortunately, as Chinese coal imports declined and a global coal glut emerged, such appeals to economic arguments largely flopped. Benson notes the thermal coal market in the Pacific Rim is oversupplied and that companies are scaling back exports despite giant penalties. Potential environmental impacts such as increased air pollution, noise and greenhouse gas emissions have only added to concerns. The hiring of the hellishly controversial SNCLavalin by the docks to conduct environmental assessments and Port Metro Vancouver’s decision toignore calls for a full health impact assessment kind of capped it all off.

With all that said, Alan Fryer — spokesperson for the Coal Alliance, a lobbyist organization that petitions for British Columbia coal businesses, including the Fraser Surrey Docks — maintains optimism the industry will rebound given global demands for coal. He argues the Fraser Surrey Docks are a “flashpoint” triggered by an upswing in anti-coal activism in the United States’ Pacific Northwest, and that the industry provides tens of thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions in tax revenue.

“We’re a trading nation,” he says. “We are a port city. I don’t think we get to pick and choose, necessarily, the products that we export. It’s a tough time in the resource sector generally. I know a lot of people are hurting and have lost their jobs. I think anytime you have the opportunity to create even a few well-paid unionized jobs, that’s a good thing.”

Coal mining in the Powder River Basin.

In late November, Fryer sent congratulatory emails to 33 British Columbia-based MPs (including three cabinet ministers), providing background on the province’s coal industry and an invitation to get in touch if they wanted more information. The communications report in the federal lobbyist register initially appears startling given most lobbying efforts tend to include a half-dozen or so MPs at the most. Fryer notes the Coal Alliance “registered it out of an abundance of caution” even though it wasn’t sit-down House of Cards-esque lobbying. Kudos on that front. But Benson suggests the Coal Alliance has a “heavy influence” on decisions made by the port authority, so perhaps the communication wasn’t so innocuous (in September, Freyer also lobbied a dozen MPs on behalf of the Coal Alliance).

It’s as a result of such pressures that Washbrook calls for a fundamental reformation of how port authorities are governed. He suggests local communities — such as Surrey and New Westminster, which have both joined the lawsuit against the port authority as interveners — need to have a more significant voice in the consultation process and that ports should take into consideration a wider range of concerns, including climate impacts of the commodities they export. In mid-2013, University of British Columbia political science professor Kathryn Harrison noted that seven of the 11 members on the Port Metro Vancouver’s board of directors were appointed by the federal government based on suggestions from “Port User Group,” which includes coal organizations.

Fraser Surrey Docks still has to jump through a number of “permitting hoops,” in the words of Washbrook, most notably the acquisition of Metro Vancouver’s air quality permit. He suggests the project shouldn’t go ahead with construction until it receives such a permit given the impacts it could have on design, and that it’s “already dead and everyone knows it.”

Fryer acknowledges the world will eventually have to transition away from thermal coal to renewable forms of energy “but the reality is we’re not there yet and fossil fuels, including coal, are going to be a very important part of the energy mix for sometime.” The recent amendment won’t affect the court cases as it’s the original permit that’s being challenged.

While Benson suggests the port authority has clearly signalled it’s not going to address the concerns voiced by groups like Dogwood and VTACC, she expresses optimism: “We have more avenues now given the new federal government to have the voices of citizens heard. In terms of a citizens’ movement, we’re stronger than ever. So I’m very optimistic we’ll eventually find a way to either get the answers we deserve or just block this project from ever moving forward.” SOURCE

Preventing Ecocide, Ecocide ALert, Ecocide, Politics, Activism, Fascism/Corporatism, racism, Naomi Klein

Hope for climate controls ‘slip slidin’ away’ following signing of weak Paris agreement

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BY NICK FILLMORE, reposted from Rabble.ca, Dec 17, 2015

“World agrees to historic climate accord” — Toronto Star.

“Nearly 200 countries agree to historic pact in Paris to reduce emissions and fight climate change” — The Vancouver Sun.

“Climate deal: World praises France’s diplomacy, showing it’s still a master of the art” — The Winnipeg Free Press.

Photo: flickr/Alisdare HicksonWith these headlines appearing in newspapers across the country, Canadians must have been relieved that they don’t need to worry about climate change nearly as much now that everything has been worked out in Paris.

Unfortunately, this assumption couldn’t be further from the truth.

The politicians meeting in Paris, faced with the possibility of total failure, were extremely excited to reach any kind of an agreement. As politicians will do, they convinced themselves and the compliant mainstream media that the accord all 195 countries signed was an amazing break through document.

The agreement is jam-packed with lofty language and idealistic goals. However, it is totally lacking in legally binding mechanism that will hold governments to emission limits that will stop global warming from reaching devastatingly high levels.

May and Klein have strongly different opinions

Even so, there are strong differences of opinion among environmental leaders concerning the value of the pact.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May is not concerned that the temperature goals in the agreement are not binding.

“It’s an historic and potentially life-saving agreement,” May writes in her blog. “it may save the lives of millions. It may lead to the survival of many small nations close to sea level. It may give our grandchildren a far more stable climate and thus a more prosperous and healthy society.”

Two of the world’s leading climate activists disagree strongly with May.

Responding to the cheering going on in the meeting room when the deal was signed, Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org commented: “All the serious people in there in suits are playing fantasy games.”

Activist and author Naomi Klein said the agreed upon targets are far too weak. “They don’t lead us to 1.5 degrees Celsius or 2 degrees. They lead us to warming of 3 to 4 degrees Celsius, which is beyond catastrophic.”

This year global warming, compared to the pre-industrial age temperature, is expected to reach 1 degree Celsius. Scientists say that warming must be kept to 1.5 degrees if hundreds of islands are to be saved. If countries do not improve on the promises they made in Paris global warming could reach 3.5 degrees by 2100 or earlier.

In Paris, rich countries, instead of stepping forward and coming up with firm commitments to fight warming, abdicated their responsibility to powerful multi-national corporations.

Corporations were involved in just about every aspect of COP21, including helping to pay for the summit. Meanwhile, a few select non-governmental organizations were permitted only to look over the draft of the agreement at the end of each day. Organizers kept thousands of protestors away from the delegates. Most of the actions that can come out of the agreement are left to the marketplace, and activities many will be carried out by the same corporations that have polluted the planet.

Incidentally, it was no surprise that none of the words “fossil fuels,” “oil” or “coal” appear in the agreement.

Carbon trading, which allow companies to make huge profits but that are slow to reduce emissions, are looked upon favourably. Because no action was taken against fracking, the practice, which produces highly damaging methane gas, will increase.

Financial institutions are already making large profits from financing many activities related to global warming. The most common funding is for clean energy solutions, underwriting green bonds and structuring catastrophe-linked securities to help clients manage climate change risks.

It is a bitter irony that the banks financed corporations as they destroyed our climate, and now they’ll provide the financing for many of the same companies to try to clean it up.

Bitter developing countries let down by the rich North

The lack of substantial outcomes from Paris for countries with the least ability to defend themselves from global warming has caused rifts that may not be overcome for years.

Helen Szoke, of Oxfam Australia, denounced the agreement as “a frayed lifeline to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.”

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Pacific Region contribute just 0.3 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Yet residents of many islands have had to leave their homes, and dozens of islands will disappear under water if strong actions to slow emissions in the developed world are not taken.

There was a lot of fancy talk in Paris about transporting millions of tons of earth to restore the most threatened islands, but residents aren’t holding their breath.

The strongest condemnation of the Paris agreement came from Kumi Naidoo, the executive director of Greenpeace, one of the world’s most influential environmental groups.

It’s “climate apartheid,” says Naidoo.

“Most of the people in the countries that emitted the most carbon are white and most people in the countries who are paying first and the most are people of colour,” says Naidoo. “There is no doubt in my mind that subliminal racism is at play in these negotiations.”

Environmentalists must pick up the slack

So with governments failing to move ahead the cause of a cleaner environment in any meaningful way, what can be done to pick up the slack?

The world’s many climate change groups need to organize a huge lobby movement — one that can match the power of the fossil fuel industry. The tobacco industry was not brought under some control until it was banned from lobbying governments, and the same needs to happen with the fossil fuel industry.

Across the globe, NGOs, civil society and all kinds of organizations need to work together lobbying all levels of government. It seems they may be the only segments of society – for now at least – willing to fight for climate justice. SOURCE

Nick Fillmore is a Toronto freelance journalist who writes for rabble.ca He specializes in climate change issues. Formerly a senior producer with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, his environmental reports have won investigative awards.

 

Ecocide ALert, Cultural Ecocide, Ecocide, Politics, Fascism/Corporatism

They’re Killing the Peace River Valley Now

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The $9 billion flaying, then drowning of a fertile zone has begun. We still don’t know why.

Random Acts of Kindness comic panel
Aerial photos taken June 2014 and then November 2015 show the stripping away of the Peace River Valley’s ecosystem is now well underway, despite court challenges to Site C and a raft of critics saying the $9 billion project is unneeded. Photos by Garth Lenz.

By Andrew Nikiforuk, reposted from TheTyee.ca, Dec 17, 2015

Last month the B.C government commenced the destruction of the fertile Peace River Valley, awarding a civil works contract worth $1.5 billion as construction crews methodically denuded the landscape of trees.

Taxpayers will be on the hook for at least $7.5 billion more by the time the devastation is done. The question looming larger than ever is whether the Peace River Valley must be sacrificed at all.

A range of rising voices insist that every argument made by the government for rushing to build a new mega-dam on the Peace River fails to hold water.

The government-dubbed “Site C Clean Energy Project” will flood scores of kilometres of valley river bottom (much of it valuable Class 1 agricultural land) and eventually generate enough power, says the province, to light up the equivalent of 450,000 homes.

According to one press release, the dam “will provide British Columbia with the most affordable, reliable clean power for over 100 years.” Jessica McDonald, president and CEO of BC Hydro, explained that “Site C is essential to keeping the lights on while maintaining low rates for our customers.”

Bill Bennett, Minister of Energy and Mines added that, “It’s clear that to keep rates low, we must choose the option of building Site C.”

But critics, ecologists, farmers, First Nations, economists and even a joint provincial and federal panel of experts challenge every single government claim about the project. They argue that there is no real need for the project given depressed prices and turmoil in mining, fracking and LNG markets that are supposedly hungry for the power Site C would provide.

Critics also say the high-risk dam, which could eventually cost $13-billion, won’t lower rates for citizens but raise them.

They also explain that hydroelectric dams are not climate friendly or “clean” by any scientific measure.

“It is totally irrational and the project doesn’t make any economic sense,” says former BC Hydro CEO Marc Eliesen.

Both the government and BC Hydro also overlooked greener alternatives such as geothermal.

And, say defenders of the Peace River Valley, the land scheduled to be flooded could still provide vegetables for nearly a million people and serve as one of the province’s best agricultural defences against climate change and drought.

Bypassing the public’s watchdog

Given the huge cost to taxpayers and so powerful arguments against it, such a project deserves to be adjudicated by an impartial body with the public interest as its mission. That would be the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC).

The specific public mandate of the BCUC is “to ensure that ratepayers receive safe, reliable, and non-discriminatory energy services at fair rates from the utilities it regulates.” The only time the BCUC vetted the Site C project was back in 1983, and it rejected it.

This time around, the BC government excluded the project for any such due diligence, explaining “only duly elected officials have a right to make” such monumental decisions and not regulatory bodies specifically designed to provide checks and balances on political decision-making.

Economist Marvin Shaffer told the Tyee that “In my view the government didn’t want the BCUC to review the merits and in particular the timing of Site C because it could well have been rejected by the Commission.”

“Virtually every ratepayer group including large power users and the wide range of general (commercial) users as well as the Public Interest Advocacy Centre would argue against building Site C at this time,” added Shaffer a professor at Simon Fraser’s School of Public Policy.

Yet BC Hydro has argued that province will need additional power by 2024 and that the dam, long an obsession of the dam building agency, was the only alternative.

Panel warns of ratepayer hit

But even a 2014 joint federal and provincial environmental assessment panel couldn’t find any real need for the project. Their 473-page study dramatically concluded that the BC Hydro had “not fully demonstrated the need for the project on the timetable set forth….For a number of reasons set out in the text, the Panel cannot conclude that the power of Site C is needed on the schedule presented.”

The panel pointed out that in most places around the world, energy intensive Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) terminals usually provide their own energy needs by burning natural gas. In addition the dam wouldn’t be generating power till 2024 or several years after most proposed terminals were to be built.

As a result the panel recommended that the BC Utilities Commission conduct a thorough review of the project as well as future provincial electrical needs and societal costs if the government decided to proceed with Site C.

The panel also made many other key points. For example, it concluded that a number of energy alternatives such as geothermal were “competitive with Site C on a standard financial analysis” but found the province hadn’t carefully explored the option.

The panel also noted that “a failure to pursue research over the last 30 years into B.C.’s geothermal resources has left BC Hydro without information about a resource that BC Hydro thinks may offer up to 700 megawatts of firm, economic power with low environmental costs.”

The panel added that the province’s Clean Energy Act gave the province and BC Hydro the mandate to investigate these matters.

The federal assessment also questioned the high cost of the project and the risks for ratepayers: “BC Hydro projects losing $800 million [from the dam] in the first four years of operation. These losses would come home to B.C. ratepayers in one way or another.”

Harry Swain, the chair of the panel that reviewed the Site C hydro dam for the provincial and federal governments and a former federal deputy minister for Industry Canada, told DeSmog Blog earlier this year that a prudent government would have deferred the project for several years until questions about need have been fully investigated. “Building electricity facilities in advance of need only costs money.”

Conservation, other options ignored

Marc Eilesen, one of the nation’s top hydro executives with experience in several provinces, agrees with Swain’s assessment and adds that provincial hydro bills will have to go up in the future to pay a project for which there is no proven need or reliable market.

Even if the province did need additional power by 2024 it could easily achieve more with aggressive conservation policies, or by adding additional capacity to the Burnaby gas-fired generating station. It could also tap into 1,000 MW from the United States available under guarantees made in the Columbia River Treaty.

“Once Site C starts operating, ratepayers will pay,” said Eilesen. “They will see double digit rate increases. Will the government of the day that made the decision be around to take full responsibility and assume the full political consequences? No, they won’t.”

Even the province’s major industries, which consume 40 per cent of the power generated by BC Hydro’s hydro network, have tough questions about the controversial dam and consider it uneconomic.

According to the Association of Major Power Customers of BC, BC Hydro currently maintains sufficient generation to serve two potential LNG customers: the Douglas Channel and Kitimat LNG projects. Only a third LNG project, presumably Shell or Petronas project, would require the generation capacity of Site C dam.

Moreover building a $9-billion dam for LNG projects and related fracking operations would be exceedingly wasteful and inefficient.

“The only timely and economic power supply option [for LNG] that can match load growth is local gas-fired generation. This also avoids the cost of building major transmission,” said Richard Stout, the executive director of the AMPC in a 2013 presentation.

Claims that the dam will provide “clean energy” also confound the extensive and growing science on “the fizziness” of dams.

David Schindler, one of the world’s top water ecologists, told the Tyee that dams are anything but climate friendly.

“There are fossil fuels used in construction, to make and transport steel and concrete, as well as site preparation. Also, vegetation in flooded areas decays and releases both CO2 and methane, which is 80 time more potent as a GHG long term than CO2.”

Methane releases from dams can be significant over the life of the project and in some cases even emit more climate warming gases than coal-fired generation.

But Schindler adds that there are several other problems including high mercury releases due to decay of flooded vegetation, displaced indigenous people or erosion of their resources, long transmission corridors that rip up pristine habitats, destruction of fish passages and siltation of spawning habitat. “Altogether, I rate hydro as below coal in environmental and social impacts.”

Court challenges loom

Schindler added that he thought, “BC Hydro has long tentacles into government,” and that geothermal would have been a much saner option.

“But I think profits from selling the excess to the USA are the real motives. As usual, the proponents are trying to get the dam built as much as possible before the courts have a look.”

The dam would flood sacred First Nations sites and graves, and submerge land natives and farmers have depended on for their survival. To date several Treaty 8 Nations and farmers have launched six different court challenges to the project on the grounds that the government has violated treaty rights and ignored federal recommendations to review the need and economics of the project.

Given the government failure to review costs, treaty rights and alternatives for a project with no demonstrable need, Marc Eilesen has concluded that the motivation for the dam is purely ideological.

“The only answer that makes any sense is that they can say to the public, “We’re building a project.” SOURCE

RELATED:

BC Hydro Site C Litigation Update – Appeals Pending

Ecocide ALert, Fascism/Corporatism

Summer earthquake confirmed as largest caused by fracking in B.C.

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The earthquake is not the first that has been attributed to gas drilling activities, adding to growing concerns about a relatively new and controversial extraction process commonly known as fracking. (Jeremy Sean Williams/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

By Marc Hume, reposted from the Globe and Mail, Dec 17, 2015

A 4.6 magnitude earthquake emanating from the gas fields in northeast British Columbia during the summer was caused by hydraulic fracturing and is the largest induced seismic event ever recorded in the province, the BC Oil and Gas Commission has confirmed.

It surpasses two 4.4 magnitude induced earthquakes in Alberta and one of similar magnitude in B.C. last year that have been attributed to gas drilling activities, adding to growing concerns about a relatively new and controversial extraction process commonly known as fracking.

Understanding shale oil and the controversial practice of ‘fracking’ (The Globe and Mail)

The commission, which regulates the industry, confirmed in August that fracking caused last year’s 4.4 event. It said in a statement this week that it has now determined the 4.6 earthquake “was caused by fluid injection during hyrdraulic fracturing from an operator in the area.”

“More and bigger,” is how John Cassidy, a seismologist with the Geological Survey of Canada, describes the pattern of earthquakes triggered by gas extraction. “The overall pattern is that there’s an increase in the number of induced earthquakes – and there is an overall or average increase in the magnitude as well.”

The 4.6 earthquake was big enough that workers at the drill site reported their pick-up trucks shook and power poles swayed.

Dr. Cassidy said the growing number of earthquakes is not a public-safety concern because most are so small. But there is no doubt that fracking in the area has led to the increase.

A study by Dr. Cassidy and colleagues last year reported that in 2002-03, before fracking started in northeast B.C., 24 earthquakes were recorded. But in 2010-11, during the peak of fracking activity in the Horn River Basin, there were 189 earthquakes. That mirrors a pattern in the United States, where a dramatic increase in earthquakes has occurred in parallel with the spread of fracking since 2009. In Oklahoma, the number of earthquakes has increased to two a day from two or three a year since drilling increased there.

“What we’re finding is with the hydraulic fracturing, we are seeing an increase in the number of induced earthquakes. These are almost all tiny, tiny earthquakes, however. They are not associated with all wells, in fact, it’s a very small fraction of the wells that show induced earthquakes,” he said.

Ken Paulson, chief operating officer of the commission, said the company operating the drill rig that triggered the 4.6 earthquake, Progress Energy Canada Ltd., followed regulations and stopped operations as soon as the magnitude was known.

In B.C. and Alberta, any seismic event of magnitude 4.0 or higher results in a suspension of operation until a mitigation plan is developed.

“We allowed them to continue operations with a reduced pump rate, but if another event were to occur of 3.5 or greater, you have to shut in again and we’ll try something different,” Mr. Paulson said.

The pump rate is the amount of fluid injected underground to fracture rock. He said no other significant earthquakes occurred at the drill site once the pump rate was reduced.

“We take this incident very seriously, Stacie Dley, a spokesperson for Progress Energy, said in an e-mail. “We will continue to be diligent and monitor our activities and adjust our operations as needed, such as decreasing fluid volume and pressure.”

Markus Ermisch, a spokesman for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said that while research has established a link between fracking and earthquakes, it has also shown that gas extraction can be done safely within the regulatory framework.

Follow Mark Hume on Twitter: @markhumeglobe

SOURCE

Preventing Ecocide, Politics, Activism, Fascism/Corporatism

Real test of Paris climate agreement will be how markets and regulators react

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by Marc Lee, reposted from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Dec 14, 2015

So did we save the planet?

From the outset, this was never about “saving the planet.” Our spinning hunk of rock has been around billions of years and will continue to support diverse life forms long past the time humans roam it. The question is whether we have a planet that can support human life over the long term, in something close to the style with which we have become accustomed.

The answer is maybe: IF countries go back and deliver on their commitments, and IF they table more ambitious policies in the coming years, then MAYBE we can put a lid on global warming and keep the worst damage at bay. Time will tell.

The Paris Agreement on climate change is, yes, historic, an important step forward on this pressing collective action problem. After 21 years of meetings, all countries have now signed on and pledged to turn away from fossil fuels. There is some hard science baked in to the Agreement that implies, but does not overtly say, decarbonization or 100% renewables by 2050. There is a ratcheting mechanism whereby countries must tighten up their commitments every five years.

But as the saying goes, “the road to hell is paved with good intention.” We have a piece of paper that represents a statement of grand ambition, butlacking the commitments from countries to make it happen, and without the enforcement teeth one would see in, say, a trade and investment agreement.

When it comes to commerce, for example, one government can challenge another government to live up to their trade and investment commitments. In many bilateral and regional trade and investment agreements, corporations can sue governments directly for perceived injustices. Contrast that with the dilution of loss and damage section of the Paris agreement, which excludes liability and compensation. Ditto for failure to include indigenous rights, since it is indigenous people around the world who are on the front lines of battles against fossil fuel and mining extraction.

Many actors on this stage have a stake in claiming victory with this agreement. Don’t listen to them. The real test will be what happens in the financial markets on Monday morning: will there be a sell-off of fossil fuel stocks because the world has now recognized the vast majority of reserves need to stay underground, and therefore the business plans of the “carbon majors” are inconsistent with new international law? Or will it just be back to business as usual?

Another series of tests will be around whether new LNG terminals or bitumen pipelines get approved in 2016. The emphasis of the (largely voluntary) Paris Agreement is on reducing consumption of fossil fuels, but many jurisdictions have been seeking to push more fossil fuel reserves onto world markets, even amid low commodity prices. This plays into “all of the above” political commitments that talk climate action on one hand, and boosting oil and gas production on the other.

While it is heart-warming that leaders recognized the need for greater ambition, in the form of a 1.5 degree target, rather than 2 degrees, it is not clear that politicians and negotiators really get what that entails. Missing is a coherent framework that clearly states a carbon budget – a total amount of carbon we can “safely” use before exceeding 1.5 degrees. Pre-Paris estimates put the commitments on the table at being more consistent with 3 or more degrees of temperature increase. The negotiations themselves rendered the previous 2 degree target near-impossible, so there is no way we can even contemplate a 1.5 degree target without serious measures to keep carbon in the ground.

After two decades of dithering in five-star hotels in the capitols of the world, this appears to be the best that our political leaders are able to do. One wonders how much worse the agreement could have been with a PM Harper still in power.

What happens next will make all the difference: PM Trudeau has committed to meeting with the Premiers within 90 days to make concrete a pan-Canadian plan of action. It will be up to Canadians to ensure our country moves beyond vague commitments toward effective climate policies. So take a breather, celebrate this new Paris Agreement, then be prepared to fight for it in 2016. SOURCE

 

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Preventing Ecocide, solutions, Politics, Activism, democracy, conservation

Canadians deserve legal right to healthy environment

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It’s time for Canada’s laws to recognize that environmental rights are human rights.

Environmentalists rally during the COP21 United Nations climate summit in Paris, France, Dec. 6, 2015.
Environmentalists rally during the COP21 United Nations climate summit in Paris, France, Dec. 6, 2015. NICOLAS MAETERLINCK / AFP/GETTY IMAGES

By Devon Page and Peter Robinson, reposted from TheStar, Dec 17, 2015

Last week Toronto became the 100th municipality in Canada to pass a declaration supporting its residents’ right to a healthy environment. This means that more than 10 million people in Canada now live in communities where their local governments recognize that they should have the basic human right to clean air, safe drinking water and a stable climate.

A year ago, we helped launch the Blue Dot movement, a national grassroots campaign to advance the legal protection of all Canadians’ right to live in a healthy environment. We knew this was a concept that resonated with Canadians — polling we conducted before the campaign told us that 85 per cent believe environmental rights should be included in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Still, we were amazed by the way this concept galvanized communities from coast to coast to coast in both official languages. From 11-year-old Rupert Yakelashek in Victoria to 78-year-old Silver Donald Cameron in Halifax, people are taking extraordinary action to achieve remarkable results. One by one, communities across Canada have organized and inspired their local governments to recognize one simple truth: Environmental rights are human rights.

Now it’s time for Ottawa to step up. With all eyes on the new federal government and its oft-repeated promise to deliver “real change,” we can think of no better way to signal a deep commitment to this promise and to the people of Canada than by introducing strong federal environmental rights legislation, such as an environmental bill of rights.

An effective environmental bill of rights would do two important things. First, it would require the Canadian government to recognize that every person in Canada has the right to live in a healthy environment. In more concrete terms, this could mean establishing binding air and drinking water quality standards and enforceable carbon pollution reduction targets. It could also mandate stronger protections for nature — the boreal forest, wetlands and wildlife that are among this country’s most precious assets.

Second, an effective environmental bill of rights would provide a stronger set of tools for people who want to address environmental concerns. For example, it would guarantee people’s right to participate in environmental decision-making (pipeline reviews come to mind) and — in exceptional cases — take legal action against polluters.

More broadly, an environmental bill of rights could act as a powerful interim step on the way to recognizing the right to a healthy environment in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It could also catalyze dramatic and much-needed improvements to Canada’s patchwork of environmental laws. After the damage done over the last decade, incremental and piecemeal amendments to our laws will not suffice. We don’t just need to get back to where we were 10 years ago; we should be looking ahead to what we need to do to address 21st-century threats to our health and well-being, such as climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.

These threats are the consequences of pitting short-term industry interests against long-term environmental sustainability — a false choice. Challenges of this magnitude demand systemic solutions, namely recognizing every person in Canada’s right to a healthy environment. Meaningful federal leadership on this issue could mark the beginning of a long-overdue paradigm shift in which the links between a healthy environment and the human right to life, liberty and security of the person are enshrined in law.

Recognizing the right to a healthy environment is the natural next step in the progression of human rights law in Canada. Across the world during the last 50 years, the right to a healthy environment has gained legal recognition faster than any other human right. It’s not hard to see why: Evidence from other countries demonstrates that recognizing the right to a healthy environment can lead to stronger laws, healthier communities, healthier ecosystems and innovative, resilient economies.

Polls demonstrate Canadians’ emphatic support for the concept of environmental rights, as does the tidal wave of municipal declarations. Again and again, Canadians tell us that clean air, safe drinking water and a stable climate are among their top priorities. Now it’s up to the federal government to make good on its promises to listen to Canadians and deliver concrete solutions that address these concerns.

This one is easy. More than 110 countries already recognize their citizens’ right to healthy environment in law. It’s time for Canada to join the international consensus. Our health, and the environment upon which we all depend, can’t wait. SOURCE

Devon Page is executive director of Ecojustice and Peter Robinson is chief executive officer of the David Suzuki Foundation. The David Suzuki Foundation and Ecojustice are partners in the Blue Dot movement, a national grassroots campaign to advance the legal protection of all Canadians’ right to live in a healthy environment.