Thursday, March 25, 2021

This Is Where Canada Dumps Tons Of Its Toxic Waste, Tailings Ponds—And Racism

Raina Delisle
CHATELAINE

LONG READ FEATURE 
© Provided by Chatelaine A photo of the site of a new road being cut into Wet’suwet’en territory by Coastal GasLink in October 2019.

The site of a new road being cut into Wet’suwet’en territory by Coastal GasLink in October 2019. (Photo: Amber Bracken)

This story was produced in collaboration with The Narwhal, a non-profit online magazine that publishes in-depth and investigative journalism about Canada’s natural world.

On a snowy November day, Indigenous land defenders head out to hunt on Wet’suwet’en territory in northwest B.C. with hopes of catching a moose to feed their families and Elders. They still haven’t secured any moose meat this season and are starting to stress.

Soon after the small group arrives at their traditional hunting blind, which looks like a tree house, workers from TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline project move in on them and threaten to call the RCMP. It’s fight or flight.

The construction of the controversial natural gas pipeline across northern B.C. is opposed by Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs but supported by all 20 elected band councils along the route. It has led to a series of tense confrontations on the territory over the past few years. In February 2020, just over a month after the B.C. Supreme Court granted Coastal GasLink an injunction against land defenders blocking work on the pipeline, heavily armed RCMP raided several camps and arrested 28 people. This sparked the Shut Down Canada movement, which brought Canada’s rail system to a near standstill, just before the COVID-19 pandemic really shut things down.

Despite ongoing opposition, the pipeline pushes ahead, even during the pandemic. At the hunting blind last November, workers were tasked with clearing the trees—and the people—along the pipeline right-of-way.

“I’d like you to leave the area,” an unmasked worker in a bright-yellow jacket and white hard hat says as he approaches a young female land defender.

“Don’t get close to me. There’s a pandemic!” she yells, filming the incident. “Step back away from me!”

“We have the authority to work here,” he continues.

“You don’t have any authority,” the woman interjects. “I can feel your breath right now. This is a pandemic. Step away from me!”

As the pandemic gripped Canada in spring 2020, provinces and territories announced that only “essential services” that preserve life, health and basic societal functioning were allowed to continue operations. Across the country, the majority of industrial projects got the green light. Since then, there have been repeated calls from health care professionals, Indigenous leaders and environmental groups to shut many of them down.

Such critics point out that industrial projects bring hundreds—even thousands—of transient workers from across Canada into remote communities, where they typically live in shared accommodations. Meanwhile, Indigenous workers on such projects often go home to their families.

This has all put Indigenous people at higher risk of catching COVID-19 when they’re already more vulnerable to the disease due to long-standing health inequities, including disproportionate exposure to polluting industries and lack of access to health care. And, as predicted, there have been several outbreaks at industrial work sites across Canada, including at two Coastal GasLink camps. Some have spread to the Indigenous communities nearby.

“It’s like purposefully infecting our people with this disease that’s killing off our most sacred knowledge holders and language keepers,” says Sleydo’ (Molly Wickham). A supporting chief in the Cas Yikh House of the Gidimt’en Clan, one of five Wet’suwet’en clans, she has just attended the memorial of an Elder, one of several to have died from COVID. “We’re never going to be able to recover from those losses. I’m so angry because it was 100 percent preventable.”

Critics say allowing industrial projects to press on with full knowledge of how Indigenous people could be affected is exposing and exacerbating environmental racism. That’s what it’s called when governments and corporations disproportionately locate polluting industries and hazardous sites in Indigenous, Black and other racialized communities—particularly those that lack the economic, political or social clout to fight back.

Environmental racism has long exposed people to a wide range of health-harming pollutants that have been linked to serious illnesses, including cancer, lung disease and heart conditions. Those ailments, in turn, make people more vulnerable to COVID-19.

Now, as industrial projects continue on during the pandemic, COVID-19 itself can be seen as yet another pollutant being circulated by industry. And experts warn we’ll see more pandemics if we continue to exploit our natural environment.

© Provided by Chatelaine
Sleydo’ (Molly Wickham) lives in a cabin deep in the wilderness. The goal is to live a traditional lifestyle and protect Wet’suwet’en territory from industrial development. (Photo: Amber Bracken)

Canada’s toxic divide

Sleydo’, her husband and their three kids, aged one, five and 10, live in a cabin the couple built deep in the wilderness on Wet’suwet’en territory. Over the past decade, several land defenders have reoccupied the land and built traditional infrastructure, a healing centre and camps. The goal is to live a traditional lifestyle and protect the territory from industrial development and the people from environmental racism.

“We are the land and the land is us,” says Sleydo’, who is the spokesperson for the Gidimt’en Checkpoint, one of the camps that was raided by the RCMP. “And one is not well without the other.”

In 2019, Baskut Tuncak, then the United Nations special rapporteur on toxics and human rights, documented an epidemic of environmental racism after a visit here. “There exists a pattern in Canada whereby marginalized groups, and Indigenous peoples in particular, find themselves on the wrong side of a toxic divide, subject to conditions that would not be acceptable in respect of other groups in Canada,” he wrote in his report.

There are plenty of examples. In Alberta, oil sands development has encroached on two dozen Indigenous communities­—home to about 23,000 people—since extraction began in the 1960s. In Ontario, more than 60 refineries and chemical plants have surrounded Aamjiwnaang First Nation since the 1940s, creating what’s known as “Chemical Valley,” one of the most polluted places in the country. In Nova Scotia, politicians plunked a dump in the heart of Shelburne’s Black community in the 1940s; it closed in 2016, but people are still worried about its lingering effects. And there have long been concerns that the pollution from these projects is causing serious health issues and killing people: Environmental racism also involves failing to meaningfully consult communities about such developments in the first place and then taking a long time to address issues that arise.
© Provided by Chatelaine A map comparing the location of
 Nova Scotia’s industrial health hazards and its Mi’kmaq and African Nova Scotian communities

Compare the location of Nova Scotia’s industrial health hazards and its Mi’kmaq and African Nova Scotian communities, and a clear pattern emerges. (Source: The ENRICH Project. Map: Carol Linnitt)

In 2012, Ingrid Waldron founded the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities and Community Health (ENRICH) Project to study environmental racism in Nova Scotia. In 2016, ENRICH created an interactive map of the province’s waste disposal sites, toxic industries and thermal generating stations juxtaposed with Mi’kmaq and African Nova Scotian communities. A clear pattern emerged.

A sociologist and associate professor in the faculty of health at Dalhousie University, Waldron says the map shows “the audacity of government to select certain communities to put something that’s not desirable.”

Waldron eventually turned her research into a book, There’s Something in the Water: Environmental Racism in Indigenous and Black Communities, and then a 2019 Netflix documentary co-directed by Elliot Page. She says environmental racism is rooted in colonial policies that allowed settlers to extract resources from Indigenous lands without permission—policies that continue to inform government decision making today.

“Environmental racism is a visible manifestation of environmental policy,” says Waldron. “And environmental policies are created by members of the elite, mostly white people, who hold perceptions about who matters and who does not matter.”

Sleydo’ agrees. “Environmental racism is based on this idea that we aren’t human enough to deserve a clean environment. Nobody cares if we get sick and die, because we’re just Indigenous people. And industry and government are banking on that.”

The 22,000-square-kilometre Wet’suwet’en territory—which is about four times the size of Prince Edward Island—has already been irreparably damaged by industrial projects. In the 1950s, Alcan dammed a river, leading some caribou to drown as they attempted to cross new bodies of water en route to their usual habitats. In the 1980s, toxic tailings from a silver mine seeped into a lake, decimating salmon populations. And throughout the decades, logging companies have scarred the landscape with clearcuts, destroying moose habitat. “Elders that have come out to the territory don’t even recognize it anymore,” Sleydo’ says.

Now, construction on the 670-kilometre Coastal GasLink pipeline—which is set to slice through old-growth forests, wetlands, rivers and habitat for endangered caribou—threatens Wet’suwet’en people’s food and water sources, their cultural sites and their ways of life.

Sleydo’ says work on Coastal GasLink is not only racist, it’s also illegal: The Wet’suwet’en never ceded their territory to the federal government. The Hereditary Chiefs have jurisdiction over it, according to Wet’suwet’en law. This is backed by the 1997 Supreme Court of Canada Delgamuukw decision, which stated that provinces can’t extinguish Aboriginal title (which includes rights to natural resources) and that oral history is legitimate evidence of land claims. According to the Hereditary Chiefs, the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline is a violation of their law and, as such, they’ve issued the company an eviction notice.

It’s also a violation of international human rights law, according to watchdogs. In December 2019, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called on Canada to halt work on the Coastal GasLink pipeline—as well as two other industrial projects in B.C.—until it receives free, prior and informed consent from Indigenous peoples. It also urged the country to stop removing Wet’suwet’en people from their lands and start removing police and security forces.

Yet while the pandemic offered the perfect opportunity to hit pause on these projects, they continue on with the blessing of the government and, in the case of Coastal GasLink, the help of the RCMP.

© Provided by Chatelaine A photo of Sleydo' (Molly Wickham)
Freda Huson has lived at the Unist’ot’en Healing Camp on Wet’suwet’en territory for over a decade. Here, she sings in ceremony as RCMP approach to enforce a court-ordered injunction against those blocking work on the Coastal GasLink pipeline in February 2020. (Photo: Amber Bracken)


“The economy cannot come before Indigenous lives”


At a media conference soon after B.C.’s essential services list was released, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry explained why industrial projects made the cut. “I think it’s important to recognize you can’t just abandon a large mine or industrial site. That’s not safe; it’s not safe for the community or for the environment, as well,” she said.

Three weeks after initial COVID-19 safety guidelines for industrial work camps were released, a new public health order began requiring specific safety protocols. It didn’t limit the number of workers, although many projects, including Coastal GasLink, voluntarily reduced their workforces—at least for a while. The number of workers at Coastal GasLink camps went from about 1,130 at the end of February 2020 to 130 at the end of March. However, the number of workers on industrial projects fluctuates seasonally, and Coastal GasLink described the reduction as a “scheduled ramp-down.” By November, in the midst of the second wave of the pandemic, there were more than 4,000 people working on the pipeline.

While governments said it was safe for work to continue on industrial projects, some said, paradoxically, that environmental monitoring was unsafe. The Alberta Energy Regulator gave the entire oil-and-gas industry a months-long break from a long list of environmental activities, such as most ground- and surface-water monitoring and almost all wildlife monitoring. At a media conference, Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley called the move “a cynical and exploitative use of this pandemic” and also tweeted, “So, people can get haircuts in most of the province right now, but we can’t test the water supply for cancer-causing agents?”

Critics questioned why industrial projects that don’t provide any essential services to Canadians (and never will) got the go-ahead. The Coastal GasLink pipeline, for instance, is being built to transport natural gas across the province to be exported overseas. LNG Canada, the export facility, is also under construction.

To many, the risks seemed unnecessary. Just over a week after B.C. declared a state of emergency, David Bowering, former chief medical health officer of northern B.C.’s health authority, released an open letter to Henry calling work camps “landlocked cruise ships” and “COVID-19 incubators” and urging her to shut them down.

Other letters followed: Front-line health care workers, Indigenous leaders and environmental groups all asked Henry to put people before profit. One of those letters was from Sleydo’ and her fellow female chiefs. “The economy cannot come before Indigenous lives,” they wrote.

Despite the pleas, Henry didn’t take any action until the end of December, after a series of cases, clusters and outbreaks at work sites in northern B.C., some of which spread to Indigenous communities. She then issued a public health order outlining a gradual return of the workforce to the sites following the Christmas holidays. Between November and January, there were outbreaks totalling 56 cases at Coastal GasLink sites and 72 cases at LNG Canada sites. (Henry was not available for an interview.)

Sleydo’ says Coastal GasLink workers and RCMP officers aren’t always following basic safety protocols, such as wearing masks and maintaining a distance of two metres from others. This can be seen in several incidents captured on camera and posted to social media, in which workers and officers approach land defenders who are hunting, holding ceremonies and patrolling the territory.

“They’re taking advantage of a global pandemic to further destroy our lands and put our people at risk, which I think is really disgusting,” Sleydo’ says.

Coastal GasLink did not reply to several interview requests. In an email, an RCMP spokesperson said officers should be wearing masks when interacting with the public.
© Provided by Chatelaine A photo of Yellowknife doctor Courtney Howard.
After having a baby, Yellowknife doctor Courtney Howard began looking for research into the local health impacts of the oil sands. She didn’t find much. (Photo: Pat Kane)


The health effects of environmental racism


After Yellowknife emergency room doctor Courtney Howard had her first daughter in 2011, she spent a lot of time breastfeeding and staring out her window at Great Slave Lake, which is downstream from the oil sands. She decided to do some research into how they affected community health. She figured she’d find a ton of peer-reviewed studies, but she turned up zero.

“The lack of research into the local health impacts of the oil sands is astonishing,” says Howard, who is past-president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. “It is so far beyond what any of us should consider acceptable as members of this country.”

Unfortunately, Howard says, that’s the norm for research into what effects resource-extraction industries might have on the health of those who live nearby. She can think of a few reasons for the data gap. Communities that are “out of sight, out of mind” may not attract the attention of researchers. Remote communities often lack continuity of care, so health care providers may not notice things like a cluster of a rare type of cancer. And they may face environmental racism. “When the communities raise the alarm, it is not always acted upon the way that it should be,” Howard says.

What is known about the local health effects of heavy industry isn’t good. For instance, a 2019 study in the journal Cancer found the rate of acute myeloid leukemia in one area of Sarnia, Ont., near Chemical Valley, is three times higher than the national average and suggested pollution from local oil refineries and chemical plants may be to blame.

And while there’s a lack of studies on communities affected by environmental racism, there’s ample research on the impacts of the pollutants they’re exposed to. Waldron recently combed through decades of research to pull together a report on the health effects of toxins found in waste sites, thermal generating stations, and pulp and paper mills. She found that the toxins—heavy metals, volatile organic compounds, fine particulate matter and mobile gases—are associated with a long list of health issues, including cancer, birth defects and damage to most of the major organs.

Air pollution has also been well studied and has been linked to heart, breathing and lung conditions. It contributes to an estimated 14,600 premature deaths in Canada every year. Emerging research from around the world also suggests that chronic exposure to air pollution makes people more likely to catch COVID and die from the disease.

Environmental racism can also lead to stress and mental illness, which can, in turn, result in physical harm. Waldron says many chronic diseases that were once thought to be primarily genetic, like diabetes, are largely influenced by structural inequities such as environmental racism. “We know now that racism gets under your skin and actually changes your biology,” she says.

In Canada, COVID-19 data on race is not being systematically collected at the federal level, but some provinces, cities and health authorities have started to crunch the numbers. In the United States, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows Black and Indigenous people are about five times as likely to be hospitalized for the disease as white people. Environmental racism is but one reason for the chasm.

Research shows that racialized people in Canada have worse health outcomes and higher rates of chronic diseases due to a number of social and economic factors, including poverty, food insecurity and unstable housing. They’re also more vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such as extreme weather and new diseases.

“There’s overlapping systemic discrimination that leads to overlapping health impacts,” Howard says. “It would be difficult to tease out what the exact impact of environmental racism would be—and that’s a frequent excuse we hear from industry.”

Another layer of discrimination is in the health care system: When Indigenous people do get sick, whether it be with COVID or another illness, they often face racism when trying to get treatment. In September 2020, Atikamekw mom of seven Joyce Echaquan died in a Quebec hospital after she livestreamed staff saying she was “stupid,” “only good for sex” and “better off dead” as she cried out in pain. In B.C., just two months later, an independent investigation found that 84 percent of Indigenous people have experienced racism in the province’s health care system.

“Every way you look, it’s like, ‘You don’t matter, we don’t care about your life, we don’t care about your land, you have no rights. You don’t even have the right to live,’ ” Sleydo’ says. “And then, when you do get sick, you’re put into this system that’s racist against you and you’re expected to somehow survive. And people aren’t surviving.”

© Provided by Chatelaine A photo of Dalhousie University professor Ingrid Waldron.
Professor Ingrid Waldron: Government environmental policies reveal “who matters and who does not matter.” (Photo: Darren Calabrese)

Tackling environmental racism

In February 2020, in the midst of the Shut Down Canada movement, Teck Resources withdrew its regulatory application for its controversial Frontier oil sands project in northern Alberta. When explaining why in a letter to Environment and Climate Change Canada, Teck president and CEO Don Lindsay said Canada needs to reconcile resource development, climate change and Indigenous rights.


While Lindsay said the decision had nothing to do with a “vocal minority” opposed to the project, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and then federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer were quick to blame opponents, who were happy to take credit. The group Indigenous Climate Action, which campaigned against the project, called it “a win for Indigenous rights, sovereignty and the climate,” while adding that the fight against environmental racism is far from over.

For years, affected communities, environmental advocates and other groups have been pushing the federal government to update the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, including amending it to legislate the right to a healthy environment. More than 150 countries have already done so, and it’s one of 87 recommendations that came out of an extensive review of the act in 2016 and 2017 (many of which are also echoed in the UN report that called out Canada’s environmental racism). While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has asked the ministers of health and environment to work on strengthening the act, it could be yet another issue sidelined by the pandemic.

© Provided by Chatelaine A photo of Nova Scotia MP Lenore Zann.
Nova Scotia MP Lenore Zann has introduced a bill to study and solve
 environmental racism. (Photo: The Canadian Press/Andrew Vaughan)

Meanwhile, Nova Scotia Liberal MP Lenore Zann has introduced a private member’s bill calling for a national strategy to redress environmental racism. The bill, which Waldron collaborated on, suggests collecting data on the problem as a prelude to amending laws, engaging communities in policy development and compensating individuals and communities for harms they’ve suffered.

“Grassroots warriors across the country have been fighting this fight for so long, but they were ignored,” Zann says. “It’s time that we listen and that we act.”

Waldron first approached Zann for political support in 2014, when Zann was a provincial MLA. The politician suggested developing a private member’s bill to redress environmental racism. She cautioned Waldron that private member’s bills rarely pass but said it would generate a ton of political debate, media attention and public awareness, which is exactly what happened.

“It got people talking about the issue, which was our main goal,” Zann says. “Environmental racism is like a wound. You have to bring it out into the light of day, dig out whatever is in there and clean it in order for it to heal.”

When Zann moved to federal politics, her first order of business was working on a national bill. The continuation of the bill’s second reading is scheduled for March 23. Zann says she’s “cautiously optimistic” the bill will move to the next stage.

Recent action to address environmental racism in the U.S. may give Zann’s bill the boost it needs. In January, President Joe Biden signed an executive order directing federal agencies to develop programs and policies “to address the disproportionate health, environmental, economic and climate impacts on disadvantaged communities.”

The spiritual and physical strength to keep fighting


A month after the incident at the hunting blind, on Sleydo’s son’s 10th birthday, her husband burst into the cabin and told his family to get ready: He’d caught a moose. They loaded into the car and radioed people at the Gidimt’en Checkpoint, giving them the coordinates and asking them to meet there without explaining why.

After the family arrived, two carloads from camp showed up frantically, expecting an incident with Coastal GasLink workers or the RCMP. Then they saw the moose. After a collective moment of relief and excitement, they paid their respects to the animal through ceremony, with the kids putting medicines in its eyes and ears, and then harvested it.

Back at the cabin, the family had an outdoor fire, cooked up the organs and played games. Sleydo’ felt a deep sense of satisfaction, security and reciprocity.

“I always tell the kids, ‘If you take care of the land, the animals know that and they give their lives up for you,’ ” she says. “I really believe that when we eat animals from the territory, it gives us the spiritual and physical strength to keep fighting.”

And the fight to protect Wet’suwet’en lives—during the pandemic and beyond—is far from over.


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GREEN FARMING
NFU report imagines possible future of farming in Canada

The National Farmers Union (NFU) released a new report this month, titled Imagine If.... A Vision of a Near-Zero-Emission Farm and Food System for Canada. It details strategies for tackling climate change and meeting global emission targets, presenting what farming could look like in Canada.


"What follows is neither prediction nor projection, but rather a picture of what could be—one possible future among many," reads the report, which is a follow up to their 2019 discussion paper, Tackling the Farm Crisis and the Climate Crisis.

Bess Legault of the Northern Co-Hort in Fort St. John says the report aims to support family farms across Canada, including farmers in the Peace region who have strong roots with the NFU.

“NFU is a family farm focused organization that tries to listen to our members and have a voice, so the average farmer is represented when policy decisions are made on the federal level,” said Legault. "We truly believe there is an ton of capacity for climate change solutions to happen on our agricultural landscape."

Legault says the report highlights a need to focus on soil health to increase biodiversity, produce nutrient dense crops and livestock, and reduce the need for synthetic nitrogen fertilizer.

The report also recommends the adoption of electric tractors to meet climate goals, and a return to traditional farming to reduce carbon footprint.

"It's a vision for the future, but it's based in real time climate science, and soil carbon capture science," Legault. "We do have very progressive producers up here."

Federal legislation aims to curb 30% of all fertilizer use by 2030.

"That's nine growing seasons from now. Knowing that we have many producers of all scales and modalities in the region, a lot of them are very dependent on synthetic fertilizer inputs for their production," said Legault. "We just want to have the federal government step up and support them with knowledge transfer and researchers."

The Peace region is home to the majority of B.C.'s prairie land, says Legault, with the potential to regionally process and store crops, creating food security for northern residents.

Despite the challenges, Legault feels Peace farmers have some distinct advantages, such as regenerative farming, precision agriculture, no-till production, rotational grazing, winter bale grazing, cocktail forages, and cover crop rotations.

“I do strongly believe that these producers need to be supported as they explore finding a carbon balance on their farms because ecology is complex,” said Legault. “We cannot expect our farmers to carry a depth of knowledge in topics that researchers spend decades exploring on top of being skilled agricultural producers specific to their farm or ranch.”

She added that increasing net incomes is also a goal of the report, as family farmers have experienced severe income drops over the last several decades, taking on more land and debt to stay in business.

tsummer@ahnfsj.ca

Tom Summer, Local Journalism Initiative, Alaska Highway News


America's most powerful oil lobby is changing its tune on a carbon tax

By Matt Egan, CNN Business 

The oil industry's most powerful lobbying group announced Thursday that for the first time it will support setting a price on carbon, a significant shift that underlines intensifying pressure on Washington and business to tackle the climate crisis
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© Kena Betancur/VIEWpress/Corbis/Getty Images Vehicles move along the The New Jersey Turnpike Way while a Factory emits smoke on November 17, 2017 in Carteret, New Jersey. The United States is still contributing to the global greenhouse gas emissions as the Trump Administration has dismantled the U.S. foreign-policy to reduce carbon pollution. Political divisions in the United States over climate change have spilled over to the outside world as seen at the COP23 United Nations Climate Change Conference that ends today in Bonn, Germany. (Photo by Kena Betancur/VIEWpress/Corbis via Getty Images)

But the devil will clearly be in the details. The American Petroleum Institute laid out a series of principles that must be met before the century-old group endorses a price on carbon.

The announcement is part of a broader framework unveiled by the API that includes calling for direct regulation of methane, expanded emissions transparency and stepped-up federal spending on energy research.

Advocates of carbon pricing say it is crucial to fighting the climate crisis, as it would accelerate efforts to curb planet-warming emissions and force investors, companies and individuals to bear the cost of pollution.

After years of debate, the API's support for "market-based" carbon pricing is part of an evolution by the group, which is among the most influential trade associations in Washington. The API opposed the last serious effort to impose a price on carbon in 2010, but ExxonMobil, Chevron and other industry leaders have since publicly backed carbon pricing.

"This is a pretty big deal for the industry. There is broad recognition that obviously the country has to do something on climate change," API CEO Mike Sommers told CNN Business in an interview. "We want to be a willing partner with the Biden administration and others in Congress who are serious about taking on this challenge."

The API's reversal on carbon pricing reflects a desire to help shape Washington's response to the climate crisis and set its own terms on how to protect the industry.

"It's a triage response. They are going on the offensive to propose something they can live with rather than be threatened by something that could have greater damage," said Ed Mills, Washington policy analyst at Raymond James. "If you're not at the table, you're on the menu."



Carbon tax is not a slam dunk


Notably, the API is not announcing blanket support for any form of carbon pricing, nor is it supporting a specific proposal.

Instead, the group said it will "advocate for sensible legislation that prices carbon across all economic sectors while avoiding regulatory duplication." The API laid out a series of principles that must be met before lending any support, including that US companies wouldn't be left at a competitive disadvantage globally. Sommers said both a carbon tax and a cap-and-trade program broadly fits within such a framework.

"This shouldn't be punitive against the oil-and-gas industry. We are an emitter, but we are not the only emitter," Sommers said.

Sommers said the API "absolutely" could withhold support for carbon pricing legislation that may emerge from Congress.

"It's not as if we would support any carbon tax or cap-and-trade program that is slapped onto a piece of legislation," Sommers said.

The lobby stressed that oil and gas aren't going away. The International Energy Agency expects both to be leading fuel sources even in 2040 if every nation meets the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.

Carbon pricing must meet the "dual challenge of continued economic growth while addressing the risks of climate change," the API framework said.




Yellen is strong supporter of carbon pricing


The API's shift on carbon pricing comes after the Business Roundtable, an influential CEO group, changed its tune on the issue last September to say it supports market-based carbon pricing to fight climate change. Exxon, the largest US oil company, previously announced plans in 2018 to financially support a carbon tax.

In January, France's Total quit the API in part because of the lobbying group's stance on carbon pricing.

There is growing momentum — and appetite — in Washington to take bold steps to address the climate crisis.

President Joe Biden has announced a goal of slashing net greenhouse gas emissions to zero in electricity by 2035 — and the entire economy by 2050.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is a strong supporter of carbon pricing. In a written response to questions from lawmakers, Yellen said in January that Biden supports "an enforcement mechanism that requires polluters to bear the full cost" of the carbon they are emitting.

"We cannot solve the climate crisis without effective carbon pricing," Yellen wrote.

UPDATED
Canadian Supreme Court says the federal carbon price is constitutional

OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada says the federal carbon price is entirely constitutional

The split decision upholds a pivotal part of the Liberal climate-change plan, accounting for at least one-third of the emissions Canada aims to cut over the next decade.

Chief Justice Richard Wagner says in the written ruling that climate change is a real danger and evidence shows a price on pollution is a critical element in addressing it.

“It is a threat of the highest order to the country, and indeed to the world,” Wagner wrote for six of the nine judges

Given that, said Wagner, Canada’s evidence that this is a matter of national concern, is sound.

“The undisputed existence of a threat to the future of humanity cannot be ignored,” he wrote.


Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson issued an immediate statement lauding the decision as "a win for the millions of Canadians who believe we must build a prosperous economy that fights climate change."

"The question is whether this decision will put an end to the efforts of Conservative politicians fighting climate action in court, and whether they will join Canadians in fighting climate change."


The onus was on the federal government to prove to the court that this is an issue of national concern that would allow it to take control of the matter rather than leaving it to the provinces.

The majority of the court found the federal government did that, noting all parties, including the provinces challenging the law, agreed climate change is “an existential challenge.”


“This context, on its own, provides some assurance that in the case at bar, Canada is not seeking to invoke the national concern doctrine too lightly," Wagner wrote.


Wagner also wrote provinces can’t set minimum national standards on their own and if even one province fails to reduce its emissions, that could have an inordinate impact on other provinces.


He noted that the three provinces that challenged the ruling also withdrew from the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change. That agreement, signed in 2016, agreed to set a national carbon price.

"When provinces that are collectively responsible for more than two-thirds of Canada's total GHG emissions opt out of a cooperative scheme, this illustrates the stark limitations of a non-binding cooperative approach," he wrote.

That left the remaining provinces, responsible for only one-third of Canada's total emissions, "vulnerable to the consequences of the lion's share of the emissions being generated by the non-participating provinces."

He also said climate change in Canada is having a disproportionate impact on the Canadian Arctic, coastal communities and Indigenous territories.

Justice Suzanne Côté dissented in part, agreeing climate change is an issue of national concern but taking issue with the power the federal cabinet gave itself to adjust the law's scope, including which fuels the price would apply to.

Justices Malcolm Rowe and Russell Brown dissented with the entire decision, arguing Canada had not shown that climate change reaches the level of national concern. They objected that the precedent the majority's decision sets would allow Ottawa to set minimum national standards in all areas of provincial jurisdiction.

Wagner pushed back, finding there is a limited scope for national standards that is unchanged by this ruling.



Canada implemented the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act in 2019, setting a minimum price on carbon emissions in provinces that don’t have equivalent provincial prices, a law that was challenged by Saskatchewan, Ontario and Alberta.

The program applies a price per tonne to fuel purchases by individuals and businesses with lower emissions, and on part of the actual emissions produced by entities with large emissions, such as pipelines, manufacturing plants and coal-fired power plants.

The federal fuel-input charge applies in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, while the federal charge for big emitters currently covers only Manitoba and Prince Edward Island.

All other provinces have systems that meet the federal threshold.

The territories adopted the federal fuel charge.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 25, 2021.

A quick look at some of the reaction to the Supreme Court carbon tax decision


OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Thursday the federal carbon price is entirely constitutional. Here's a quick look at some of the reaction to the decision:© Provided by The Canadian Press

"We welcome the Supreme Court's ruling, but Canadians are still worried about the climate crisis and the lack of meaningful action from the Liberal government. They’re being asked to do their part, and they want to know it is making a real difference."

— Laurel Collins, NDP critic for Environment and Climate Change

———

“Small firms simply cannot afford a further increase in their overall tax burden, especially as many remain in full lockdown or subject to significant COVID-19 related restrictions.”

— Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business

———

“The fact remains that this tax represents higher costs for millions of Canadian families and businesses, causing significant economic pain in exchange for no environmental gain."

— Aaron Wudrick, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

BULLSHIT 80% OF CANADIANS WOULD GET A REBATE 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 25, 2021.

The Canadian Press

Canada's top court upholds pillar of Trudeau's plan to fight climate change

By Nia Williams and Steve Scherer 
© Reuters/MARK BLINCH FILE PHOTO: Canada's Prime Minister Trudeau speaks during a Liberal Climate Action Rally in Toronto

CALGARY, Alberta/OTTAWA (Reuters) -Canada's Supreme Court ruled in favour of the federal government's carbon pricing policy on Thursday, upholding a central pillar of Prime Minister Justin's Trudeau's climate plan and overriding opposition from some provinces.

The country's top court said climate change is a threat to the country as a whole and upheld the legality of the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, which had been challenged by the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario.

Carbon pricing, often called a carbon tax by opponents, is the lynchpin of the federal government's plan to ultimately reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Ottawa will steadily ramp up the price of carbon to C$170 ($135.08) a ton by 2030, from C$30 a ton currently.

Canada is the fourth-largest oil producer in the world and the fifth-largest greenhouse gas emitter on a per capita basis.


"Parliament has jurisdiction to enact this law as a matter of national concern," Chief Justice Richard Wagner wrote in the ruling. "All parties to this proceeding agree that climate change is an existential challenge. It is a threat of the highest order to the country, and indeed to the world."

Under the carbon pricing act, Ottawa can impose a federal levy on provinces that do not have an adequate carbon pricing system of their own. Opposing provinces argued this infringed on their jurisdiction, but the Supreme Court ruled federal intervention was justified.

The ruling was backed by six members of the nine-member court, with three dissenting opinions.

"This decision is a win for the millions of Canadians who believe we must build a prosperous economy that fights climate change," Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said in a statement.

Canada needs to cut emissions by 30% below 2005 levels by 2030 to fulfil its international climate commitments, which would involve slashing annual emissions to 511 megatons, compared with 729 megatons in 2018.

The Liberals unveiled a strengthened climate plan last year aimed at reducing emissions to 503 megatons.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said his government would unveil its own climate measures to avoid being subject to the "punitive and ineffective" federal carbon tax.

"Today's decision by the Supreme Court of Canada does not change our core conviction that the federal carbon tax is bad environmental policy, bad economic policy, and simply wrong," Moe said in a statement.

Ontario also released a statement outlining its own environment plan and Alberta did not immediately comment.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce (CCC) said the Supreme Court ruling provided policy certainty, but concerns remained about the competitiveness of Canadian businesses. "The issue is divisive for many Canadians," said Aaron Henry, a senior director at the CCC.
BULLSHIT

($1 = 1.2585 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Nia Williams; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Nick Zieminski)


Saskatchewan NDP respond to carbon tax defeat at Supreme Court




Ottawa – The governments of Saskatchewan, Ontario and Alberta suffered a defeat in their battle against the federal carbon tax on March 25 as the Supreme Court of Canada ruled 6-3 against their joint challenge. The ever-increasing carbon tax is the key initiative in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s fight against climate change. By 2030, that carbon tax is supposed to rise to $170 per tonne of CO2 equivalent, after having been introduced at $20 per tonne.

Saskatchewan’s Official Opposition New Democratic Party Leader Ryan Meili responded in an emailed statement. He said: “The Saskatchewan NDP caucus is focused on creating good jobs here in Saskatchewan, and prosperity for our province’s families and businesses. Today’s ruling means that Trudeau’s economy-wide carbon tax will continue to take more from the people of Saskatchewan than they get back, with people living in rural and remote areas being most affected. That’s not right.

“This economy-wide price on carbon is not something that Saskatchewan people, or the Saskatchewan NDP support. Scott Moe chose to maintain the Trudeau carbon tax for two whole years instead of trying to negotiate a better deal.

“With the decision reached today, Scott Moe and the Sask. Party government must act quickly to negotiate a better deal that protects Saskatchewan’s economy and gives working families a break, including:

· Exempts fuel used for grain drying

· Explores all options to limit costs for families

· Ensures rebates leave regular families with more money in their pockets than they pay in carbon tax”

The continued ratchetting up of the carbon tax is also an issue, according to Meili. He said, “The federal government must press pause on its plans to dramatically increase the carbon tax, especially while so many families across the country - not just in Saskatchewan - are struggling coming through the pandemic. Now is not the time to increase costs on working families.

“Justin Trudeau must also acknowledge that the carbon tax disproportionately affects the Saskatchewan economy. With that fact comes a responsibility on the federal government to make dedicated investments that will make a difference here including support for workers in our hard-hit industries and helping to create good sustainable jobs in renewable energy. Saskatchewan has many opportunities in biofuels, geothermal, solar and wind energy, but we need the federal support to kickstart these new industries.

“The people of Saskatchewan know climate change is real, and want to do their part to reduce emissions while creating good jobs for the future in wind, solar, and geothermal. It’s time for Justin Trudeau and Scott Moe to put wrangling aside and get to work - together - on real solutions across the board that will ensure good jobs and prosperity for all of us.”

Brian Zinchuk, Local Journalism Initiative reporter, Estevan Mercury

‘Simply wrong’: Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe reacts to Supreme Court carbon price ruling

Jonathan Guignard 

© Michael Bell / The Canadian Press On Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada gave the federal government the constitutional right to impose a carbon tax on provinces.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe says the province isn’t changing its stance on carbon pricing following Thursday’s decision by the Supreme Court of Canada to allow the federal government to impose it on provinces.

“The federal carbon tax is bad environmental policy, bad economic policy, and simply wrong,” Moe said in a statement Thursday.


“While the Supreme Court has determined that Prime Minister Trudeau has the legal right to impose a carbon tax, it doesn’t mean he should, and it doesn’t make the carbon tax any less punitive for Saskatchewan people.”


The federal carbon-tax-and-rebate program was introduced in 2018 and laid out a national framework for pricing carbon — one that applies to everyday consumers as well as industrial emitters.

Read more: Canada’s carbon price is constitutional, Supreme Court rules

The Supreme Court of Canada found that climate change poses a real, serious threat to the world and is serious enough to allow the federal government to step in.

The (Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act) is constitutional,” Chief Justice Richard Wagner wrote in the decision.

“Although this restriction may interfere with a province’s preferred balance between economic and environmental considerations, it is necessary to consider the interests that would be harmed — owing to irreversible consequences for the environment, for human health and safety, and for the economy — if Parliament were unable to constitutionally address the matter at a national level.”

Under the ruling, Ottawa would collect the carbon tax in Saskatchewan, then provide rebates to individual tax filers in the province.


Revenue Canada says the average household of four can expect about $1,000 in rebates for 2020.

Moe warns the decision has “far-reaching implications for federal intrusion into areas of provincial jurisdiction.”

“Saskatchewan will remain vigilant in defending our constitutional jurisdiction from further infringement from this federal government,” Moe said.

“Saskatchewan people have seen the federal carbon tax for what it is — a blunt, ineffective instrument that kills job, threatens the competitiveness of our industries, and penalizes essential, daily activities of families across our province.

“Our government will continue to make every effort to protect Saskatchewan families, workers and businesses from the negative consequences of the federal carbon tax.”

The Saskatchewan NDP shares similar feelings as the province, saying the carbon-tax-and-rebate program will hurt Saskatchewan people.

Read more: Farmers concerned criteria for federal carbon credits may leave them out

“(Thursday’s) ruling means that Trudeau’s economy-wide carbon tax will continue to take more from the people of Saskatchewan than they get back, with people living in rural and remote areas being most affected. That’s not right,” Ryan Meili, Saskatchewan NDP leader, said in a statement Thursday.

“This economy-wide price on carbon is not something that Saskatchewan people, or the Saskatchewan NDP support.”

Meili said Moe should have spent the past two years trying to negotiate a better deal with the federal government rather than fighting against it.

He would like Moe to begin negotiating a deal with Trudeau that would exempt fuel used for grain drying, explore all options to limit costs for families, and offer rebates to families to offset the cost of a carbon tax.

Read more: Is Canada’s carbon tax working? Experts, advocacy groups weigh in

“The people of Saskatchewan know climate change is real, and want to do their part to reduce emissions while creating good jobs for the future in wind, solar, and geothermal,” Meili said.

“It’s time for Justin Trudeau and Scott Moe to put wrangling aside and get to work - together - on real solutions across the board that will ensure good jobs and prosperity for all of us.”

The Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce also expressed its disappointment regarding Thursday’s ruling.

VIDEO
Supreme Court of Canada rules federal carbon levy is constitutional



“To be clear, the debate is not, and should not, be whether we need to transition to a lower carbon economy, but how to manage the process,” said Steve McLellan, Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce CEO in a statement Thursday.

“There is a better way forward, the federal government’s pan-Canadian approach to pollution pricing has not recognized the unique challenges present in Saskatchewan; putting undue hardship on our residents and businesses, it is unfortunate that they will continue this approach.”

Moe said he will outline measures the province will take in the months ahead to “protect Saskatchewan people” on Thursday, at the same time addressing climate change.

-With files from Rachel Gilmore
Ikea France on trial over claims it spied on staff, clients

VERSAILLES, France — Ikea’s French subsidiary and several of its former executives went on trial Monday over accusations that they illegally spied on employees and customers.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Trade unions reported the furniture and home goods company to French authorities in 2012, accusing it of collecting personal data by fraudulent means and the illicit disclosure of personal information.

The unions alleged that Ikea France paid to gain access to police files that had information about targeted individuals, particularly union activists and customers who were in disputes with Ikea.

The company fired four executives and changed internal policy after French prosecutors opened a criminal probe in 2012. But at Monday's trial in the Versailles court, lawyers for Ikea France denied any strategy of “generalized espionage."


An Ikea employee and CGT union activist, Hocine Redouane, said at Monday's trial that the company wrongly suspected him of being a bank robber because their investigation system found criminal records involving a bank robber with the same name.

“Such a system can easily slip into abuse,” Redouane said.

Another accusation alleged that Ikea France used unauthorized data to try to catch an employee who had claimed unemployment benefits but drove a Porsche. Another says the subsidiary investigated an employee’s criminal record to determine how the employee was able to own a BMW on a low income.

The former head of Ikea France’s risk management department, Jean-François Paris, acknowledged to French judges that 530,000 to 630,000 euros a year ($633,000 to $753,000) were earmarked for such investigations. Paris, who is among those accused, said his department was responsible for handling it.

Former Ikea France CEOs Jean-Louis Baillot and Stefan Vanoverbeke, former Chief Financial Officer Dariusz Rychert, store managers and police officers are also going on trial.

If convicted, the two ex-CEOs face sentences of up to 10 years in prison and fines of 750,000 euros. Ikea France faces a maximum penalty of 3.75 million euros. The trial is scheduled to last until April 2.

The company also faces potential damages from civil lawsuits filed by unions and 74 employees.

Anne-Solene Bouvier, lawyer for the employees, argued that the case is important for French society as a whole. “The right to privacy for employees should be sacred,” she said.

Ikea France, a subsidiary of Swedish furniture company Ikea, said Monday it has co-operated with French judicial authorities.

“Ikea France takes the protection of its employees’ and customers’ data very seriously,” the company said in a statement. It said it adopted compliance and training procedures to prevent illegal activity after the investigation was opened in 2012.

The lawyer for Ikea France, Emmanuel Daoud, said there was no poof of “a widespread system of spying.” The lawyer for the company’s former human resources director called the case “a fairy tale” invented by union activists.

In France, Ikea employs more than 10,000 people in 34 stores, an e-commerce site and a customer support centre.

___

Nicolas Vaux-Montagny reported from Lyon. Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.
Pope, citing pandemic effect, cuts pay for cardinals, others

VATICAN CITY — Trying to save jobs as the pandemic pummels Vatican revenues, Pope Francis has ordered pay cuts for cardinals and other clerics, as well as nuns, who work at the Holy See.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

In a decree published online Wednesday by the Vatican's official newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Francis said that starting in April cardinals' salaries will be reduced 10%. Superiors of the Holy See's various departments, who, with few exceptions, are clerics, will be hit by 8% cuts while lower-ranking priests and nuns will see 3% vanish from their paychecks.


In the decree he signed on Tuesday, the pope noted that the Holy See's finances have been marked by several years of deficit. Worsening those financial woes, the pope wrote, was the COVID-19 pandemic, “which has impacted negatively on all the sources of revenue of the Holy See and Vatican City State.”

The belt-tightening "has the aim of saving current job positions,'' Francis wrote.

Lower-ranking lay-workers at the Vatican aren't affected by the salary reductions, but their pay raises, due every two years, are being temporarily frozen under the austerity measures. The lowest-paid lay workers will still get raise, though.

Bans on tourism by many countries and other pandemic restrictions have severely reduced revenues at the Vatican Museums, which, with its Sistine Chapel, is a perennial money-maker for the Vatican,

The Museums opened for some weeks during the pandemic when the situation in Italy improved. But with tourists from the United States and some other countries banned from entering Italy, the museums' cavernous rooms were eerily uncrowded in the pandemic.

The Museums are currently closed and will stay closed at least through the upcoming Holy Week, which normally is one of Rome's heaviest periods for tourism.

Earlier this month, the Vatican said it has nearly used up its financial reserves from past donations to cover budget deficits over recent years. It has predicted a 50-million-euro ($60 million) deficit for this year.

Pandemic safety measures have seen many churches shuttered or limiting the number of faithful — many of whom leave monetary donations during services — who can enter.

The Vatican's economy minister has said that the dwindled Museums revenue, as well as a drop in what Catholics donate, would contribute to a projected 30% reduction in revenue this year.

The pay cuts also apply to several Vatican basilicas in Rome as well as to the Vicariate, or diocese of Rome, which is under the pope's direction.

Cardinals, other clerics and well as nuns in Rome generally don't have expenses most lay people have, like market-value rents or mortgages, utility and heating bills, since many reside in housing owned by the Vatican or religious orders.

Some cardinals have spacious, well-appointed apartments in historic palazzi in Rome. A cardinal on the Vatican staff could earn close to 5,000 euros (($6,000) monthly, according to those familiar with Holy See hierarchy.


In any case, Francis noted, the salary reductions won't apply to anyone who can document that the cuts will make it “impossible to meet fixed expenses related to their health conditions" or those of close relatives.
Primary teachers' union calls for strike in Paris as COVID-19 surge

PARIS (Reuters) - The main trade union representing French primary school teachers called on Thursday for a strike in Paris over what it says is the government's failure to protect staff and pupils from a third wave of coronavirus infections tearing through the country.

© Reuters/ERIC GAILLARD FILE PHOTO: Coronavirus disease
 (COVID-19) saliva testing in a primary school in Nice

The government has prided itself on keeping schools open during most of the epidemic, while some neighbouring countries have closed theirs for months at a time, but it is coming under mounting pressure to act as cases surge.

"The (education) minister can congratulate himself that schools have stayed open ... but at what price?!" the SNUipp-FSU said in a statement.

The strike would affect Paris and its outer areas, although no date has yet been set, the union said.

The call for a walkout reflects growing concern among many health workers and teachers that the government is not doing enough to slow the COVID-19 spread after President Emmanuel Macron's refusal so far this year to impose a third nationwide lockdown.

Closing schools would be an act of last resort, government spokesman Gabriel Attal said on Wednesday. Valerie Pecresse, who heads the Ile de France region encompassing Paris and its surrounds, has proposed bringing forward the April school holiday by two weeks.

The latest government data, published on March 19, showed 15,484 schoolchildren tested positive for coronavirus in the preceding week, or 0.13% of all pupils.

The Ile de France, which accounts for nearly a fifth of France's population and 30% of economic growth, is one of the hardest hit parts of France as the virus once again sweeps across Western Europe.

A nightly curfew is in place and restaurant, bars, museums and cinemas are closed across the country. Last week the government closed non-essential stores and limited people's movement in the Paris region and swathes of the north. It says more time is needed to see what impact the tighter curbs will have.

(Reporting by Richard Lough; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Huge ship still blocking Suez Canal like 'beached whale' leaves global trade in a jam

Yasmine Salam and Charlene Gubash and Olivier Fabre 

International efforts to dislodge the skyscraper-sized cargo ship blocking Egypt’s Suez Canal intensified but made little progress Thursday as the maritime traffic jam wreaked havoc on global trade.

© Provided by NBC News

Egyptian authorities said navigation was still “temporarily suspended” after the container got stuck sideways across the canal due to a severe dust storm and poor visibility.

That meant traffic remained at a standstill on a route that accounts for roughly 12 percent of global trade as the shipping saga passed the 48-hour mark.

A fleet of eight large tugboats were dispatched to refloat the jammed container vessel, the Suez Canal Authority said in a statement on Thursday.

Taiwanese shipping company Evergreen, which operates the stranded tanker, announced that two professional rescue teams from Japan and the Netherlands were now helping Egyptian authorities to create a more “effective plan.”

Meanwhile the technical manager of the vessel, Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, said it had “intensified efforts” to refloat the ship by sending “specialized suction dredgers” to the site after an attempt this morning failed.

“Another attempt will be made later today,” the statement added.

Tug boats struggle with giant container ship blocking Suez Canal

But experts said that the frenzied flotation efforts could take longer than many would hope.



Peter Berdowski, CEO of Dutch company Boskalis, one of the maritime service providers currently trying to free the ship, said the rescue mission was far from straight forward.

“It is like an enormous beached whale. It's an enormous weight on the sand,” he said, speaking to Dutch TV.

“We might have to work with a combination of reducing the weight by removing containers, oil and water from the ship, tug boats and dredging of sand.”

"We can't exclude it might take weeks, depending on the situation," he added.

“We have already seen a jump in the price of oil because of the tankers that are sitting at anchor in the Red Sea,” Laleh Khalili, a professor in international politics at Queen Mary University in London, told NBC News.

Even when rescue efforts are successful, “the backlog of ships could take a week or so to clear,” she added.

At least 150 other tankers have been waiting to pass through the narrow canal since the 400 meter long Ever Given ship got stuck sideways on Tuesday morning, running aground after gusting winds of 30 knots caused the vessel to deviate from its course.

The Suez Canal usually allows 50 cargo ships pass daily between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, providing a vital trade corridor between Europe and Asia.

Photos released by Suez authorities showed a digger removing earth and rock from the canal's bank and around the ship's bow

.
© Suez Canal Authority Image: Taiwan-owned MV Ever Given which is lodged sideways and impeding all traffic across the waterway of Egypt's Suez Canal (Suez Canal Authority / AFP - Getty Images)

“They would try to be removing anything that is easy to remove, but the location where they are stuck is not near a port, it's actually quite a distance away from anything,” Professor Jasper Graham-Jones, a mechanical marine engineer from Plymouth University told Sky News.

“This is where the clear option is lots and lots of tug boats and digging around the sides.”

(Sky News is owned by Comcast, the parent company of NBC News.)

Evergreen said it has “urged the shipowner to investigate” the source of the accident.

The ship's owners apologized on Thursday for the disruption the maritime traffic jam has caused.

“We sincerely regret that this accident has caused a great deal of concern to the ships sailing or scheduled to sail in the Suez Canal,” said the Japanese company Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd.

Nearly 19,000 ships with a net tonnage of 1.17 billion metric tons passed through the canal last year, according to the Suez Canal Authority.

Traffic jams are rare. In 2017 a Japanese container vessel blocked the canal but Egyptian authorities refloated the ship within hours.

"In the long term, this delay may force some re-thinking about ship sizes," said Khalili of Queen Mary University. "And if there are issues associated with who is going to take responsibility for the accident ... that may force a reckoning in shipping ownership structures."

Suez is still remembered for being at the heart of an international crisis in 1956 after Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nassar nationalized the canal, previously in British and French ownership. The move led to an invasion that resulted in humiliation for the western European powers.

Shipping losses mount from cargo vessel stuck in Suez Canal

$400 MILLION PER HOUR IN LOSES SAYS LLOYDS

© Provided by The Canadian Press

ISMAILIA, Egypt — Dredgers, tugboats and even a backhoe failed to free a giant cargo ship wedged in Egypt’s Suez Canal on Thursday as the number of stacked-up vessels unable to pass through the vital waterway climbed to 150 and losses to global shipping mounted.

The skyscraper-sized Ever Given, carrying cargo between Asia and Europe, ran aground Tuesday in the narrow, man-made canal dividing continental Africa from the Sinai Peninsula. Even with the aid of high tides, authorities have been unable to push the Panama-flagged container vessel aside, and they are looking for new ideas to free it.

In a sign of the turmoil the blockage has caused, the ship's Japanese owner even offered a written apology.

“We are determined to keep on working hard to resolve this situation as soon as possible,” Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd. said. “We would like to apologize to all parties affected by this incident, including the ships travelling and planning to travel through Suez Canal.”

As efforts to free it resumed at daylight Thursday, an Egyptian canal authority official said workers hoped to avoid offloading containers from the vessel as it would take days to do so and extend the closure. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn't authorized to talk to journalists.

So far, dredgers have tried to clear silt around the massive ship. Tug boats nudged the vessel alongside it, trying to gain momentum. From the shore, at least one backhoe dug into the canal's sandy banks, suggesting the bow of the ship had plowed into it. However, satellite photos taken Thursday by Planet Labs Inc. and analyzed by The Associated Press showed the vessel still stuck in the same location.

Lt. Gen. Osama Rabei, the head of the canal authority, said navigation through the waterway would remain halted until the Ever Given is refloated. A team from Boskalis, a Dutch firm specialized in salvaging, arrived at the canal Thursday, although one of its top officials warned removing the vessel could take “days to weeks."

A team from the Boskalis subsidiary SMIT "spent the day doing inspections and doing calculations to assess the state of the vessel and a plan on how to refloat the vessel,” spokesman Martijn Schuttevaer told the AP. He did not offer a time frame.

The Suez Canal Authority said one idea the team discussed was scraping the bottom of the canal around the ship.

Boskalis chairman Peter Berdowski on Wednesday described the ship as “a very heavy whale on the beach.”

“The ship, with the weight it now has, can’t really be pulled free. You can forget it,” he told the Dutch current affairs program “Nieuwsuur.”

Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, the company that manages the Ever Given, said its 25-member crew was safe and accounted for. Shoei Kisen Kaisha said all the crew came from India.

The ship had two pilots from Egypt's canal authority aboard the vessel to guide it when the grounding happened around 7:45 a.m. Tuesday, Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement said.

Canal service provider Leth Agencies said at least 150 ships were waiting for the Ever Given to be cleared, including vessels near Port Said on the Mediterranean Sea, Port Suez on the Red Sea and those already stuck in the canal system on Egypt's Great Bitter Lake.

Cargo ships already behind the Ever Given in the canal will be reversed south back to Port Suez to free the channel, Leth Agencies said. Authorities hope to do the same to the Ever Given when they can free it.

Evergreen Marine Corp., a major Taiwan-based shipping company that operates the ship, said the Ever Given had been overcome by strong winds as it entered the canal, something Egyptian officials earlier said as well. High winds and a sandstorm plagued the area Tuesday, with winds gusting to 50 kph (30 mph).

An initial report suggested the ship suffered a power blackout before the incident, something Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement denied.

“Initial investigations rule out any mechanical or engine failure as a cause of the grounding,” the company said.

In Japan, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato told reporters the Suez Canal is part of a crucial international sea lane, and that the Japanese government was gathering information and working with local authorities.

The closure could affect oil and gas shipments to Europe from the Mideast, which rely on the canal to avoid sailing around Africa. The price of international benchmark Brent crude stood at over $63 a barrel Thursday.

Overall, famed shipping journal Lloyd's List estimates each day the Suez Canal is closed disrupts over $9 billion worth of goods that should be passing through the waterway. A quarter of all Suez Canal traffic a day comes from container ships like the Ever Given, the journal said.

“Blocking something like the Suez Canal really sets in motion a number of dominos toppling each other over,” said Lars Jensen, chief executive of Denmark-based SeaIntelligence Consulting. “The effect is not only going to be the simple, immediate one with cargo being delayed over the next few weeks, but will actually have repercussions several months down the line for the supply chain.”

The Ever Given, built in 2018 with a length of nearly 400 metres (a quarter mile) and a width of 59 metres (193 feet), is among the largest cargo ships in the world. It can carry some 20,000 containers at a time. It previously had been at ports in China before heading toward Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

Opened in 1869, the Suez Canal provides a crucial link for oil, natural gas and cargo. It also remains one of Egypt’s top foreign currency earners. In 2015, the government of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi completed a major expansion of the canal, allowing it to accommodate the world’s largest vessels. However, the Ever Given ran aground south of that new portion of the canal.

The stranding Tuesday marks just the latest to affect mariners amid the pandemic. Hundreds of thousands have been stuck aboard vessels due to the pandemic. Meanwhile, demands on shipping have increased, adding to the pressure on tired sailors.

___

Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, Isabel DeBre in Dubai and Mike Corder at The Hague, Netherlands, contributed.

Jon Gambrell And Samy Magdy, The Associated Press
Colombia ordered to protect raped and tortured journalist

AFP 

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights on Wednesday ordered Colombia to immediately protect a journalist who has accused the state of complicity in her kidnapping, rape and torture two decades ago.

© Juan BARRETO Colombian journalist Jineth Bedoya claims to have suffered persecution and threats since her rape and torture in 2000

"This court considers there to be ... an extremely serious and urgent situation, with the view to suffering irreparable damage, to Jineth Bedoya Lima and (her mother) Luz Nelly Lima," said the court's judges.

The court -- an autonomous organ of the Organization of American States (OAS) based in Costa Rica -- is due to rule on Colombia's responsibility for the violence inflicted on World Press Freedom award-winning Bedoya, in 2000.

Now 47, Bedoya suffered a 16-hour ordeal after she was seized by right-wing paramilitaries from outside the La Modelo prison in Colombia's capital Bogota, where she was investigating an arms trafficking network.

She claims the state, including an "influential" police chief, was complicit in her abduction.

Bedoya says she has since suffered two decades of "persecution, intimidation and constant threats."

On Tuesday, the state apologized to Bedoya for failing to properly investigate those threats or a 1999 attack on her and her mother.

However, Camilo Gomez, the director of Colombia's National Agency for Legal Defense of the State, said the evidence was not "sufficient to demonstrate the participation of public agents" in the assault on Bedoya.

On Wednesday, the judges said the "adoption of provisional measures does not imply a decision on the foundation of the controversy ... nor does it conclude state responsibility" for the accusations made by Bedoya.

The two parties have until April 23 to present their final written arguments.

The court's decisions are definitive and unappealable.

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