700th ANNIVERSARY OF DANTE'S INFERNO
We're Speeding Toward Climate Hell, UN Warns


© Photo: Josh Edelson/AFP (Getty Images)A fire tornado appears above a burning house.

Next stop: climate hell.

The world may surpass the key 1.5-degree-Celsius (2.7-degree-Fahrenheit) global warming threshold within the next five years, a major new outlook on climate trends shows. It’s the latest sign that we’re speeding toward the grim future that climate scientists have warned about for years unless we change course.

The report released by the World Meteorological Organization and the UK Met Office on Thursday says the chance of reaching 1.5 degrees Celsius of heating by 2025 has “roughly doubled” compared to last year’s predictions and now sits at 40%. There’s also a 90% likelihood of at least one year between now and 2025 being the hottest on record.

The 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold is enshrined as the more ambitious goal set by the Paris Agreement. Leading climate researchers have shown that surpassing that target will usher in climate catastrophe, triggering mass species dieoffs, rendering most low-lying islands all but uninhabitable, and worsening extreme weather. Crossing the 1.5-degree-Celsius threshold for a single year would not mean immediately lead to all these consequences.

Global temperatures differ from year to year because of noise in the climate system. For example, natural climate phenomena like El Niño can bump up the annual average temperature. But passing a critical threshold even for a year is still a warning to be heeded.

“These are more than just statistics,” WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas said in a statement.

We could still meet the target of limiting average temperature rise. But the report, boringly known as the Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update, is a scary sign that overall, warming is accelerating, so the odds that we’ll do so are shrinking—and a wake up call that we need to act quick.

“In a world that has warmed by 1.5 degrees Celsius we expect half of the years to be warmer than 1.5 degrees Celsius, and the other half cooler,” Joeri Rogelj, director of research at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, said in a statement, while noting even a single year above the threshold is still “very bad news.”

The dire report comes as climate activists celebrate some rare wins. In a groundbreaking ruling, a Dutch court ordered energy giant Shell to cut its carbon pollution 45% by 2030. And at their annual shareholder meetings, disgruntled investors at Exxon and Chevron rebuked both companies over their failure to implement serious climate plans. Both are positive developments, but the new report reminds us that they’re also not enough.

As UN climate scientists concluded in a groundbreaking 2018 report on the 1.5-degree-Celsius target, “unprecedented changes across all aspects of society” will be needed to secure a livable planet. That means cutting greenhouse gas pollution at an unprecedented rate, halting fossil fuel expansion (as the International Energy Agency called for earlier this month), and winding down emitting projects while phasing polluting industries out of existence.

“It tells us once again that climate action to date is wholly insufficient and emissions need to be reduced urgently to zero to halt global warming,” Rogelj said of the report.

At 26, Belarus journalist has spent a decade in opposition


© Provided by The Canadian Press

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Raman Pratasevich has been part of the Belarus political opposition for over a decade and has long feared the authorities would try to abduct him, even though he was living abroad. The 26-year-old dissident journalist couldn't imagine, however, just how far they would go.

Pratasevich, who ran a channel on a messaging app used to organize demonstrations against the iron-fisted rule of President Alexander Lukashenko, left his homeland in 2019 to try to escape the reach of the Belarusian KGB and ended up in Lithuania. He was charged in absentia for inciting riots, which carries a sentence of 15 years in prison.

As he was returning Sunday to the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, from Greece with his girlfriend aboard a Ryanair jet, Belarusian flight controllers told the crew to divert to Minsk, citing a bomb threat. Lukashenko scrambled a fighter jet to escort the plane.

When it became apparent where the plane was going, a clearly shaken Pratasevich told fellow passengers that he feared execution in Belarus, which still carries out capital punishment.

Pratasevich was put on a list of people that Belarus considers terrorists, which could bring the death penalty. He had even joked about it before his arrest, using morbid humor on his Twitter account to describe himself as “the first journalist-terrorist in history.”

Belarus was known as a sleepy place dating back to Soviet times, with few demonstrations and a population that endured Lukashenko's repressive rule for more than a quarter-century.

But Pratasevich and other dissidents of his generation sought to change that.

“He has succeeded in waking up Belarusians, connecting the discontent that was smoldering within the society with the new technologies, which led to unprecedented rallies and provoked the dictator's anger,” said Franak Viachorka, a longtime friend.

After the plane diversion, which outraged leaders abroad described as akin to air piracy, the European Union barred Belarusian airlines from its airspace and airports, and advised its carriers to skirt Belarus. It is weighing other sanctions that could target top Belarusian companies.

On Friday, the mayor of a district in Romania's capital of Bucharest announced support for a proposal to rename a street where the Belarus Embassy is located for the young Pratasevich.

When he was 16, Pratasevich became a member of the Young Front, a youth organization that helped organize anti-Lukashenko's protests after the 2010 election. He was detained by police several times and eventually expelled from his high school in Minsk.

As a journalism student, he worked for the Belarusian service of the U.S.-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and other outlets.

Pratasevich joined the protests in neighboring Ukraine in 2014 that ousted its Moscow-leaning president, sustaining an injury in a clash with police. He was wounded again the next year during fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Lukashenko and other Belarusian officials alleged Pratasevich fought as a “mercenary” in eastern Ukraine, but Andriy Biletskiy, who led the Azov volunteer battalion in the region, insisted Pratasevich was working as a journalist there.

Video: Parents of arrested Belarusian journalist plead for international help with release (cbc.ca)

Pratasevich was expelled from Belarusian State University in 2018 as punishment for his cooperation with independent media, and he left the country the next year amid growing official pressure.

He shot to fame in 2020 when he and another young journalist, Stsiapan Putsila, set up a channel on the Telegram messaging app called Nexta, which sounds like the word for “somebody” in Belarusian.

It became immensely popular as massive protests swept Belarus after Lukashenko's reelection to a sixth term in the August balloting that was widely seen as fraudulent.

The Nexta channel boasted nearly 2 million subscribers in the nation of 9.3 million, and was an important tool in mounting the demonstrations, the largest of which drew up to 200,000 people. It would provide information about the location of the protest, give directions for bypassing security cordons, and carried photos, video and other content from users about the police crackdown.

“We have become a voice for every Belarusian,” Pratasevich said at the time. He said Nexta had only four employees who worked 20 hours a day.

Viachorka said that even in the most desperate situations, Pratasevich "would tell Belarusians not to give up. Lukashenko targeted him because he was so visible, brave and bright.”

Infuriated Belarus authorities labeled Nexta as “extremist,” a designation that carries criminal charges against anyone who shares its materials on the internet. Pratasevich and Putsila were charged with inciting mass disturbances and fanning social hatred.

In an interview in Warsaw with The Associated Press, Putsila said this week that there have been “thousands of threats that our office will be blown up, that all of us will be shot."

After leaving Nexta last fall, Pratasevich moved to Lithuania and launched another Telegram channel called Brain Belarus. His 23-year-old Russian girlfriend, Sofia Sapega, who was arrested Sunday with him, was studying at a Vilnius university.

Pratasevich knew the risks of his activism, even living abroad. Fearing abduction, he frequently changed his residence and tried to avoid walking alone late at night.

Despite the threats and concerns about the Belarusian authorities, Putsila still said he was shocked by Lukashenko's move to divert the plane. "The regime has started doing unthinkable things that are against law and logic,” he said.

In a speech Wednesday, Lukashenko accused Pratasevich of fomenting a “bloody rebellion” in Belarus, in conjunction with foreign spy agencies.

Pratasevich appeared after his arrest in a video from detention that was broadcast on Belarusian state TV. Speaking rapidly and in a monotone, he said he was confessing to staging mass disturbances.

Watching from Poland, where they now live, his parents said the confession seemed to be coerced. His mother, Natalia Pratasevich said her son’s nose appeared to have been broken and it looked like makeup had been applied to cover facial bruises.

“I want you to hear my cry, the cry of my soul,” she told reporters in an emotional appeal Thursday. “I am begging you, help me free my son!”

Earlier this month, the government retaliated against Pratasevich's father, a retired military officer, stripping him of his rank along with dozens of other opposition-minded officers.

The dissident journalist's friend, Viachorka, said Pratasevich “feared getting into the KGB's hands,” and once they even talked about a scenario in which the security force commandeered an aircraft but quickly dismissed it.

“We were joking once, discussing what we would do if the KGB gets us," Viachorka said. "For example, if they hijack a plane. But he couldn't believe that such thing could happen, dismissing it as the stuff from movies, from Hollywood.”

___

Associated Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and Vanessa Gera and Monika Scislowska in Warsaw contributed.

Yuras Karmanau, The Associated Press

China internet firms must commit to clean power as consumption soars - Greenpeace


© Reuters/China Daily China Daily InformatWorkers walk past solar panels in Jimo

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Electricity consumption from China's data centres and 5G base stations could almost quadruple from 2020 to 2035, putting the sector under pressure to commit to clean energy sources, environmental group Greenpeace said on Friday.

Combined electricity consumption by data centres and 5G base stations stood at more than 200 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2020, with more than 60% sourced from coal-fired power stations.

That is expected to rise to 782 billion kWh by 2035, Greenpeace estimated, making the sector one of the fastest growing sources of climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions.

China's internet sector has become one of the country's biggest electricity users, and consumption is forecast to exceed the whole of Australia by 2023, Greenpeace said in a previous report.

China has pledged to bring total greenhouse gas emissions to a peak by before 2030, and many industrial sectors are expected to plateau or decline as early as 2025. However, carbon dioxide from the internet sector could continue rising and reach 310 million tonnes a year by 2035, Greenpeace said.

Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner Ye Ruiqi said tech firms could make a difference by investing in clean power.

"Explosive growth in digital infrastructure does not need to mean growth in emissions," she said.

So far, two major data centre operators - Chindata Group and AtHub - have pledged to source all their energy from renewable sources by 2030.

In a sector action plan published this week, China's industry ministry said it would urge data centres to make full use of renewable energy.

It said it would also encourage data centres to build their own clean power plants, including "distributed" rooftop solar and wind installations.

(Reporting by David Stanway; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

Push on to limit ship speeds to save endangered right whales

Protecting the North Atlantic right whale population requires a mandatory slowdown for vessels in the Cabot Strait, says Oceana Canada.

In early 2020, Transport Canada introduced a voluntary slowdown to protect the critically endangered species, but the majority of vessels are not complying, Oceana Canada found.

There are now fewer than 366 right whales left in the world, according to researchers, and there have been 21 known right whale deaths in Canadian waters between 2017 and 2020.

“It is the collisions with these vessels that are killing these whales,” said Sean Brillant, senior conservation biologist at the Canadian Wildlife Federation. “We need to be a bit more aggressive in a situation like this with a species that is so close to extinction and that is so clearly shown to be affected by vessels and vessel traffic.”

Slowing vessels to 10 knots or less can reduce the lethality of a collision by 86 per cent, according to a 2013 study of collision-related mortality in right whales, which is why Oceana Canada is calling on Transport Canada to make the slowdown mandatory. Newer research has shown collisions with large ships are often lethal even at lower speeds, but limiting speed still helps reduce the risk, said Brillant.

Global Fishing Watch data revealed 64 per cent of vessels failed to comply with the 10-knot voluntary slowdown in Cabot Strait from April 28 to May 4, the first week the measure was in place in 2021.

In areas with mandatory speed restrictions, compliance is high, with only 44 out of 600 vessel movements exceeding the restrictions, according to Transport Canada.

There's no good reason why they shouldn't make it mandatory," said NDP fisheries critic, Gord Johns. "Timing is of the essence given the state of right whales... they're on the brink of extinction."

Transport Canada issued a statement to Canada’s National Observer saying the slowdown will remain voluntary for 2021 and that it “has increased outreach to mariners and vessels transiting the Cabot Strait.” It says making the restriction mandatory will require increased monitoring of right whales, as well as “evaluating and weighing safety considerations, economic impacts, and ongoing detection data to ensure the measure is effective at protecting the North Atlantic right whales and mariners.”

Transport Canada also noted its results of this year’s trial voluntary slowdown in Cabot Strait are indicating increased participation rates over those reported by Oceana Canada.

“The cumulative participation rate for the first three weeks of the 2021 spring trial is 52 per cent compared to a cumulative participation rate of 46 per cent in the first three weeks of the 2020 spring trial,” reads the statement.

Transport Canada said participation rates may be affected by factors like weather, vessel timetables, logistics, delivery schedules, and contractual obligations.

Oceana’s analysis doesn’t account for weather and some of these factors, said Kim Elmslie, campaign director for Oceana Canada. She said sometimes adverse weather conditions cause restrictions to be lifted for the safety of vessels, which “is understandable and unavoidable.”

“However, the risk of vessel strike to the whales remains — which makes it even more important to have strong, mandatory measures in place when vessels can safely slow down,” said Elmslie.

Although speed restrictions are important and useful, they aren’t the solution to preventing lethal strikes on whales, Brillant said. A 2020 study, which he co-authored, found large ships going 10 knots still have an 80 per cent chance of killing a whale if one is struck.

Ideally, Brillant said, we would try to move our vessels away from the whales, but this poses a challenge in the Cabot Strait.

“In this case, speed restrictions may be the best tool we have to dial down the possibility of lethal ship strikes on whales,” he said.

Transport Canada’s introduction of the voluntary speed restriction and other monitoring techniques in the area are all good steps, said Elmslie. “But we want them to go even further than what they're doing.”

Oceana Canada also wants the voluntary speed restrictions to come into effect before April 28 because right whales have previously been spotted in the strait days before the slowdown kicks in, including one sighting this year on April 26.

Oceana Canada will continue to meet with Transport Canada and the shipping industry to try to make the speed restrictions mandatory, she said. “I feel confident that we can find some common ground.”

She says Canadians can support a mandatory speed restriction by signing Oceana Canada’s petition.

“This is the critical moment where we have to pull out all the stops and do everything that we can,” said Elmslie. “We don't really have the luxury to pilot and trial and take a few years to see if we can educate and do other things. I think that those are noble efforts, but the whales just don't have that much time.”

Natasha Bulowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, National Observer

USA

Take Five: A looming labour crunch?

© Reuters/AMIRA KARAOUD

Career center reopens for in-person appointments in Kentucky

(Reuters) -

1/PRIME TIME PAYROLLS

How fast is the U.S. recovery? Friday's U.S. monthly jobs report will add fuel to the debate.

In April, U.S. job growth unexpectedly slowed, possibly because of shortages of workers and raw material. Non-farm payrolls added a mere 266,000 jobs compared to predictions for more than 3-1/2 times that.

Optimism over jobs has offset concerns about rising inflation and diminishing government financial support, lifting May U.S. consumer confidence to a 14-month high.

For May jobs, a Reuters poll predicts a 621,000 rise. Strong data could again raise concerns of an earlier-than-expected stimulus unwind by the Fed.

-U.S. hiring takes big step back as businesses scramble for workers, raw materials

Graphic - US nonfarm payrolls: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/qzjvqbrgmpx/Pasted%20image%201622048114220.png

2/ PRICE WATCHING

Tuesday's euro zone flash inflation is sure to grab attention as the next European Central Bank meeting nears.

Inflation in the bloc is approaching its 2% target - the fastest in years - thanks to higher spending and base effects stemming from the 2020 oil price crash. Strong data could spark excitement or fear that a new era of inflation is dawning.

Not so fast, others argue. ECB Chief Economist Philip Lane, for one, has pushed against the inflation-is-back narrative, stressing labour markets will take years to return to pre-crisis levels and that stimulus is still needed to secure the recovery.

The data could pave the way for a lively June ECB meeting.

- Too early for ECB to taper emergency bond buys: Panetta

Graphic - The ECB and elusive inflation: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/xklvywaobvg/THEME2605.PNG

3/ OPEC & THE IRAN QUESTION

OPEC and its allies, the OPEC+ grouping, are expected to stick to the gradual easing of oil supply curbs at their Tuesday meeting, pinning hopes on a strong demand recovery.

Since OPEC+ decided to taper cuts by 2.1 million barrels per day in April, oil has extended its 2021 rally and is currently up over 30% and closing in on $70 a barrel.

One factor limiting oil price upside is the prospect of higher Iranian output should its nuclear deal with world powers be revived. If a deal is struck, Iran could add as much as 2 million bpd to supply.

-Uncertain about Iranian oil, OPEC+ likely to stick to policy

Graphic - Brent crude oil: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/yzdpxmynavx/Brent%20crude%20oil.PNG

4/POLICY DOWN UNDER

The Reserve Bank of Australia meets on Tuesday and focus is on whether it will provide any hawkish hints, given a strong economic rebound and moves from peers towards slowing stimulus.

Few expect Australia to follow neighbour New Zealand, which signalled a potential rate hike in 2022. But investors are seeking clues on the RBA's asset-purchase plans ahead of its July meeting when it is due to decide whether to expand its quantitative easing programme.

Australia's pluses? A relatively low COVID-19 caseload and rising commodity prices. China's yuan at a three-year highs and signs of Beijing's comfort with the exchange rate bodes well for commodity exports too. The risk? A weaker Australian dollar versus the yuan, potentially spelling higher inflation.

- Australia c.bank to keep cash rate at 0.1% through mid-2023

Graphic - Chinese offshore yuan vs U.S. and Australian dollars: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/xlbpgkrbapq/yuan.PNG

5/ YUAN ON A TEAR

China's yuan is at the highest since 2018 but the People's Bank of China seems to show no discomfort with the recent gains. That's got markets guessing how policymakers in the world's second-largest economy plan to navigate economic recovery, the commodity price gains and inflation pressures.

Friday's official guidance rate -- the strongest since May 2018 and set above the psychologically important 6.4 per dollar level -- seemed like a tacit acceptance of a stronger yuan.

But officials have also become more vocal in recent days on pledges to crack down on forex market manipulation, warning on Friday against one-way yuan bets. They reiterated, however, there was no change to the country's currency policy.

-Chinese regulators vow to crack down on yuan exchange manipulation

Graphic - China yuan: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/ygdvzxrnnvw/Pasted%20image%201622192718173.png

(Reporting by Vidya Ranganathan in Singapore, Dhara Ranasinge, Tommy Wilkes and Ahmad Ghaddar in London, Lewis Krauskopf in New York, Compiled by Karin Strohecker, Editing by Catherine Evans)

Scientists are zapping clouds with electricity to make it rain

With a harsh, desert climate and an average rainfall of just four inches (10 cm) a year, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) needs more freshwater. In search of a solution, it has been funding science projects from around the world to try to make it rain.

© From Account Director/UAEREP Drones will give clouds an electrical charge in an attempt to create rainfall.

By Stephanie Bailey, CNN 

One of these projects involves using catapults to launch small unmanned aircraft which zap clouds with an electric charge.

A team of scientists from the University of Reading, in the UK, initially proposed the idea in 2017. Now, the custom-built drones will soon begin tests near Dubai.

The idea is that charging droplets in clouds will make them more likely to fall as rain.

"There's been a lot of speculation about what charge might do to cloud droplets, but there's been very little practical and detailed investigation," says Keri Nicoll, one of the core investigators on the project. The aim is to determine if the technology can increase rainfall rates in water-stressed regions.

 

© Courtesy Keri Nicoll The unmanned aircraft carry sensors and charge emitters.

Nicoll's team started by modelling the behavior of clouds. They found that when cloud droplets have a positive or negative electrical charge, the smaller droplets are more likely to merge and grow to become big raindrops.

The size of the raindrops is important, says Nicoll, because in places like the UAE which has high clouds and high temperatures, droplets often evaporate as they fall.

"What we are trying to do is to make the droplets inside the clouds big enough so that when they fall out of the cloud, they survive down to the surface," says Nicoll.

The proposal was chosen to receive a $1.5 million grant distributed over three years by the UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science, an initiative run by the National Center of Meteorology.

To test out the model, Nicoll and her team built four aircraft with a wingspan of two meters. These are launched from a catapult, have a full autopilot system, and can fly for around 40 minutes.

Each aircraft has sensors for measuring temperature, charge, and humidity, as well as charge emitters -- the part that does the zapping -- that were developed with the University of Bath in the UK.

So far, testing has been conducted in the UK and Finland, and ground-based measurements of cloud properties taken in the UAE. The research has been published in the Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology.

Because the pandemic meant Nicoll's team couldn't travel to the UAE, they have trained operators from a flight school in Dubai to use their aircraft. They're now waiting for the right weather conditions to complete the tests.

Cloud seeding

As climate change alters weather patterns, causing severe droughts in some places and floods in others, there is a growing interest in how to control the weather. According to the World Wildlife Fund, two thirds of the world's population may face water shortages by 2025.

While the University of Reading project is coming to an end this year, Nicoll wants future projects to combine charging clouds with cloud seeding -- an existing weather modification technique where drones inject particles of silver iodide or salt into clouds to encourage them to rain or snow.

Nicoll says using charged salt particles could make cloud seeding more efficient.

Alya Al Mazroui, director of the UAE Research Program for Rain Enhancement Science, says the organization is already experimenting with cloud seeding. "An increasing number of countries have invested in weather modification research and applications, particularly those in arid regions such as the UAE," she says.

The UAE conducted 242 cloud seeding missions in 2017, according to the National Center of Meteorology. In 2018, Al Mazroui told CNN that rain enhancement could offer a more cost-effective and environmentally friendly solution to water security than alternatives like desalination, where salt is removed from seawater. The UAE has one of the largest desalination operations in the world, with huge quantities of brine produced as a byproduct. But discharging brine into the sea can harm marine life.

Other countries that have heavily invested in cloud seeding include the US and China. The latter announced last December that it would expand its weather modification program to cover an area of over 5.5 million square kilometers.

While cloud seeding as a concept has been around for decades, there has been little research showing its effectiveness. One study funded by the US National Science Foundation in early 2020 found that seeding with silver iodide could increase snowfall.

But there are questions over whether seeding clouds in one location might take rain away from another location, and the long-term environmental impacts of silver iodide. The process is also very expensive.

"There's still a long way to go to definitively see how effective cloud seeding weather modification is at enhancing rainfall," says Nicoll.

But we may soon be one step closer to finding out how effective cloud zapping can be.

MANDATORY SELF REGULATION
Food industry groups come together to develop 'breakthrough' code of practice



© Provided by The Canadian Press

Food industry groups come together to develop 'breakthrough' code of practice

OTTAWA — A group of associations representing food producers and retailers has agreed to work together to develop a food industry code of practice, a collaboration one industry insider is calling a "breakthrough" for ensuring a reliable and affordable food supply in Canada.

The associations have come together to form the Canadian Food Industry Collaborative Alliance to develop a framework for food industry leaders to develop the code.

The move follows the creation of a working group by federal, provincial and territorial agriculture and food ministers last year to look at the grocery industry, including the imposition of unilateral costs on suppliers, fining suppliers for shortages and offloading operating costs onto suppliers.

The industry alliance, which includes the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers, the Canadian Produce Marketing Association, Food and Beverage Canada, the Retail Council of Canada and others, say a code of practice would help ensure transparency and contractual certainty in commercial transactions.

It would also promote fair dealings in negotiations, particularly where there is a significant disparity in negotiating power and provide an effective dispute resolution process.

"We are all committed to supporting a strong food supply chain in Canada and ensuring that small, mid, and large companies can continue to grow within the food sector," said Diane J. Brisebois, president and CEO of the Retail Council of Canada.

"There's been a lot of coverage of some of the disputes between very large grocers and large (consumer packaged goods) manufacturers. There's been a proposal about a regulated code and so we decided as a group of associations to come together and see if we could find a solution that would bring everybody to the table to discuss what needs to be fixed."

The code of practice would not be embedded in regulation but participation would be mandatory, according to a press release issued by the alliance.

Last year, Loblaw Companies Ltd. and Walmart Canada imposed higher fees on suppliers. In response, United Grocers Inc., a national buying group that represents multiple companies including Metro Inc., issued a letter to suppliers saying it expected the same costs as its competitors.

Then in March, Empire Company Ltd., the parent company of Sobeys and Safeway in Canada, and Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada, which represents food manufacturers agreed to a draft grocery code of practice they say takes aim at unfairness in the market.

The proposed code put forward by Empire was panned by the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers for its failure to mention small, independent grocery operators.

But Gary Sands, senior vice-president of public policy for the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers, said the organization supports the new alliance and its commitment to develop a code.

"This is a big breakthrough because now you have bigger chains aligning with the smaller players to say we need this," he said.

"It's now no longer a question of if we'll have a grocery code, it's when."

Sands added: "The code has to be a collaborative process and has to be inclusive. All the industry has to be involved in developing it to get that buy in."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 27, 2021.

Companies in this story: (TSX:EMP.A, TSX:L, TSX:MRU)

The Canadian Press

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
FirstEnergy fires another executive over consulting contract

CLEVELAND (AP) — A FirstEnergy senior vice president was fired Thursday for her “inaction” regarding a 2015 amendment to a “purported” consulting contract with someone who was later appointed as Ohio's top utility regulator, the company announced in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Eileen Mikkelsen's dismissal makes her the sixth high-ranking FirstEnergy executive fired since the U.S. Department of Justice alleged last July that the company had secretly funded a $60 million bribery scheme aimed at winning legislative approval of a bailout of two nuclear power plants operated at the time by a wholly-owned FirstEnergy subsidiary.

CEO Chuck Jones and two other vice presidents were fired in October for what FirstEnergy said were violations of company policies and its code of conduct. Two of the company's top attorneys were fired the following month. FirstEnergy did not specify the reason for their dismissals.

Jones was appointed CEO in 2015.

A message seeking comment was left for Mikkelsen on Thursday. A FirstEnergy spokesperson declined to comment about the firing.

While FirstEnergy has not named the regulator in question, it has not been disputed that it was Samuel Randazzo, appointed by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine in early 2019 as chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. Randazzo resigned last November after the FBI searched his Columbus townhome and FirstEnergy disclosed it had paid him $4.3 million before his appointment to end a consulting contract in place since 2013.

“FirstEnergy continues to believe that payments under the consulting agreement may have been for purposes other than those represented within the consulting agreement," according to Thursday's SEC filing.

FirstEnergy has been engaged in damage control over the last year as it tries to restore is corporate reputation, emphasizing efforts the company has made to strengthen its internal controls. FirstEnergy officials have said the company is cooperating with investigations by the DOJ, SEC and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and that it has discussed a deferred prosecution agreement with DOJ attorneys.

The Legislature earlier this year repealed the $1 billion bailout in the wake of the scandal and the plants' new owner, Energy Harbor, indicating it did not want the subsidy worth about $150 million a year. Energy Harbor took control of the plants and other assets of the FirstEnergy subsidiary in February 2020 as part of a deal struck in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Two sets of lawsuits seeking certification as class action complaints have been filed against FirstEnergy since July. Outside attorneys representing the company have said in recent motions to dismiss the lawsuits that FirstEnergy's actions regarding its contributions to dark money groups controlled by former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder were legal.

Householder and four others were indicted on racketeering charges shortly after the DOJ unveiled criminal complaints against them in July. Householder has pleaded not guilty.

Mark Gillispie, The Associated Press

Abandoned oil and gas wells will be cleaned up despite backlog: Alberta regulator

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Abandoned oil and gas wells will be cleaned up despite backlog: Alberta regulator

EDMONTON — There's lots of life in Alberta's conventional oil industry and plenty of resources and political will to clean up the mess it leaves behind, says the head of the province's energy regulator.

"Will there be halcyon-days growth in the sector? Probably not," said Alberta Energy Regulator president Laurie Pushor.

"We still see an industry that is healthy and anticipating relatively stable production."

Pushor spoke to The Canadian Press after his first year on the job, a year that saw 20 per cent layoffs at his agency at a time when the government is asking it to do more. There are also growing worries over the industry's environmental liabilities and concern about the growth of coal mining in the Rocky Mountains.

"This organization has had a profound amount of change," he said Thursday.

Pushor acknowledged problems with how Alberta ensured industry has cleaned up after itself.

A recent report from the University of Calgary found more than half the province's wells no longer produce, but remain unreclaimed. The regulator's own predictions suggest such wells will double between 2019 and 2030.

The regulator wasn't making sure companies that bought old wells had the wherewithal to operate and close them safely, Pushor said. Companies would pass the regulator's tests, then collapse anyway.

"We were seeing failures of companies that had positive ratings."

That's changed, he said. The regulator can now look at a much broader range of factors, including whether it's honouring lease payments to landowners and tax obligations to municipalities — in arrears by $245 million.

"How they treat their partners on the land is a pretty clear and strong indication of their performance in protecting the land," Pushor said.

"We think there will be an opportunity for us to be more diligent in protecting the interests of Albertans if a company is in failure."

New rules are coming in the fall that will force operators to spend a certain slice of their estimated clean-up costs every year.

"That's the key tool here. We start it out at whatever percentage (and) monitor the data to see whether we're making gains or not."

Similarly with the tailings ponds, said Pushor, who noted policies are in place.

The province's auditor general has said the amount of surety Alberta holds to guarantee the remediation of the oilsands is inadequate. That amount hasn't changed since 2016.

But that's because Alberta doesn't require payments to accelerate until near the end of mine life — which, in some cases, is decades into the future.

"We would have full financing held six years prior to end of (mine) life," said Pushor.

The regulator's recent move to base security requirements on a company's own revenue projections won't affect that, he said.

Pushor said the regulator is also on top of ensuring environmental impacts of coal exploration in the Rockies are dealt with. Although the regulator does not collect any deposits to make sure the work is done, Pushor said clean-up requirements are part of the licence.

"We expect the reclamation to follow right on the heels as their permit requires. We stay pretty diligent to ensure exploration projects are being reclaimed."

Stock prices for some of those mining companies plummeted after the government's decision to pause all activity on those leases in response to public concerns. Pushor said the regulator doesn't have concerns about them not being able to meet their obligations.

"It's hard for me to speculate on what might happen. We will be diligent in holding the companies to account."

Pushor said, despite losing 200 staff and more than 10 per cent of its now-$206 million budget, the Alberta Energy Regulator has a handle on things. He said it has come along in regaining public trust after facing conflict-of-interest investigations into its previous leadership.

"We probably slid a bit," he said.

"The challenge before us is to continually work to regain that. And that's probably not good enough — we probably want to continue to grow and build that confidence."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 27, 2021.

— Follow Bob Weber on Twitter at @row1960

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

BC
Forestry crew at loggerheads with Fairy Creek activists


Warning: There is offensive language in the following article

Investigations are underway after a heated confrontation between loggers and old-growth activists with the Fairy Creek blockade on southern Vancouver Island was captured on video this week.

A group of forestry workers can be seen swearing, yelling and flinging threats and racist taunts, as well as allegedly assaulting a young First Nations man filming the incident, in two videos released by the Rainforest Flying Squad (RFS) on Wednesday afternoon.

The tense standoff involving a group of about 10 forestry workers didn’t occur at roadblocks preventing crews from working in Fairy Creek, said RFS spokesperson Erika Heyrman.

Instead, the conflict took place Tuesday at a residential camp in the Walbran Valley in Tree Forest Licence (TFL) 44, which is near the Fairy Creek region, she said.

“This was a targeted attack,” said Heyrman, saying the loggers had to go out of their way to drive to the camp where several First Nations youth were.

“The people who were camping had not previously had any interaction with those people.”

The conflict took place in the region around Port Renfrew where tensions are rising with the ongoing blockades against logging company Teal-Jones that were set up in August to protect the pristine Fairy Creek watershed in TFL 46.

“Go home and collect your welfare cheque that we pay for,” one forestry worker can be heard saying in one video.

“You and your f***king teepees,” yelled another.

In addition to telling activists to go home or “there’d be trouble to pay,” angry forest contractors accused the activists of threatening their jobs.

“You’re f***king with our livelihood,” said one worker.

“We’ve got kids to feed,” yelled another.

At one point, a forestry worker smacks a cellphone out of the hand of one of the protesters, and a scuffle can be heard with shouts for someone to “grab the phone” in the background.

The situation is being treated with the utmost seriousness and urgency, according to a shared statement issued by Western Forest Products via its TFL 44 Limited Partnership — a joint operation with the Huu-ay-aht First Nations-owned company Huumiis Ventures.

“The behaviour of the individuals in the video is completely unacceptable and is entirely at odds with our shared values,” said the statement issued by John Jack, chair of Huumiis Ventures LP, and Shannon Janzen, the chair of TFL 44 LP.

“The use of racist language, intimidation, and acts of violence have no place in our society or our workplaces, and we have zero tolerance for such behaviour.”

The men belonged to a contracting crew, and the company involved has been directed to conduct a full investigation into the role the employees played in the incident, the statement added.

Forestry activity in the area is paused, and the RCMP and WorkSafe BC have also been notified.

“We appreciate that there may be disagreements about how our forests are managed in British Columbia, but we expect those disagreements to be addressed in a respectful manner, free from violence and racism,” TFL 44 LP said.

Teal-Jones was granted a court injunction against the blockades in its TFL last month. But RCMP had not arrested or removed protesters as of Friday. The RFS applied to the court this week seeking an appeal to the injunction.

RCMP spokesperson Cpl. Chris Manseau said Friday that although police had not been contacted by anyone involved prior to the video’s release, after seeing it, members of the Lake Cowichan detachment headed to the area to talk to witnesses and victims to determine the next steps.

“I haven’t heard any updates yet,” Manseau said, adding it was concerning to see the yelling and alleged assault of a youth in the video. But an investigation will also be necessary to determine what events happened before and after the filming, he said.

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The young man who was recording the incident wasn’t badly hurt, but suffered cuts to his knee and his phone was reportedly broken and stolen, Heyrman said.

It’s not immediately clear if the witnesses and victims will take the matter forward with the RCMP, she added.

“My understanding is that they're thinking about it, but they haven't made a decision.”

The onus should be on the forestry companies to deal with the unprovoked aggression from their workers, Heyrman said.

It’s unfortunate that tension exists between people protecting old-growth forests and workers since both groups pay the price of poor forestry management and corporate greed, she said, noting the RFS isn’t against logging second-growth forests.

“I don’t want to talk about this as an escalation,” Heyrman said.

“This isn't really an issue between workers and protesters, this is an issue of government regulations and industry practices.”

Rochelle Baker, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, National Observer