When it comes to climate change, the heavy hand of colonizers is as important as our carbon footprint

Stephanie Arnold 

© Louise Gravel/Radio-Canada High school students advocate for the lower of two UN climate targets, 1.5 C, during a climate protest in Montreal in 2019. Some environmental experts say keeping global warming to 1.5 C would lead to less extremes of heat, rainfall…

Our planet is changing. So is our journalism. This story is part of a CBC News initiative entitled to show and explain the effects of climate change and what is being done about it.

World leaders are meeting in Scotland at COP26 to urge action, make promises, and develop plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — just as they have in 2019 at COP25 in Spain, 2018 at COP24 in Poland, 2017 at COP23 in Germany, etc.

The Conference of Parties (COP), as it's known, meets every year and is the global decision-making body set up in the early 1990s to implement the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and subsequent climate agreements.

Reducing our carbon footprint is important; so is increasing our use of renewable energy. But developing plans centered on carbon accounting and energy mix is a futile exercise that distracts us. Even if they do slow down climate change, the world will still be left drowning in rampant, unmitigated social and environmental disasters. Is this what we are all striving for?

Why are we spending our focus, energy, and resources on decarbonizing oppression and exploitation, rather than on this very oppression and exploitation that created the climate crisis?

It took a lot of learning and unlearning to ask that question.

At the core of it is the understanding that the climate crisis is a colonial, white supremacist construct. Legal scholar Carmen G. Gonzalez pointed out that the European colonizers used oppressive practices to transform the subsistence economics of the Global South into economic satellites of Europe. This process warmed the planet while creating wealth for colonial powers. The domination and exploitation of BIPOC peoples, lands, and ecosystems continue to this day and span across the globe, fueling the climate crisis.

Asking the right questions

Once we start asking the right questions, the answers become self-apparent. With this understanding, it becomes clear that solving the climate crisis requires us to commit to decolonization and to reexamine our values.

Take the recent attacks on the Mi'kmaq fishers and fisheries as an example. The Mi'kmaq have a constitutionally protected right to fish. The continued infringement of those rights is a deliberate choice to value profits and commercial interests over treaty rights. The group West Coast Environmental Law reminds us that conservation has been used historically to mask racist motivations. Mi'kmaq fishers have managed fisheries sustainably through their own laws and processes for millennia. If not for commercial fisheries, there would be no concerns for conservation.

© Brian Higgins/CBC P.E.I. is expected to feel the effects of climate change dramatically. Experts warn scenes like this one from post-tropical storm Dorian could become more common on the Island.

To decolonize and address the climate crisis, we need to value treaty rights over profits and commercial interests. The values that push us to decolonize also push us to respect peoples, lands, and ecosystems.
Now the hard work can begin

Recentring our core values will not be easy. It will disrupt personal relationships, social fabrics, economic systems, political systems, legal systems, etc. — many of which are long-standing and deeply entrenched.

But this is how we can meaningfully tackle the climate crisis and all other social injustices we face today. When we focus on the right things to push back on, everything else will fall into place.

For example, we need to push back on fast fashion not because of the waste it generates, but because we object to how it exploits natural, human, and social systems to produce clothes so "cheaply." When we refuse to conveniently ignore the hidden social, human, and environmental costs of our daily decisions and alter our consumption patterns, the types and amounts of waste we produce will automatically change. When our priorities are adjusted, our decision-making processes will change, and the impacts of our decisions will follow.

Everything is connected

The benefit of focusing on values rather than specific, discrete climate actions is that it helps us to make the types of fundamental change we need to get ourselves out of this mess. We also begin to see how everything is connected. We can start to incorporate social issues in climate policy and climate issues in social policy.

We also start to ask the right questions of ourselves and each other. Instead of asking how we can maintain the status quo while lowering greenhouse gas emissions, we can start to ask, who does the status quo benefit? Who does it harm? How does it contribute to the crises at hand?

Another benefit of using a value-based approach is recognizing the harm climate actions could cause and designing them to address inequities instead.
The solar equity gap

For example, when policies focus solely on decarbonization, governments may provide subsidies for residential solar panels. These subsidies are used primarily by homeowners who can likely afford the panels to begin with, but are prompted to install them sooner because the subsidies make the economics much more attractive. Over time, their heating and cooling costs go down, putting money in their pockets.

People who rent, who cannot afford homes, or who cannot afford the solar panels even with the subsidies in place will continue to use less efficient, more carbon intensive ways to heat and cool their homes. Over time, their costs will go up

.

© Mike Blake/Reuters Residential subsidies for solar panels will benefit those with higher incomes while lower wage earners will continue to pay more for less efficient heating sources, argues Stephanie Arnold.

This solar equity gap continues to grow between higher-income households and low- to medium-income households. But if we value equity, we can easily flip this around.

With a different financing approach, for example, offering loans tied to the property assessment rather than the individuals, some of the barriers can be removed. The United States goes a step further, with an executive order that directs the government to spend at least 40 per cent of its sustainability investments on disadvantaged communities. These investments include clean energy, energy efficiency, clean transit, affordable and sustainable housing, training and workforce deployment, and development of critical clean water infrastructure.

The status quo in waiting

While we may not be the original colonizers, we have benefitted from and reinforced – directly or indirectly – the legal, social, and economic structures that continually oppress and exploit Indigenous peoples and commodify lands. WE ARE CAPITALISM

These structures are also feeding the climate crisis and other social crises.

Solutions that are developed within these structures, by these structures, but do not disrupt the structures will not help us.

I have always felt that the close-knit social fabric of P.E.I. and the creativity of Islanders allow us to punch well above our weight, time and time again. I am optimistic that we can be the status quo in waiting.

 

B.C. to ban mink farms, citing concerns of new COVID-19 variants

Concerns have arisen the virus that causes COVID-19 could mutate in the creatures and spread back to the human population.

about 24 hours ago By: Stefan Labbé

A silver mink in a cage. : Photo: Getty Images

B.C. is set to phase out mink farms, citing concerns the virus that causes COVID-19 could mutate in the creatures and spread back to the human population.

To date, three of the nine mink farms across the province have faced outbreaks among animals and farm workers. In July, that led the provincial government to place a moratorium on any new mink farms and cap the expansion of the animals on the farms.

On Friday (Nov. 5), it took one step further and moved to phase out the industry by 2025.

"This decision follows the recommendations of public health officials and infectious disease experts about managing the threat of the virus for workers at the farms and the broader public," said B.C. Agriculture, Food and Fisheries Minister Lana Popham.

BC Mink Producers Association president Joseph Williams told Glacier Media he and the rest of the industry were told their mink farms would be phased out an hour before the province announced the decision.

“Obviously, this is very emotional for us,” he said. “Our livelihoods have just been taken away.”

Williams says his farm in Langley, Williams Fur Farming Ltd., has been in the family since 1991. Today, he runs it with five other family members. Together, Williams, along with the other eight mink farms in the province are now organizing to figure out how they will respond.

“We don’t accept it and we’re looking into what we can do,” he said. “This isn’t based off science. This is an anti-fur agenda.” 

B.C. officials denied that their decision had anything to do with animal rights. Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said data from the BC Centre for Disease Control led to concerns the animals would act as a reservoir for the SAR-CoV-2 virus to mutate.

Henry said public health officials have not seen a variant of concern arise in the B.C. mink population, but other viruses have been documented to pass from the animals into humans in other countries.

Last year, both Dutch and Danish authorities culled their countries’ entire farmed mink populations after SAR-CoV-2 was found to have mutated, passing from the animals to humans. 

Since then, there has been a wider push in several countries, including the United States, to ban mink farming.

"Some of those viruses that spread to humans were variants of concern," said Jan Hajek, an infectious disease specialist at Vancouver General Hospital and clinical assistant professor of medicine at UBC.

"It wasn’t such a terrible mutation, but the idea was this could happen."

Mink isn’t the only non-human species that can catch COVID-19. Ferrets and cats — including several tigers and lions at a zoo in New York City — have tested positive; mink, however, present a greater risk to human health, said Henry. 

"The really important factor is the numbers you have in the small space together," she said. "When this virus gets into a population and spreads, replicates in large numbers, that’s when mutations arise."

Those mutations can give an advantage to a virus, as seen with the Delta variant when an explosion of transmission in India allowed the virus to mutate in the human population. 

Public health officials say they’re worried the Delta variant could get passed back and forth between the mink population and even vaccinated people. 

Another concern, said Henry, is that the government has found escaped mink on and close to farms, raising concerns they would pass it to wild species like deer or even cats and dogs.

Throughout the pandemic, Henry said staff from public health, WorkSafeBC and the Ministry of Agriculture have been faced with an "intense amount of work" to inspect, test and ensure biosecurity measures are in place on mink farms.

B.C.’s nine mink farms are home to roughly 318,000 mink and provide jobs to about 200 workers. That includes families that work their own farms and temporary foreign workers employed on a seasonal basis. 

Minister Popham said the decision to eliminate mink farming in the province had nothing to do with ongoing calls from animal rights advocates to ban the practice. 

She said farms will have access to insurance programs and the government will help them to transition to other industries with support provided through its AgriStability program.

Because the mink industry usually kills the animals near the end of the year, both Henry and Popham said mink farmers will be able to sell pelts from all the existing animals. 

The province says it will place a permanent ban on live mink farming by April 2023, with all operations ceasing by 2025. Popham could not provide a number on how much the phase-out would cost.

"We don’t know what [farm owners] are going to want to do with their future, but we’re going to be there along the way," she said.  

Henry added that some mink used for breeding can be kept until 2023, but that they must be sold out of province. That provision has infectious disease expert Hajek concerned. 

"I’d worry they’d just transition to Alberta or move," he said, noting the spread of COVID-19 does not respect provincial or international borders. 

The BC SPCA has called for a ban on mink farms in the province for some time. Despite the province pinning the decision on public health, animal rights activists are hailing the move as a victory. 

"I’m ecstatic," said animal rights lawyer Victoria Shroff. "There’s been pressure on the government to question the industry… This industry has no place in society anymore. 

"I think it’s something we need to follow through for all fur farming in Canada."

Miller 'dumfounded' appeal dropped over Catholic Church's residential school payments

OTTAWA — Newly named Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller says he wants to get to the bottom of why Ottawa abandoned its appeal of a ruling releasing the Catholic Church from its settlement obligations to residential school survivors.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

"I am as puzzled as everyone," he told The Canadian Press in a recent, wide-ranging interview."

"I don't know what there is to do yet."

The ruling, handed down by a Saskatchewan judge in July 2015, found a deal had been struck between the federal government and a corporation of Catholic entities. That deal released the church groups from their remaining obligations within the $79-million worth of payments and in-kind services owed to survivors under the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement, approved in 2006.

That included, for example, a "best efforts" fundraising campaign to generate $25 million, for which court only heard the groups raised around $3 million since the agreement took effect in 2007.

Today, the efforts made by Catholic bodies to relieve itself of responsibilities under the historic arrangement face renewed scrutiny as First Nations searching former residential school sites confirm the discovery of what are believed to be hundreds of unmarked graves of Indigenous children forced to attend them.

Thousands told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada that they had been neglected, starved, and both physically and sexually abused at the church-run, government-funded institutions.

Several questions have been raised around why survivors didn't receive more compensation from the Catholic Church, including why the federal government discontinued its appeal filed not long after the 2015 decision came down.

"I question why that refusal to appeal occurred," Miller said.

"As everyone, I'm dumbfounded by it. End of the day the whole point was about compensation."

At the heart of the legal ruling was a dispute between a government lawyer and counsel for the Catholic entities about whether they had agreed to let the groups walk away from all obligations outlined in the settlement in exchange for $1.2 million, or only resolved a more specific part of those obligations.

The disagreement occurred as they went back-and-forth communicating details of the arrangement. It ultimately fell to the court to resolve the issue, with Catholic entities contending they had a deal covering the entire settlement and Ottawa asserting that wasn't true.

After the federal government lost its case, it filed a notice to appeal in August 2015. Overshadowing the matter at the time was a federal election campaign consuming the country, which ended that October with the former Conservative government falling to current Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

By November, a government lawyer submitted another document to Saskatchewan's Appeal Court. This time, it contained a single sentence saying it was abandoning the appeal.

Miller, who was then a rookie MP from Quebec not yet invited into cabinet, said he hasn't seen the final agreement releasing the Catholic bodies from their obligations, but wants to have a look.

"I absolutely do want to see it. I want to get to the bottom of it," he said.

Miller enters the Crowns-Indigenous Relations office after critics and First Nations leaders called for former minister Carolyn Bennett to be dumped.

She was criticized both for a text she sent to Indigenous, then Independent MP Jody Wilson-Raybould which the former justice minister labelled as racist, as well as not doing enough to advance the department's mandate of building a new nation-to-nation relationship with Indigenous communities.

Hours after being sworn into his new role, Miller said last week that land was at the centre of that relationship, and it was time to "give land back."

"It's sort of unfair to have piecemeal examples of which particular parcel could be returned," he said, outlining how his department must work alongside other federal ministries, like defence, to find ways for lands to be bought back.

"It needs to sit squarely in people's minds that the relationship that has become broken with Indigenous Peoples did start with land, and it will be solved by returning land."

The Liberals' commitment to reconciliation has been tested over the past six months, not only by the discovery of unmarked graves, but also its ongoing court battle around compensating First Nations children who lived on-reserve without adequately funded child and family services or were separated from their families through foster care.

More tension arose after Trudeau traveled to Tofino, B.C., to spend time with his family on Sept. 30, the country's first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The stated purpose of the new statutory holiday is to honour residential school survivors through taking time to reflect and attending in-person commemorations.

Trudeau has said travelling that day was a mistake, and has since visited B.C.'s Tkemlups te Secwépemc nation after not responding to their initial invitation to do so on Sept. 30.

Asked what the Prime Minister's trip did to the government's process of trying to build trust with First Nations, Miller said it "doesn't help."

"I think the Prime Minister would be the first to recognize that."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2021

Stephanie Taylor, The Canadian Press

PEYTON PLACE
Alberta agriculture minister quits cabinet amid concerns about drinking

EDMONTON — An Alberta cabinet minister has quit, citing concerns over his conduct and drinking, and Premier Jason Kenney is acknowledging he attended one after-hours office get-together.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

"This morning, I offered Premier Jason Kenney my resignation as Minister of Agriculture and Forestry and he has accepted," Devin Dreeshen said in a short statement Friday. "I accept that my personal conduct with regards to alcohol has become an issue for the government as a whole.

"I deeply regret that this is the case but have decided that it is best for both myself and the province to resign my position and focus on my personal health and wellness."

Kenney said he has tabbed Nate Horner, associate minister in charge of rural economic development, to take over Dreeshen's duties. Horner is the legislative member for Drumheller-Stettler.

Dreeshen remains legislature member for Innisfail-Sylvan Lake.

The issue of Dreeshen's drinking surfaced last week in a lawsuit filed by a former senior government staffer, who once had a romantic relationship with him.

In a statement of claim, Ariella Kimmel alleges she encountered Dreeshen and others heavily intoxicated in a legislature office last fall.

The document says Kimmel expressed concern about how much Dreeshen was drinking and encouraged him to stop, which she alleges led to Dreeshen publicly berating her until she was in tears and a bystander intervened.

Kimmel, who was chief of staff to Jobs Minister Doug Schweitzer, said she was wrongly fired soon after by the premier's office when she pressed for redress on Dreeshen's behaviour. She said she had also asked that something be done after one of her staff was allegedly sexually harassed by a senior official at another after-hours office get-together.

The allegations have not been proven in court.

Kenney, asked if he had ever attended a gathering held by Dreeshen, said: "I think, yes, on one occasion when he was hosting investors in the lumber industry, the forestry industry, who are looking at about a $200-million investment in northern Alberta.

"I think there was one or two drinks at a social evening gathering in his office that I attended, and that's all I can recall."

Kenney added: "I don’t object to members of the legislature socializing, having a social drink every now and then. Political life is a very social activity.

"But people should be mature and responsible in terms of consuming alcohol, especially in any kind of a workplace environment. We expect all members to demonstrate maturity and responsibility and, of course, respect for others."

Kenney's office has said Kimmel's firing was unrelated to the sexual harassment issue.

Opposition NDP critic Kathleen Ganley said the government, as an employer, has an obligation to provide a safe working environment, particularly one free of harassment.

"They have obviously failed to do that," she said.

"With respect to Minister Dreeshen, I hope that he is able to get the help that he needs to deal with his health issues."

Dreeshen's resignation was another blow to Kenney, whose popularity numbers have plummeted in recent months, mainly over his handling of the COVID-19 crisis. There has been discontent with him in the United Conservative caucus and two members are openly calling for him to resign.

In response, Kenney has agreed to move up a party review of his leadership to this spring.

He is also facing a renewed challenge from a rival whom he defeated in the 2017 race to become leader of the UCP.

Brian Jean announced this week that he will seek the UCP nomination for the vacant seat of Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche, where he lives.

The seat opened in September when UCP member Laila Goodridge became an MP by winning the federal riding of Fort McMurray-Cold Lake for the Conservative party.

Jean, a former MP and one-time leader of the now defunct Alberta Wildrose Party, has promised to run on a platform to unseat Kenney. Jean has said the premier’s performance has put the UCP on the road to ruin in the 2023 election.

Kenney must call a byelection by mid-February and said he welcomes all entrants.

"We hope to have a competitive nomination there," Kenney said Friday.

He said he would sign Jean’s nomination papers if UCP constituency members chose him as their candidate.

"I would endorse whoever the members choose," he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2021.

Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press

Climate emergency declaration to be Gondek's first motion as mayor


Mayor Jyoti Gondek is making good on her promise for Calgary to join other cities in declaring a climate emergency.

© Provided by Calgary Herald Mayor Jyoti Gondek speaks with the media outside Calgary Council Chamber on Monday, November 1, 2021.

The newly elected mayor’s notice of motion is on Tuesday’s agenda for the first meeting of council’s new executive committee. If the committee gives the proposal technical approval, it will be up for debate at the first regular council meeting on Nov. 15.

The city’s current climate resilience strategy aims for Calgary’s emissions to be 80 per cent lower than the 2005 levels by 2050, a target that many have said falls short . Gondek’s motion specifies that in addition to declaring a climate emergency, the City of Calgary environmental plan would be updated to aim for net-zero emissions by 2050. That’s the worldwide target to stop adding heat-trapping carbon emissions to the atmosphere and limit global warming to 1.5 C , therefore averting even more catastrophic environmental impacts.

Gondek tells economic outlook event that Calgary must lead 'in a world of transition'

Gondek’s motion outlines how the need to address climate change is clear, considering Alberta has seen several of the costliest natural disasters in the country over the past five years.

“Amongst large and mid-sized Canadian cities, Calgary is one of the few without a climate emergency declaration, compromising our city’s ability to compete for global capital and talent.”

City councils in Ottawa, Vancouver, Toronto and Edmonton — among many others — have voted in recent years to declare climate emergencies. But after Edmonton made the move in 2019, there was little motivation from Calgary city councillors to do the same.

City officials fielded internal inquiries about such a declaration from at least one council member, but some former councillors pointed out the city already has a climate resilience strategy, adding they worried about straying outside the city’s mandate or potentially being “overly dramatic.”

At the time, when Coun. Sean Chu was asked whether there was interest in declaring a climate emergency, he said, “Over my dead body.”

Now that council has almost entirely turned over, and with Gondek making the issue one of her first priorities as mayor, the conversation in city hall may look very different.

The motion calls for planning and budgeting across city departments to pursue emissions reductions and opportunities to lower climate risk. Civic partner organizations and city wholly owned subsidiaries would also be required to align with the net-zero by 2050 goal, and the city would advocate for funding from other levels of government to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate risk from natural disasters driven by climate change.

Former Calgary Emergency Management Agency chief Tom Sampson said in 2019 he was uncertain about the utility of declaring a climate emergency, but said if the city ever made the move, there should be a clear sense of its purpose. CEMA has identified climate change as a significant risk to the city, and it’s a factor in major disasters like the 2013 floods.

Gondek has spoken about the climate emergency declaration numerous times since last month’s municipal vote, from election night to her address at the Calgary Economic Development annual economic outlook event.

A few days after the election, Gondek said the move is about more than making a symbolic statement.

“Symbolism doesn’t get you results,” she said, adding she wants to send a clear message about Calgary’s pursuit of innovation and technology that supports responsible and sustainable energy production.

“I have been elected to make sure our city receives the capital it deserves. That’s how you go about getting it: by taking these things seriously.”

NOT A CAREER A JOB, POORLY PAID
Private cleaning companies are turning down business and canceling regular customers because they don't have enough staff

gdean@insider.com (Grace Dean) 10 hrs ago

© Provided by Business Insider Cleaning companies say the labor shortage means they can clean fewer homes. Getty Images

Cleaning companies told Insider they're turning down business because they can't find enough staff.

A Florida MaidPro franchisee said two of her long-term employees had left to work at Amazon.

The cleaning industry has a reputation for low wages and poor benefits.

Residential cleaning companies say they're having to turn down business and reschedule or even cancel regular customers because they can't find enough staff.

"Every morning we have to decide who will be cleaned and who will not be cleaned," Jonathan Bergstein, owner of Maid to Sparkle, said.

Record numbers of Americans have been quitting their jobs in search of better working conditions - and the cleaning industry, known for its low wages and lack of benefits, is no exception.

At Maid to Sparkle, a small residential cleaning service in Richmond, Virginia, the workforce has roughly halved and many applicants aren't turning up to job interviews, Bergstein said.

He said that the company was cleaning a third fewer houses than pre-pandemic, causing its gross profit to drop by between $1,000 and $2,000 each week.

Insider also spoke to Andrea Ponce, Michelle Reed-Spitzer, and Kathryn Boyce, all MaidPro franchisees in Florida, who all said they'd had to cancel and reschedule both new and existing customers. This comes as demand is set to boom during the holiday season.

Ponce said that that more than half of her workers left during the pandemic, and that she'd simply stopped marketing to new clients "because we could not service our current customers, much less new customers. We just didn't have the personnel."

Boyce said that she had used her company's client marketing budget to advertise for more staff instead. Two of her long-term employees had left to work at Amazon, she said.

Boyce added that her company was missing out on between $10,000 and $20,000 in revenue because of its lack of staff.

Reed-Spitzer said her September revenues were down 29% year-over-year. She said she had 51 cleaning staff, down from around 85 pre-pandemic.

The business owners seemed unsure what was causing their labor shortages, but suggested that some workers had left because of childcare or to swap industries.

"I don't know why they're not working," Reed-Spitzer said.

Ponce said that she was now at full staffing levels again, which she attributed to two things - raising starting pay to $14 an hour in May, up from $11 pre-pandemic, and Florida cutting off the $300 weekly supplemental unemployment benefits in June. Raising her prices by between 5% and 10% to fund the higher wages hadn't deterred customers, she said.

But elsewhere in Florida it's a different story. Reed-Spitzer and Boyce said they were still struggling to hire, even after their MaidPro franchises hiked up wages and the state ended extra unemployment benefits.

It was the same for Bergstein in Virginia, too.

"We thought once the federal unemployment benefits expired in September things would lighten up, but that does not seem to be the case," Bergstein said. He added that he hadn't mandated coronavirus vaccines in case it made staff quit.

Bergstein that big wage hikes were trickier for a small company like Maid to Sparkle to afford.

He said that the company was "going above and beyond" what it paid staff in the past, with starting wages reaching $12 an hour and $300 hiring bonuses, but that it couldn't offer benefits like a 401K or paid maternity leave.

"It would eat into our bottom line," Bergstein said. "We're trying everything we possibly can, but there's also a limit as to what a small business can offer ... There's a fine line between getting employees and making enough profit to cover all your expenses."

BLUE H2 MADE FROM NAT GAS
Alberta government unveils road map with goal of becoming hydrogen export superpower

EDMONTON — The Alberta government has released its road map to reach a goal of becoming a world leader in hydrogen exports by the end of the decade.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Premier Jason Kenney says Alberta is well-positioned with its existing energy infrastructure to become a global supplier of choice for hydrogen.

And he calls it a “game changer” in the climate change fight, given that hydrogen emits no greenhouse gases when burned.

He says the global hydrogen market is expected to become worth up to $2.5 trillion within the next 30 years.

The plan calls for catching up on clean hydrogen technologies in the short term before moving to growth and commercialization in the long term.

Alberta is already the largest hydrogen producer in Canada at 2.4 million tonnes per year.

Dale Nally, the associate minister for natural gas and electricity, compares the hydrogen revolution to the breakthrough energy boom brought on by the oilsands.

“Hydrogen can absolutely be a game changer for our province on many levels,” Nally told a news conference Friday.

“We have the natural advantages to make hydrogen that is both clean and affordable.”

Along with export potential, the report identifies four leading domestic markets for clean hydrogen, which is hydrogen produced with minimal greenhouse gas emissions.

They include home and business heating, power generation, transportation and hydrogen for industrial use.

Opposition NDP critic Kathleen Ganley says the United Conservative government's plan builds on proposals from the former NDP government but lacks concrete goals, objectives and details.

“This strategy lacks detail and thoughtfulness that would be required to actually attract investment,” she said.

“It sets targets, but it doesn’t actually provide a pathway to achieve those targets.

“It doesn’t even give a commitment to how much investment they are willing to contribute at the provincial level.”

The government said the plan will be revisited in 2025.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2021.

Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press

 

Setting the table for hydrogen economy to grow

S&P PLATTS. Aug 05, 2021

From the raft of hydrogen projects unfolding in the Middle East and around the world, the importance of infrastructure readiness is becoming clear: setting the table for the hydrogen economy through development of ports, shipping lanes and storage will be critical in the months and years ahead.

The Middle East is rich in sunlight and has ample access to natural gas, which makes clean hydrogen and its derivatives such as ammonia potentially cost competitive compared with conventional fuels, in a decarbonization landscape. Opportunities exist to export either into Europe through the Suez Canal or into Asia.

Scaling up of both production and consumption of hydrogen is increasingly seen as a vital part of the achieving global decarbonization. Evidence of that scaling on the production side is seen in several key projects of Middle East origins, which are already looking at commercializing hydrogen, including the UAE’s recently announced $1 billion green ammonia facility in Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi, or KIZAD. The project has access to Khalifa Port, the main export hub of Abu Dhabi, and will start production in the second quarter of 2024 with exports targeted mainly to Europe and the US.

A second $1 billion green ammonia project at KIZAD, a unit of state-owned Abu Dhabi Ports, would be powered by a 2 GW solar power plant. The plant would supply ships using ammonia as a bunker fuel and for export via gas carriers.

Partnerships, including offtake agreements, will power these developments, such as the cooperation agreement reached with German utility Uniper to secure green ammonia from Oman’s Hyport Duqm renewable hydrogen project. The project will be built in the Arabian seaport of Duqm in Oman, and will work well with the company’s global hydrogen strategy, Uniper said.

Other end-users, such as Japan’s largest refiner ENEOS, see the Middle East as a region with some of the world’s lowest levelized costs of electricity, which gives producers within the region an advantage and offers the operators of these new sites the potential to deliver cost-competitive hydrogen or its derivatives, such as green ammonia, to Europe and Asia.

As large projects are announced and developed, port developers will have to examine where they have the biggest bottlenecks to allow production of clean hydrogen from renewable sources or where they have the capacity to add carbon capture and storage.

Conversion of gas shipping lines for H2, ammonia

With production on the way, cooperation agreements are being drawn up with end-users. Companies such as Italy’s Eni aim to develop renewable and low-carbon hydrogen in Egypt using depleted gas fields to store CO2 produced from conventional hydrogen production. The agreement allows Eni to work with their suppliers to investigate potential local demand for hydrogen, as well as explore export opportunities.

Shipping from the Middle East to Europe and Asia takes advantage of existing supply lines for natural gas and LNG—via the Suez Canal into Europe and around to Asia.

From the customer’s perspective, deciding whether to buy domestic or imported hydrogen will largely depend on production and transportation costs, including terminal and other fees. Project developers must weigh the cost of producing decarbonized hydrogen or ammonia domestically against the cost of producing it with cheap electricity in the Middle East plus transportation costs.

In Japan, S&P Global Platts launched calculated cost of production assessments Feb. 3, 2020. The costs are based on fixed values such as capital costs and plant efficiency along with daily variable inputs, including gas and electricity.

The Platts cost of production prices show that the cost of producing hydrogen conventionally through a Steam Methane Reforming unit without carbon capture and sequestration averaged $2.61/kg since the assessments were launched.

In comparison, producing hydrogen through electrolysis averaged $7.24/kg. This difference between the two production routes is largely driven by a surge in electricity costs at times of peak consumption during winter, which drove up the cost of production via electrolysis.

On an MMBtu basis, hydrogen production costs are far more expensive than spot shipments of LNG delivered into the JKTC (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China) region. Platts JKM LNG prices averaged $6.86/MMBtu since Feb. 3, 2020. Electrolytic hydrogen production costs minus transportation and storage averaged roughly eight times that amount over the same period and conventional hydrogen around three times higher than delivered LNG.

However, while shippers might be focused on costs, end-users could be focused on how many tons of CO2/kg H2 are saved. Pressure continues to mount on industry and governments to reduce carbon emissions amid rising challenges of climate change.

The World Energy Council’s Hydrogen on the Horizon: Ready, Almost Set, Go? report released July 27 also stresses the need to move beyond traditional supply-centric energy perspectives to focus more on the demand-side and the role of consumers, given their potential for disruptive innovation.

Better understanding of hydrogen demand has proved particularly challenging in the early stages of its development, the report said.

In the early stages of the development of the hydrogen market in the Middle East, this chicken-and-egg question around the costs of decarbonization will need to be resolved. It is likely that cooperation between industry and government will be an essential part of finding a solution to developing the necessary infrastructure. However, as investment decisions come under closer scrutiny, transparency around current and future hydrogen pricing will also become increasingly important.

A version of this article was first published on Zawya.com on Aug. 2, 2021

America's deadly synthetic opioid epidemic is being driven by free market capitalism
insider@insider.com (Paul Constant) 

 A supervisor in recovery uses a fentanyl strip to test for drugs in the urine of a fellow resident at a halfway house in Huntington, West Virginia in 2019. 

Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis/Getty Images

Paul Constant is a writer at Civic Ventures and cohost of the "Pitchfork Economics" podcast.

He and cohost David Goldstein recently spoke with journalist Sam Quinones about his new book on synthetic opiates.

"Certain corporations behave like drug traffickers, and drug traffickers behave like corporations," said Quinones.

If you asked me to name the best journalists working in the country today, Sam Quinones would be in the top five. His meticulously researched book "Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic" helped draw attention to Purdue Pharma and the super-wealthy Sackler family's role in creating the opioid crisis that has overwhelmed America for most of the 21st century.

This week, Quinones released a new book that sounds the alarm on synthetic opiates, which potentially represent an even greater risk to America than the opioid crisis. Quinones joined David Goldstein and me on the "Pitchfork Economics" podcast to discuss that book, "The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth."

According to Quinones, the question of who profits from the spread of meth and synthetic opioids like fentanyl isn't as clear-cut as it was in his previous book. "Certainly there's an enormous population of people in Mexico that are profiting from it," he said. Producers get the chemicals to manufacture synthetic drugs from China and then they make the drugs in Mexico.

It's a synthetic-drug gold rush, "very much kind of a wild west," Quinones continued, with multiple competing drug-makers forcing the price of meth and fentanyl down in a ferocious competition. "It's like a constant glut economy down there right now," he said. "That's why you're seeing prices so low over the last few years, and why meth has come to areas that never ever had it all across the country."

Goldstein interjected to say that the system Quinones is describing "sounds to me like free market capitalism."

"That's absolutely what it is," Quinones confirmed. "The underworld is the most imitative, and at times the most innovative, fast-moving part of our economy."

When one producer found an affordable way to mix their drugs, for instance, everyone followed: "Pretty soon everybody is mixing these powders, one of which is extraordinarily deadly to human beings, in a Magic Bullet blender that you could buy for $29.95 at Target," Quinones said.

For the last five years, law enforcement officials have been raiding drug manufacturing facilities only to find production lines of dozens of Magic Bullet blenders bought at local Bed, Bath, and Beyond stores. The problem is, Quinones said, Magic Bullets "are uniformly bad at mixing powders, and that's why we got a lot of those cluster deaths early on," with nearly two hundred overdoses happening in a matter of days in places like Cincinnati and West Virginia.

"Absolutely, it's all part of unfettered, free market capitalism," Quinones said. "We live in a time when certain corporations behave like drug traffickers, and drug traffickers behave like corporations."

From sugary sodas to processed foods to social media and video games, "we are bombarded by legal addictive products from a whole array of corporations we can all probably name," Quinones said, and then illegal drug manufacturers are learning from those addictive behaviors and adapting their systems accordingly.

"Purdue and the Sacklers are small potatoes, almost, in this larger story of all these ways in which companies prod our brains to use their products, to buy them constantly," Quinones said.

In his book, Quinones offers a variety of reforms to the criminal justice system that in pilot programs have already shown great success in getting people off addictive substances and back into society. Keeping people struggling with addiction out of jail and in healthy rehabilitation programs is vital, as is establishing programs that help those who have already been imprisoned re-enter society on a positive footing.

But the first step, he says, is in acknowledging that addiction isn't a personal failure - it's a systemic one. That's why Quinones called his new book "The Least of Us." "We're all as vulnerable and as strong as the least of us - that grocery store clerk who may not have health insurance but still comes to work in the middle of a pandemic, who all of a sudden we discover is an essential worker but who doesn't have any safety net to speak of at all."

 Wisconsin Solves Labor Shortage With…Child Labor!

International Sustainability Standards: Levelling the Disclosure Playing Field


Thu, November 4, 2021

“A vital step to consolidate the patchwork of voluntary guidance around climate change disclosures into one single set of norms”

Northampton, MA --News Direct-- Workiva


By Andromeda Wood

All eyes are on COP26. At the highest possible level, world leaders are discussing how best to tackle climate change and hold each other accountable for their efforts to reduce global warming, writes Andromeda Wood, VP of Regulatory Strategy, .

But underneath the global discourse, there are equally critical discussions going on about where impact can be made at a grassroots level. One announcement with the potential to mobilise private finance everywhere in order to help reach climate goals is the imminent creation of a new International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).

Swapping patchwork policies for global standards

For some time, there has been widespread acceptance of the need for sustainability to be integrated into accounting and reporting systems. This aims to enhance business decision-making and accountability as well as stakeholder trust.

Given the plethora of ESG measurement methods, frameworks and standards that exist, the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation consulted in September 2020 on whether there was a need for globally accepted sustainability reporting standards. The answer was a resounding yes.

Now, the composition of this new International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) is due to be announced at COP26. It marks a vital step to consolidate the patchwork of voluntary guidance around climate change disclosures into one single set of norms globally for all companies reporting the impact of climate change on their business – eventually extending to ESG factors beyond the environment too. And this will act as a catalyst for the mobilisation of private finance globally.

The ability to understand, compare, and contrast a company’s sustainability performance with that of others (and to determine how that company’s performance relates to its value creation), is crucial for investors and other participants in the world’s capital markets. Without this transparency, it becomes much harder to make business and investment decisions which align with, for example, the climate goals set out in the Paris Agreement.

A number of existing frameworks, such as the well-established work of the Task Force on Climate related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), will form the building blocks of these international standards. Yet while the ISSB plans to initially focus its efforts on climate-related reporting – due to the urgent need for better information about climate-related matters – its longer-term plans involve meeting investors’ information needs on other ESG matters too.

The ability to understand, compare, and contrast a company’s sustainability performance with that of others (and to determine how that company’s performance relates to its value creation), is crucial for investors and other participants in the world’s capital markets. Without this transparency, it becomes much harder to make business and investment decisions which align with, for example, the climate goals set out in the Paris Agreement.

A number of existing frameworks, such as the well-established work of the Task Force on Climate related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), will form the building blocks of these international standards. Yet while the ISSB plans to initially focus its efforts on climate-related reporting – due to the urgent need for better information about climate-related matters – its longer-term plans involve meeting investors’ information needs on other ESG matters too.

The dangers of a lack of standardised reporting

Meeting the Paris Agreement objective to limit global temperature increases will require a whole economy transition. In fact, thinking beyond climate change, achieving any of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will demand changes not just within the UN member states but at an organisational and individual level everywhere. Every company, bank, insurer, and investor will have to do their part – adjusting business models, developing credible plans for the transition, implementing them, and measuring their progress against ESG criteria.

While many companies have the appetite to transform their business processes for the greater good, it can be difficult to know where to start. The first challenge for any ESG exercise is navigating today’s deluge of measurement frameworks, guidance, protocols, rankings, indices, and standards. Faced with this chaos, it’s all too easy for organisations to waste valuable time or end up with “analysis paralysis” when trying to decide on a first step.

Beyond causing delay or even inaction, the profusion of reporting frameworks and standards do not enable consistent and comparable disclosures. This is a major issue. Investors and stakeholders do not have clear visibility into how a company’s performance against ESG criteria compares with competitors, or even tracks against the company’s initial ESG promises. This makes it difficult to hold businesses to account or choose where best to invest.

From the company’s perspective, a lack of ‘apples to apples’ comparison can also leave them in the dark. Without the ability to set up a peer comparison, the board may feel the business is reporting healthy progress against ESG criteria, even if that is not the case.

The ISSB: a global level playing field

Companies require consistent, transparent, accurate reporting to both meet their regulatory obligations, and to get the true picture of their progress towards ESG objectives. After all, what gets measured gets managed.

With the ISSB in place, no longer will companies judge their progress differently, but instead they can move towards consistent, comparable reporting. With this transparency, businesses can more accurately adjust their business models and drive credible, SDG-aligned corporate sustainability strategies, while investors will have a clearer view into where investments will help unleash the potential of corporate finance for the realization of the SDGs.

In short, taking a more forward-looking, data-driven and standardised approach can enable greater scrutiny and comparability. The ISSB should level the playing field – acting as a yardstick of each business’ commitment to long-term, sustainable value creation.

Mobilising private finance

The reality is that real progress against the climate change goals won’t happen fast enough if organisations rely on public financing alone. Yes, it plays an important role, but to reach net zero, private companies will need to come together and state that they will spend money where it matters, link their own goals to sustainability and make real changes to their business decision-making.

The way in which businesses operate has been transformed by climate change, nature loss, social unrest, and the changing expectations of the role of corporations. Companies are under more pressure to act responsibly.

This pressure is coming from many directions, from regulation to stakeholder demand. Mandates must be met; vendors want to be doing business with companies that are prioritising ESG; customers want to buy from socially responsible businesses; and the best talent wants to work for organisations that act as a force for good. All of these forces are acting on companies, and making ESG an increasing priority.

In response to both this increasing pressure from stakeholders and the need for urgent action on climate change, global baseline sustainability standards are crucial. By creating more comparability, the ISSB will make it easier for businesses to show how they are supporting the goals of COP26 and help the decision-making required to ensure private finance becomes a real catalyst for change.

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from Workiva on 3blmedia.com