Germany passes law aimed at reducing carbon emissions

In stark contract to Canada's inaction

BERLIN: The upper house of the German Parliament on Friday passed into law new measures aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions by agreeing to double the amount of power from renewable energy sources and changing methods for generating electricity.

Merkel, a conservative who has been in power since late 2005 and is a former environment minister, has made climate change a cornerstone of her domestic and foreign policy.

The law that passed Friday aims to increase the amount of power generated by renewable energy sources, including wind and solar power, to 30 percent of the renewable total by 2020, from 14 percent now. MORE

Cons working to undermine AIDS committment made at G8 summit in 2005

Over one million protests sent

Make Poverty History says, "We have reliable reports from people inside the negotiations that Canada is working hard to renege on promises made around AIDS treatment programs made at the G8 summit in 2005."

The Financial Times warns, "Leaders of the Group of Eight rich nations are set to backtrack on their landmark pledge at the Gleneagles summit in 2005 to increase development aid to Africa to $25bn a year. In a further retreat, the G8 is set to abandon its Gleneagles promise to provide universal access to Aids treatment and prevention by 2010. The pledge has been a benchmark around which health campaigners and others have been organising their work, especially in Africa."

Make Poverty History is urging Canadians to act now to change the contents of the draft communiqué. Send your wishes to join with over a million messages from citizens around the world, sent to G8 leaders from Make Poverty History and our allies. TAKE ACTION HERE

Alberta 'damaged' by lax environmental record: Dion

Dion in Calgary: Neither Harper or Ed Stelmach doing enough to fight climate change

CALGARY - Liberal Leader Stephane Dion threw down the gauntlet Saturday to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Alberta's premier on climate change, insisting Alberta's reputation has been tarnished by the Tory governments' laggard environmental policies.

Dion delivered an impassioned 25-minute speech to a few hundred Liberal supporters Saturday at the Calgary Zoo, where he laid out his Green Shift carbon tax plan - which would slap a levy on greenhouse-gas emissions and return the revenues in income and corporate tax cuts. MORE

RELATED: No climate deal expected at G-8: Baird Toronto Star

Saddam's uranium headed for Ontario processing plant

'Yellowcake' will be processed here and used for power generation

Canada is the new home to a massive stockpile of concentrated natural uranium from Iraq, the last major remnant of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program.

The 550 tonnes of “yellowcake,” the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment, was sold to Canadian uranium producer Cameco Corp. in a transaction the official described as worth “tens of millions of dollars.”

“Cameco has made it clear that this uranium will simply be integrated into their commercial processing stream at its refinery in Port Hope and I assume that this uranium still needs to be shipped from Montreal to Port Hope — if it hasn’t already been sent, not clear whether that’s going by land or by sea, could be either, or by air,” said Dave Martin, the energy co-ordinator for Greenpeace Canada. MORE

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Jordan wants to go nuclear

"Canada does not seem to learn.  It aided India in developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, and we know how that turned out.  And even with all the good will on everyone's part, we need to remember Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.  Are the safeguards in a less developed country like Jordan apt to be superior to what was in place in the United States and the Soviet Union? " MORE

Ontario: Zero-interest loans or rebates on approved renewable technologies for your home available (for some anyway)

Pilot program offers loans of up to $50,000

If you are serviced by Enersource Hydro Mississauga, Hydro One Networks or Hydro One Brampton, Mississauga, Caledon, or the following parts of York Region : King Township, East Gwillimbury, Georgina or Whitchurch-Stouffville, then you are eligible for Zero-Interest loans or rebates for SOLAR, WIND or GEOTHERMAL SYSTEMS.

The PowerHouse pilot program provides tools to help choose and finance your renewable energy installation. Installations must be completed by February 15, 2009 MORE

Can Dion sell his carbon shift? Can Campbell sell his carbon tax?

The debate continues but Conservative media-fed 'confusion' probably wont help.

In his blog, Garth Turner added some fire to the oil just as Stephane Dion arrived in Calgary. The resultant smoke may eclipse anyhing Dion has to say: "You might not agree with everything (Dion) says, but you have to admire this about him. He stood up once to the self-aggrandizing, hostile, me-first, greedy, macho, selfish and balkanizing separatist losers in Quebec. I guess he can do it again in Alberta," Turner said on his blog. "Not that there are any similarities."

But the resultant brouhaha brought support for Turner: Oh! The Faux Outrage!

The Economist, which has never been confused with a rabid, socialist journal, writes, "In theory, Mr Dion has hit on a winning issue. Latest figures show that Canada’s emissions of greenhouse gases are 30% above the current target set in the Kyoto protocol. Stephen Harper’s minority Conservative government lacks a serious plan to cut emissions. Many Canadians are embarrassed by this and care about the environment."

Ever sensing disaster, the right-wing National Post wrings its hands , "If the Liberal's "Green Shift" comes to pass, it's becoming evident it will affect more than the energy sector. Everything from steel plants to fertilizer producers to landfills and even hospitals release greenhouse gases. Industry representatives confess befuddlement at how the plan would affect them."

"Liberals say they are focused on fossil fuels and emissions from other sources will go untaxed for the moment. Nonetheless, as industries struggle for answers, some mutter that the Green Shift is hardly as "simple" as Mr. Dion promised."

The Leader-Post tries to explain the tax to the right wing: "The carbon tax, as proposed by the Liberals, is broad-based, revenue-neutral tax that would be placed on fossil fuels, like coal and natural gas, at the wholesale level."

And the NDP is quick to point out why a Green/Liberal Carbon Tax won't work.

In British Columbia, apparently the Gordon Campbell's carbon tax surcharge (2.34 cents per litre for regular gas) requires some explanation too: Clearing up the confusion on carbon tax.

Layton calls on Harper to join G8 efforts to cap pollution

“Cap-and-trade in Europe, Japan and USA leaves Canada isolated” says Layton

OTTAWA – NDP leader Jack Layton is calling the upcoming G8 meeting in Japan the last opportunity Stephen Harper will have to signal a serious commitment to place a real cap on greenhouse gas emissions before Canada stands alone with Russia as the only industrialized nations without a cap-and-trade system.

“With Japan now on board and both presumptive nominees for the US Presidency advocating a cap-and-trade model, Canada will soon stand alone with Russia as the only industrialized countries with no hard caps on pollution” said Layton.“ This is completely unacceptable.” MORE

The Harper government and secrecy:

Portrait of a scandal in the making

A controversial decision about the future site of the national portrait gallery is in the hands of a committee whose membership is secret. Ottawa-Centre NDP MP Paul Dewar says it's just another secret in a process that has been "cloaked in secrecy" from the start.

He has filed an Access to Information request demanding to know who's on the committee and any documents they might have generated to date.

"We need to know who is on the committee and what are their qualifications," he says. MORE

Youth mobilize against tar sands

While Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach was in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, this week, defending his province's environmental practices, a spot of trouble was brewing back home.

Young people from across the country were gathering in Edmonton for a national summit on the Alberta tar sands.

"Oil is making us a lot of money right now, but it's destroying our future, our environment," said Nicole McDonal, one of the 100 delegates attending the three-day conference. MORE

Nuclear safety guidelines protect the nuclear industry not Canadians, says report

Toronto, Canada — Greenpeace released a new report that documents serious safety concerns with all three reactor designs being considered for Ontario and that shows safety standards for nuclear reactors have been watered down to allow new reactors with design flaws to be approved.

"All the reactors designs Ontario is considering are vulnerable to terrorist attacks and are flawed raising a significant threat of a catastrophic release of radiation," said Shawn-Patrick Stensil, an energy campaigner with Greenpeace. "To make matters worse, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which is supposed to protect Canadians, has watered down its regulations which will make it easier to approve one of these bad reactor designs."

Greenpeace is concerned that Ontario government's recent creation of a "super-ministry" of energy and infrastructure increases the desire to use weak regulations to hastily build flawed reactors. MORE

Shocking attack on Internet privacy: Google must divulge YouTube log

Google must divulge the viewing habits of every user who has ever watched any video on YouTube, a US court has ruled.

The ruling comes as part of Google's legal battle with Viacom over allegations of copyright infringement.

Digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called the ruling a "set-back to privacy rights". MORE

Canada undecided on eve of G8 summit

Summit to focus on climate change, global economy, aid to Africa, escalating food and energy prices

OTTAWA - As Prime Minister Stephen Harper prepares to head to this year's Group of Eight summit, Canada is withholding support for a pair of World Bank funds that would help developing nations cope with climate change.

The World Bank said this week it will establish the foundations - called the Strategic Climate Fund and Clean Technology Fund, respectively - to help poor countries adapt to climate change and to deploy technologies that enable them to minimize their greenhouse-gas emissions.

The bank is expecting donor countries to chip in a combined $5 billion US, and Britain, Japan and the United States have promised to bankroll the venture.

But in a briefing for reporters Wednesday, ahead of next week's G8 summit in Hokkaido, Japan, a senior Canadian official said the Harper government hasn't signed on yet. MORE

RELATED: Food crisis on G* leaders' plate Oxfam Canada reports that rising prices make 100 million poor Toronto Star

G8 Nations Fail to Meet Climate Change Promises, Report Says

A new study published Thursday says none of the leading industrialized nations have come close to meeting their promises to slash greenhouse gas emissions, with the US, Canada and Russia trailing especially far behind.

At last year's G8 summit in Germany, leaders from the US, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Russia reached agreement on considering a goal to halve global emissions by 2050.

But the world's top eight industrialized economies -- which are responsible for an estimated 62 percent of carbon dioxide emissions --  have failed to translate words into action, the study found. MORE

RELATED: Canada was second last among G8 on WWF climate scorecard Globe and Mai/AP

What Can We Do About High Energy Prices?

Andrew Jackson

Higher oil and natural gas prices are here to stay and that may be a good thing in terms of helping us move to a more energy-efficient economy and averting catastrophic climate change. But we need a plan to safeguard jobs and the living standards of working families in the transition.

Rather than leave it all to the market, we need to take control of our national energy future and ensure that the costs of higher energy prices are fairly shared.

High energy, especially gasoline, prices are clearly now having major negative impacts on the Canadian economy and on our jobs. We have already seen major layoff announcements in the auto sector as sales of SUVs and trucks slump and in the airlines sector as fares begin to soar. Truckers and others who can’t easily pass on their costs are being pushed out of business. MORE