Carbon removal study suggests arithmetic to achieve net-zero emissions isn't so simple

Emitting a tonne has bigger impact on atmospheric CO2 than removing a tonne, modelling suggests


Emily Chung · CBC News · Posted: Jun 28, 2021 

Workers at Calgary-based Carbon Engineering's firs

Countries around the world are counting on the net-zero strategy of removing carbon to cancel out an equal amount of emissions to help them meet climate targets. But a new study by researchers in British Columbia suggests the math might not be that simple.
What does net-zero emissions mean?

Net-zero emissions or carbon neutrality means that any emissions of greenhouse gases produced are "offset" or cancelled out by the removal of emissions.

Emissions can be removed from the atmosphere through natural methods, such as planting trees and restoring wetlands, or technical approaches, such as direct-air carbon capture. (It doesn't include carbon capture at a source, such as a power plant, which simply reduces emissions.)

Removing carbon is seen as a way to deal with:

Emissions that are very hard or costly to eliminate, such as those from air travel, long-distance shipping, cement, steel and fertilizer production.

Emissions that have already been produced that are expected to cause us to overshoot climate targets before the global climate is stabilized.
Who has pledged to get to net-zero emissions?

Under the Paris Agreement on climate change, the world is to become carbon neutral between 2050 and 2100.

In fact, according to the United Nations, 131 countries have now set or are considering a target of reducing emissions to net zero by 2050, along with many companies, cities and financial institutions. They include Canada and Canadian oilsands producers.
WATCH | Canadian oil producers aim to reach net-zero emissions by 2050:



Canadian oil producers aim to reach net-zero emissions by 2050

Producers in Canada's oilsands are combining funds to reduce carbon emissions — but they're hoping for tax dollars to help fill the pot, and environmental groups are critical. 

1:50How do countries and companies calculate net zero?

"The assumption is that a tonne of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is balanced by a tonne removed from the atmosphere," said Kirsten Zickfeld, professor of climate science at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C. and lead author of a new study published last week in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Zickfeld suspected that this might not be the case. So she and her colleagues did some climate modelling experiments that were specially designed to test that idea.
Why did researchers think removing a tonne might not cancel out emitting a tonne?

Because they know many processes in the Earth's climate system are "non-linear," Zickfeld said. For example:

As carbon dioxide increases, so does plant growth. But plants can only speed up their growth so much before it levels off, no matter how much extra CO2 is added.

The ocean can absorb some of the extra carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere. But as atmospheric concentrations rise, the ocean is less and less able to absorb the extra CO2.

Scientists had already seen hints that this might mean carbon emission and removal were asymmetric — that is, the amount of impact they might have for the same quantity of CO2 might be different.

Saplings are displayed on a table during an announcement on World Environment Day at the Dominion Arboretum in Ottawa in June 2019. Planting trees is another way to remove carbon from the atmosphere. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)

But because it wasn't something they were specifically looking for, there were a lot of factors that make it impossible to get a clear answer about that, said David Keller, a scientist at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany, who wasn't involved in the new study but does related research.

He said Zickfeld's study is the first designed to actually find out if carbon emission and removal of the same amount of CO2 actually cancel each other out.
How did the researchers do that?

In order to get a clear answer, the researchers used a climate model of "intermediate complexity."

Keller said it was an appropriate model for what they were looking for, keeping things simple enough to get a clear answer to the question they were asking.

WHAT ON EARTH?14 people are mapping Canada's path to net-zero emissions — can they do it?

The researchers added and removed buckets of between 100 billion (about three times the annual global emissions in 2020) and a trillion tonnes of CO2 emissions. Zickfeld said that's about the range of emissions that we're expected to need to remove to meet the lower Paris target of a temperature that's 1.5 C warmer than pre-industrial times.

They then looked at the climate impact in the following 1,000 years.
What did they find?

The study showed that if you remove and emit the same amount of CO2, you end up with a higher atmospheric CO2 concentration than if you had emitted no CO2. That is, the result is not net zero.

"And that asymmetry increases the more we emit and we remove," Zickfeld said.

Nor does it change with time — the difference still exists 1,000 years later.

A man wades into the ocean at sunset in Newport Beach, Calif, on June 22. The study found that a tonne of carbon removed from the atmosphere and a tonne of carbon emitted don't add up to zero. That's because natural processes, such as the ocean's ability to absorb carbon, change as more carbon is added. (Jae C. Hong/The Associated Press)

Why?

Zickfeld said the two "non-linear" processes mentioned before — the change in plant growth and ocean absorption with rising CO2 — were the main culprits.

The researchers found that the change in temperature associated with addition and removal of the same amount of CO2 was also not the same as if the CO2 was never emitted, but the difference was smaller.

CBC EXPLAINSCarbon capture: What you need to know about catching CO2 to fight climate change

Zickfeld said the researchers also couldn't be sure which case had the higher temperature. In this experiment, it looked like the case with no emissions, but the preliminary results of other experiments show the opposite.

"This is a first step," Zickfeld said. She added that more study is needed to work out the details, such as exactly what amount of removal would be needed to offset a given amount of emissions.
What does this mean for net-zero commitments and calculations?

Zickfeld said we need to be more cautious when we think about offsetting emissions with carbon dioxide removal, as the Earth is complex and there are many geophysical systems that we don't take into account.

"The risk is that we end up with a climate that is not stable, and then potentially we risk blowing the temperature targets if we do not take these effects into account," she said. "My take really is that because of all these uncertainties in the system, I think the focus should really be on reducing carbon dioxide emissions."

Keller said Zickfeld's study is important because of what it shows for the first time, but more work needs to be done on the topic. In fact, he's currently running similar experiments with different models.

OPINION

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While this particular study might not be relevant to policy-makers, Keller said they should become aware that carbon removal is not the exact opposite of adding CO2 to the atmosphere.

Holly Buck, an assistant professor of environment and sustainability at the State University of New York at Buffalo, said the findings are relevant to the discussion about how to implement policies to reach net-zero goals.

She foresees research such as this allowing for a mathematical correction in the future to match a certain amount of emissions with a certain amount of removals to ensure they cancel out.

"This is a first step that should be putting this on policy-makers' radar," Buck said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Emily Chung

Science and Technology Writer

Emily Chung covers science and technology for CBC News. She has previously worked as a digital journalist for CBC Ottawa and as an occasional producer at CBC's Quirks & Quarks. She has a PhD in chemistry.

Arctic’s ‘Last Ice Area’ shows earlier-than-expected melt

By Seth Borenstein

The Associated Press
Thu., July 1, 202

Part of the Arctic is nicknamed the “Last Ice Area,” because floating sea ice there is usually so thick that it’s likely to withstand global warming for decades. So, scientists were shocked last summer when there was suddenly enough open water for a ship to pass through.

The opening, documented by scientists aboard a German icebreaker, popped up in late July and August in the Wandel Sea north of Greenland. Mostly it was due to a freak weather event, but thinning sea ice from decades of climate change was a significant factor, according to a study Thursday in the journal Communications Earth and Environment.

While scientists have said most of the Arctic could be free of summer sea ice by mid-century, the Last Ice Area was not part of that equation. They figure the 380,000-square-mile (1-million-square-kilometer) area won’t be ice-free in the summer until around 2100, said study co-author Kent Moore, a University of Toronto atmospheric physicist.

“It’s called the Last Ice Area for a reason. We thought it was kind of stable,” said co-author Mike Steele, a University of Washington oceanographer. “It’s just pretty shocking. ... In 2020, this area melted out like crazy.”

Scientists believe the area — north of Greenland and Canada — could become the last refuge for animals like polar bears that depend on ice, said Kristin Laidre, a co-author and biologist at the University of Washington.

The main cause for the sudden ice loss was extraordinary strong winds that pushed the ice out the region and down the coast of Greenland, Moore said.

That had happened in smaller, infrequent episodes, but this time was different, Moore said. The researchers used computer simulations and 40 years of Arctic sea data to calculate that “there was a significant climate change signal“ — about 20%, they estimate — in the event, Moore said.


In the past, thicker Wandel Sea ice would have resisted the strong winds, but in 2020 it was thinner and “more easily broken up and pushed out,” said National Snow and Ice Data Center scientist Walt Meier, who wasn’t part of the study.


Another part of the Last Ice Area, off Canada’s Ellesmere Island, had open waters after the July 2020 collapse of part of the Milne ice shelf, but scientists are still studying it to determine if there is a climate change connection, Moore said.

How a lake on an Antarctic ice shelf disappeared in three days

Alexandra Mae Jones

CTVNews.ca writer
@AlexandraMaeJ Contact

Published Wednesday, June 30, 2021 


Landsat 8 images over the Southern Amery Ice Shelf on the east coast of Antarctica show the ice-covered lake before drainage and the resulting ice doline with summer meltwater (Landsat 8/ UC San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography)

TORONTO -- In 2019, a lake on an ice sheet in East Antarctica vanished completely over the course of three days.

The strange occurrence went unnoticed until the next summer, when Dr. Roland Warner, a glaciologist with the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership at the University of Tasmania, noticed discrepancies in satellite images of the Amery Ice Shelf.

As he investigated further, he and other researchers concluded that something rare had happened: a hydrofracture.

Read the release: Scientists detect sudden loss of large Antarctic lake

“We believe a large crack opened briefly in the floating ice shelf and drained the entire lake into the ocean within three days,” Warner said in a news release.

“The lake held more water than Sydney Harbour and the flow into the ocean beneath would have been like the flow over Niagara Falls, so it would have been an impressive sight.”

Hydrofractures occur when the pressure of liquid water on top of ice causes it to split due to the water being denser.

Amery Ice Shield is the third-largest ice shelf branching off from Antarctica on the east side of the continent, and at 1,400 metres thick, it is rare to see a hydrofracture crack it open completely.

Researchers described the process of tracking this event in a paper published last week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

The lake itself was unnamed, and had resided inside the shelf, covered by a cap of ice. When the shelf cracked open under the lake and the water drained out, it left behind a wide depression in the ice shelf.

This is an ice “doline” — a term that means a naturally enclosed depression in the ground, usually referring to sinkholes.

The ice doline was around 11 square kilometres, and was peppered with some of the cracked remnants of the ice lid that once sat on top of the lake.

It was a small lake in terms of length, but still around half the size of Lake Minnewanka in Alberta, or 12 times the size of Lake Louise.

And it was deep, containing around 600-750 million cubic metres of water, around twice the volume of San Diego Bay, according to another release from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. This far exceeds the amount of meltwater that the shelf normally sees.

How did researchers figure out the amount of water? The loss of a lake that size made a marked difference in the elevation of the ice shelf itself, something that can be seen from space if you look close enough.

Researchers used a laser instrument on NASA’s ICESat-2 in order to calculate the exact change in elevation caused by the drainage of the lake.

“ICESat-2 orbits with exactly repeating ground tracks and comparing elevations before and after the lake drained showed us the dramatic vertical scale of the disruption,” Helen Fricker, a professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and coauthor of the study, said in the first news release.

After the lake drained, that region of the ice shelf tipped up, with the surface of the shelf rising by “as much as 36 metres around the lake,” Warner said.

“The loss of lake water locally reduced the weight on the floating ice shelf so that ocean pressure lifted it upwards at the doline.”

The lake itself sunk deeper into the shelf, with the basin of the cavity found 80 metres below the original lake surface.

Photos of the lake from a satellite showing the before-and-after process show how the movement of the ice shelf also created a new, smaller pool of water on what used to be an arm of water moving away from the lake, with the original lake surface appearing visibly cracked and drained.


It’s possible that the doline could fill up with water once again, or that the hydrofracture could reopen and drain that water again, Warner said.

Although this phenomenon isn’t thought to be necessarily directly connected to climate change, the movement of ice sheets on the edge of regions such as Antarctica are critical to track. The loss of an ice sheet, or the fracturing of an ice sheet away from the continent, could speed up the loss of ice on the land mass itself, which would contribute to a rise in sea levels if it melted.

Producing clean energy can diminish earthquake risk

by California Institute of Technology

The Ridgecrest area, with aftershocks marked in yellow dots. The Coso geothermal field shows a surprising lack of aftershocks. Credit: Avouac laboratory / edited by Paul Avouac

In the months following the July 5, 2019 magnitude-7.1 earthquake in Ridgecrest, California, seismologists recorded thousands of aftershocks in the region. Surprisingly, none were seen in the Coso geothermal field, an area only about 10 kilometers from the surface ruptures caused by the main shock.

Now, Caltech researchers have discovered that the operations related to geothermal energy production at Coso over the last 30 years have de-stressed the region, making the area less prone to earthquakes. These findings could indicate ways to systematically de-stress high-risk earthquake regions, while simultaneously building clean energy infrastructure.

The research was conducted in the laboratory of Jean-Philippe Avouac, Earle C. Anthony Professor of Geology and Mechanical and Civil Engineering. A paper describing the study appears in the journal Nature on July 1.

Geothermal fields, like the Coso region, are areas where the subsurface temperatures are particularly high, for example, as a result of volcanic or tectonic activity. This heat can be used create clean energy that requires no burning of fossil fuels. To harness this energy, water is pumped down into the ground, where the high temperatures heat up the water; when the water is brought back up to the surface, that heat energy is used to generate electricity.

Importantly, during the development of a geothermal field, many small earthquakes (around magnitude 4) are triggered when the water is pumped in. This is generally seen as source of concern; a number of geothermal projects have been abandoned because of such "induced" seismicity. However, in this new study, the researchers found that these little earthquakes as well as the "silent" or aseismic deformation (occurring without producing an earthquake) caused by the injection of fluid actually relieves stress and thus lowers the risk of a larger earthquake in the region.

"Geothermal energy is clean energy, and we would like to have as much clean energy as possible," says Avouac. "Induced seismicity—the triggering of many small earthquakes—during the initial development of a geothermal field has been seen as an impediment to building more of this infrastructure. But our study shows that there is actually a benefit to this. You could imagine developing geothermal fields all along the San Andreas Fault, for example, where you would both get clean energy and diminish the risk of a large earthquake."

Led by Caltech postdoctoral scholar Kyungjae Im, the team sought to model what is happening under the surface of a geothermal field that has been developed for energy production. Using a technique called synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry, geoscientists have measured that the surface of the Coso geothermal field has deformed and sunk by tens of centimeters in the decades since its development. Im built a model of this deformation and determined that the underground was thermally contracting due to the water being pumped in.

Im concluded that this thermal contraction both relieved some tension in the Coso area and allowed the ground to slip "silently"—that is, in a smooth way that does not produce earthquakes. This explains why the Coso area experienced no major aftershocks after the large July 5, 2019 quake: there was less stress underground because it had already been relieved by the geothermal activity.

"Our study shows that by injecting cold water, you can actually suppress seismicity down the road," says Im. "But it is still not without risk: when you start developing the field, there is a risk that the small induced earthquakes could potentially grow into a large one. But in principle, over time, the risk of large earthquakes in the region is less than if you had not been developing the field. You are accelerating the seismicity for a little while, so the risk that you get the large one is temporarily higher. But if you look at the risk of having a magnitude 7 or 8 over a long period of time, over 15 years or so, it will be much lower. It is part of our research objective to develop methods to quantify this effect precisely. It will never be zero risk, but our study shows that we ought to do more research into this method of reducing the probability of a large earthquake."

"Both thermal stress release and hydrofracking can release the accumulated stress and therefore reduce future large earthquakes but, at the same time, still have a risk for inducing large earthquakes during the stress release," explains Im. "The Coso case is the desired example in that the stress release is done without inducing a large earthquake. It could be due to the nature of thermal destressing, which is slow, intense, and localized comparing to hydrofracking. But to confirming this requires further research."

The paper is titled "Ridgecrest Aftershocks at Coso Suppressed by Thermal Destressing." Kyungjae Im is the study's first author.


Explore further  Injection strategies are crucial for geothermal projects

More information: Kyungjae Im et al, Ridgecrest aftershocks at Coso suppressed by thermal destressing, Nature (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03601-4
Journal information: Nature


Provided by California Institute of Technology

Reykjanes Eruption Could End With Earthquake Swarm

Jelena Ćirić
June 30, 2021
Nature, x News


The ongoing eruption on Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula was kicked off by a strong earthquake swarm, and it could take another such swarm to end it. That’s one of Volcanologist Þorvaldur Þórðarson’s hypotheses about how the eruption could eventually come to a close, but it is indeed just a hypothesis. Experts have oft underlined that there is no reliable way to predict when the eruption will end.

“There are no clear signs that the eruption is ending,” Þorvaldur stated on Bylgjan radio station this morning. Before it began more than three months ago, the eruption was preceded by weeks of strong earthquakes, felt across the capital area and South and West Iceland. Þorvaldur believes another such earthquake swarm could be what stops the eruption, which is located along a rift between two tectonic plates. As the plates move apart, they create tension in the earth’s crust which is released in the form of seismic or volcanic activity.

Read More: The Geology of the Reykjanes Peninsula

“Such plate movements appear to have instigated this eruption and I suspect that maybe something similar is required to end it,” Þorvaldur stated. Until such movement happens, the eruption may continue, and experts have already stated that could be years or decades. Until then, the eruption is “like a pipe that’s always open. It’s dripping steadily. And there’s no tap to screw shut. They forgot to buy one,” Þorvaldur joked in the morning interview.

While volcanic activity at the eruption site briefly paused on the night of June 28, it resumed again some hours later. Þorvaldur says there are once more considerable magma jets spewing from the active crater and visible lava flow over a large area, including Meradalir valley.

 Photo: Golli.

Did Part of Crater Rim Collapse?

mbl.is/Eggert Jóhannesson

Vala Hafstað
vala@mbl.is

Recent changes in volcanic activity and volcanic tremor at the eruption site by Fagradalsfjall mountain, Southwest Iceland, could possibly be explained by part of the crater rim collapsing, Þorvaldur Þórðarson, professor of volcanology at the University of Iceland, tells Morgunblaðið.

Monday afternoon, the activity appeared to be considerably reduced, and then it increased again yesterday.

“We’ve seen similar things happen before after part of the crater collapsed,” Þorvaldur states. This could have slowed down the lava flow and degasification as well, which in turn causes reduced volcanic unrest, as registered by seismographs, he explains. Due to fog in the area in recent days, it has not been possible to verify that part of the crater rim has indeed collapsed.

“The crater successfully cleared, causing a certain spectacle, as usual,” Þorvaldur explains. He believes lava flow into the valleys Meradalir, Geldingadalir and Nátthagi remains steady.

“The main channel, which supplies the lava flow, is under the surface, invisible to us,” he notes. “It must be there, because the lava field steadily grows.”

He believes liquid lava is underneath a large part of the lava field and states that the surface of the lava keeps rising.

“The thickness of the lava is unbelievably even. It is completely smooth in the valleys, no matter where you go. That indicates that underneath all this surface we see, there is a core of liquid, which gradually lifts the whole thing.”

He compares the lava streams to rivers that freeze in winter. You see the burning stream where the current is the strongest, but along the edges, there is a crust, just as there is ice along the banks of a river that is about to freeze. For this reason, the lava streams are considerably wider than they appear to be on the surface.

According to Þorvaldur, the latest lava flow measures show that there is no letup in magma production. As always, he emphasizes the importance keeping off new lava. 

Invisible bursts of electricity from volcanoes signal explosive eruptions

Mysterious electrical signals could help warn aviators of impending volcanic ash plumes

Lightning flashes and ash and lava spew as Sakurajima volcano erupts in Japan. A new study distinguishes between lightning and smaller, more mysterious surges of electrical activity produced by the volcano.
MIKE LYVERS/MOMENT/GETTY IMAGES


By Alka Tripathy-Lang

JULY 1, 2021 

As one of Japan’s most active volcanoes, Sakurajima often dazzles with spectacular displays of volcanic lightning set against an ash-filled sky. But the volcano can also produce much smaller, invisible bursts of electrical activity that mystify and intrigue scientists.

Now, an analysis of 97 explosions at Sakurajima from June 2015 is helping to show when eruptions produce visible lightning strokes versus when they produce the mysterious, unseen surges of electrical activity, researchers report in the June 16 Geophysical Research Letters.

These invisible bursts, called vent discharges, happen early in eruptions, which could allow scientists to figure out ways to use them to warn of impending explosions.

Researchers know that volcanic lightning can form by silicate charging, which happens both when rocks break apart during an eruption and when rocks and other material flung from the volcano jostle each other in the turbulent plume (SN: 3/3/15). Tiny ash particles rub together, gaining and losing electrons, which creates positive and negative charges that tend to clump together in pockets of like charge. To neutralize this unstable electrical field, lightning zigzags between the charged clusters, says Cassandra Smith, a volcanologist at the Alaska Volcano Observatory in Anchorage.

Experiments have shown that you can’t get lightning without some amount of ash in the system, Smith says. “So if you’re seeing volcanic lightning, you can be pretty confident in saying that the eruption has ash.”

Vent discharges, on the other hand, are relatively newly detected bursts of electrical activity, which produce a continuous, high-frequency signal for seconds — an eternity compared with lightning. These discharges can be measured using specialized equipment.

By focusing on small explosions from Sakurajima, defined as those with plume heights of 3 kilometers or less and with a duration of less than five minutes, Smith and colleagues examined silicate charging, plume dynamics and the relationship between volcanic lightning and vent discharges. As expected, the team found that lightning at Sakurajima occurred in plumes replete with ash. Vent discharges, however, occurred only when ash-rich plumes with volcanic lightning rocketed skyward at velocities greater than about 55 meters per second.

“Once you get to a certain intensity of eruption,” Smith says, “you’re going to see these vent discharges.”

Monitoring these discharges could be especially helpful for quickly spotting eruptions that have a lot of ash in them. Tracking ash is vital, Smith says, “because that’s what’s dangerous for aviation and local communities” in many instances. Electrical activity, she says, signals an ash-rich plume no matter the weather or time of day, and vent discharges provide a measure of an eruption’s intensity, which could help observatories model where a plume might go.

Tracking lightning and vent discharges could cover gaps left by other ways of monitoring volcanoes, says Chris Schultz, a research meteorologist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Seismologists track underground movements of magma to look for signs of an impending eruption, for example. Infrasound is used to indicate when an explosion has occurred, but the technique doesn’t differentiate between ash versus gas in eruptions. And satellites collect data on eruptions, though in many cases that’s dependent on good weather at the right time.

The lightning and vent discharges, Schultz says, may also eventually provide early warnings, especially prior to larger ash-rich eruptions.

SOUTH AFRICA

Eskom Needs $10 Billion to Repurpose Most Coal Plants by 2050

By Antony Sguazzin
June 30, 2021, 

Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd., South Africa’s state power utility, needs $10 billion to shut most of its coal-fired plants by 2050, a company official said.

The utility is in talks with development finance institutions to raise the money, the head of Eskom’s Just Energy Transition office, Mandy Rambharos, said by phone on Wednesday.

The power plants may be re-purposed and the sites used to produce power from renewable energy or natural gas, Rambharos has previously said.

Reuters, which reported the amount earlier, said the site of Komati power plant may be used to produce solar energy, which would be coupled with battery storage.

South Africa is the world’s 12th biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and Eskom accounts for two fifths of its emissions.

TASMANIA

Rosebery mine: Protests in Australia over MMG waste storage plan

Conservationists stage protest against plan by a China-owned firm to build a mining waste facility in Tasmania’s Tarkine rainforest.
Chinese-owned MMG wants to build a new Tailings Storage Facility (TSF) at the Rosebery mine in Tasmania [Courtesy of Bob Brown Foundation]

By Nick Rodway
2 Jul 2021

Rosebery, Australia – On June 17, Anthony Houston was arrested after attempting to block all industrial traffic into an area of rainforest on the island of Tasmania, Australia’s southernmost state.

The local businessman and farmer had set up a chair in the middle of an entrance road to protest against a proposed mining operation that would result in the clearing of a vast section of old-growth trees in the 439,000-hectare (1,085,000-acre) rainforest, known as the Tarkine or the Takanya.

Remote and sparsely populated, the Tarkine is a diverse landscape of rugged coastal heathland, grassy woodlands and Gondwana-era vegetation that is home to many endangered species and helps form the largest single tract of rainforest in Australia. It also hosts a mine owned by China’s Minerals and Metals Group, which wants to clear an area the size of 285 hectares (704 acres) – roughly equivalent to 350 football fields – for a new facility to store mining waste, also known as tailings.

Anthony Houston stages a blockade to prevent MMG vehicles from accessing the planned site of a new waste storage facility [Courtesy of Bob Brown Foundation]

Conservationists say construction at the planned TSF site threatens not only endangered animal and bird species but myrtle trees estimated to be 500 years old [Courtesy of Bob Brown Foundation]Houston is one of dozens of protesters linked to the Bob Brown Foundation (BBF), a Tasmanian conservation group that has been organising daily protests against MMG’s plan at a site near the town of Rosebery.

“The message I want to give to all Australians is that it is really important to come and experience what is being lost,” Houston said after his release.


“I could not believe the ancient trees they are knocking down. They are knocking over more in one day than I could plant in a year. It’s like something from Lord of the Rings, we should not be losing places like this.”

500 jobs on the line

MMG mine has operated continuously for 85 years, mostly producing zinc, copper, lead and gold ore. The company says a new tailings storage facility (TSF) is essential to mining operations as it stores rock, water and silt that are produced as by-products of the mining process.

With mine operations and tailings storage “inextricably linked”, MMG said up to 500 jobs could be lost in Rosebery if the planned facility does not go ahead.

“The proposed site is currently the only viable option MMG has but we are actively looking at all possible options to extend the mine’s life,” a spokeswoman said. “This includes investigating an alternative site, but at this time, we do not have a viable alternative.”

While MMG does not yet have permission to begin its plan – which involves building a pipeline for toxic materials over the nearby Pieman River – the company is clearing vegetation to construct roads and conduct “engineering and environmental baselines and assessment to support a new tailings storage site”.

Since MMG first submitted its TSF proposal in May, activists linked to the BBF have largely stopped MMG’s movements into the area [Courtesy of Bob Brown Foundation]But the MMG is meeting fierce resistance from the BBF, however, which has said that construction at the site threatens not only endangered animal and bird species but myrtle trees estimated to be 500 years old.


The BBF’s patron is Dr Bob Brown, inaugural leader of the Australian Greens in the federal parliament. Since MMG first submitted its TSF proposal in May, activists linked to the foundation have largely stopped company’s movements into the area.

Their methods have varied from sit-ins on the road into the forest to strapping themselves onto heavy machinery, as well as establishing a tree-sit high up in the forest canopy. Some protesters managed to stay up in the trees for two weeks despite freezing winter temperatures.

At least 50 protesters have been arrested since the campaign began on May 18.

“Tasmania is a natural gem in an environmentally devastated world, and the Tarkine region is a place of wild and scenic beauty,” Brown told Al Jazeera. “It is culturally and environmentally precious, and is the last bastion of the iconic Tasmanian devil, the largest carnivorous marsupial in the world.”
‘Outstanding heritage significance’

Brown said the BBF is not trying to stop the Rosebery mine from operating, but is demanding an alternative site for the TSF.

“MMG, a Chinese state-owned company, wants to come in and level an area of rainforest the size of 350 football fields, not to drill for resources but to simply dump their mining waste,” Brown said.

“MMG has declared numerous times that there are options for this tailings facility. There are alternatives south of the Pieman River, and MMG must pursue one that does not result in the destruction of Tarkine rainforest.”

While its boundaries are contested due to having never been formally defined, the Tarkine was assessed by the Australian Heritage Council in 2013 and found to have “outstanding national heritage significance” for both its ecological values and for its cultural history. The diversity and density of the Tarkine’s Aboriginal sites – particularly shell middens, or refuse piles, which confirm an ancient connection to land and sea – ranks it among “the world’s greatest archaeological sites”

However, just 4 percent of the region recommended for National Heritage protection has subsequently been listed by the Australian government.

The federal environment minister, Sussan Ley, is now considering whether the proposed TSF should go ahead. She was due to announce a decision at the beginning of June, but the government’s Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment advised in a notice that the deadline had been extended until July 23.

BBF’s protests have drawn national interest to the issue, with nearly two-thirds of Australians surveyed in a recent poll saying they would support Ley using her power to stop the proposed clearing of the rainforest and insist MMG find an alternative site for its TSF.

‘Dangerous’

But in Tasmania, where the mining sector was valued at $1.82bn in 2016 and 2017, there is significant support for the construction of a new TSF for the Rosebery mine.

Tasmania’s Premier Peter Gutewin of the conservative Liberal Party has backed the project and hit out at the protesters, calling them “radicals” conducting “dangerous and illegal activities” that “attempted to destroy Tasmanian jobs that have supported the operation of the Rosebery mine for over 80 years”.

Julie Crawford, the superintendent of environment and community at the mine, told Al Jazeera MMG was committed to finding the “most balanced solution that secures the future of the Rosebery Mine”.

“We are still seeking to complete the preliminary investigations to select the best location for future tailings storage,” she said. “We are doing the work now that will allow for an informed decision based on facts and put through the necessary environmental approvals and permitting.”

The BBF pledged to continue its campaign, with Brown saying the foundation wants the Tarkine to be brought into the existing Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, which borders the region to the south.

“The Tarkine has already been identified as having values worthy of World Heritage protection,” he said.

“This area should be recognised as such to ensure that it is conserved forever, and that Traditional Owners are able to maintain their connection to the land. It is too precious to lose, and MMG should be aware that we’re not going to give up this fight.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

WE WANT #UBI & #WAGESFORHOUSEWORK
Ottawa expands Canada Workers Benefit to a million more people

Jessy Bains
Wed., June 30, 2021,

Canada's Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland (REUTERS)

The Canada Workers Benefit, a refundable tax credit to help low-income earners, is being expanded.

A million more Canadians will be eligible. Single people without kids can get up to $1,400 — a group Ottawa says doesn't get much in the way of help. People with families get up to $2,400.

"The pandemic has underscored that low-wage workers in Canada work harder than anyone else in this country, for less pay. In the past year, many faced layoffs, significant infection risks in the workplace, or both," said Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.

"I am sure all Canadians would agree that no one working full-time in our country should live in poverty."

Eligibility is also being expanded. Single Canadians without children can earn up to $32,244 a year. Single-earner families can make up to $42,197, while dual-income families can earn up to $56,197.

Ottawa says the expansion means 3.2 million Canadians will be eligible.

There's also a new provision that lets secondary earners, which Ottawa says will be women in most cases, exclude up to $14,000 of their working income when calculating the benefit. This will result in a larger refund come tax time.

The federal government says the changes mean most full-time workers earning minimum wage will get money through the program. It also says it will mean more disposable income for low-wage families and provide incentives for Canadians to rejoin the workforce.

"We know low-wage workers are among the hardest hit by the pandemic, and every Canadian deserves to be fairly compensated for their work, that is why we are expanding the Canada Workers Benefit," said Mona Fortier, Minister of Middle Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance.

"By enhancing this benefit, one million more Canadians will be included and this will help lift nearly 100,000 people out of poverty."

Jessy Bains is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jessysbains.

Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android.

 NOVA SCOTIA

Northwood contract talks stalled as other health-care unions seek strike vote

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Unifor representative believes government waiting on outcome between acute-care unions, NS Health, IWK

Shaina Luck · CBC News · Posted: Jun 30, 2021 6:58 PM AT | Last Updated: July 1

Fifty-three residents at Northwood's Halifax location, the largest long-term care facility in the province, died of COVID-19. (Robert Short/CBC)

Contract talks at the Northwood long-term care home in Halifax are stalled, and the union representing more than 520 people who worked through the first wave of COVID-19 says the government is forcing them to wait until a separate contract dispute with other health-care unions is resolved.

"Acute care bargaining is currently in conciliation, so I don't think they want to set any type of precedent with Northwood," said Linda MacNeil, the Atlantic regional director for Unifor.

She said she believes Northwood workers are particularly deserving of better pay and working conditions, due to their work during the first wave of the pandemic when 345 Northwood residents and staff were infected by COVID-19, and 53 residents died.

MacNeil declined to say specifically what the union proposed, but in a press release Unifor said the workers were asking for "moderate wage increases, improvements to health and safety and measures to address the lack of adequate staffing."

Unifor says contract talks began on April 21, and the union was expecting to receive a response from Northwood by June 29, but instead Northwood's lead negotiator explained the care home did not have a mandate from the government. Northwood is a not-for-profit and is reliant upon the provincial government for funding.

Linda MacNeil is the Atlantic regional director of Unifor, the union that represents more than 520 people who work at Northwood long-term care home. (Submitted by Linda MacNeil)

Northwood CEO Janet Simm sent CBC News a brief statement about the negotiations, stating the employer values and respects its employees.

"We are fully committed to the bargaining process and will continue our efforts to work towards reaching an agreement," Simm wrote.

Counter-offer being reviewed

This week, the unions representing 7,500 health-care support workers were in three days of conciliation talks with Nova Scotia Health and the IWK Health Centre.

Unifor is one of the unions, alongside CUPE and the NSGEU. That group consists of non-nursing health-care workers, including continuing care assistants who perform similar work to the employees at Northwood.

• Health-care unions talk strike vote and press Rankin to back arbitration

On Wednesday afternoon, talks broke down. NSGEU president Jason MacLean said Nova Scotia Health and the IWK made an offer that he could not recommend to his members.

Nova Scotia Health and the IWK are reviewing the union's counter-offer. 

MacLean said a strike vote will be held on Monday and he believes the earliest a strike could happen would be July 14 or 15.

MacNeil, who represents a union with a seat at both the Northwood and acute care negotiations, said she's concerned about a potential delay for resolving the Northwood contract talks.

Union warns of a 'very long process'

"That could take a very, very long process," she said. "So are the members at Northwood to wait another year? History has been in this province that acute care went first, then the long-term care."

In an emailed statement, the provincial spokesperson for labour relations, Chrissy Matheson, said the province is leaving comment on the process to Northwood and Unifor.

"We are grateful to the management of Northwood and to all the employees for their care, professionalism and commitment," the statement said in part.

"We won't speak to the details of collective bargaining, including the mandate, while the process is underway."

Matheson added the union is filing for conciliation for Northwood, and a conciliator has yet to be appointed.

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Corrections

• An earlier version of this article wrongly said Nova Scotia Health and the IWK had rejected a counter-offer from the union. In fact, Nova Scotia Health and the IWK have not rejected the counter-offer and are reviewing it.
  Jul 01, 2021 12:10 PM AT

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Shaina Luck

Reporter

Shaina Luck is a reporter with CBC Nova Scotia. She has worked with national network programs, the CBC's Atlantic Investigative Unit, and the University of King's College school of journalism. Email: shaina.luck@cbc.ca