David Martin, Greenpeace's climate change campaign coordinator, said
the group behind the violence has "no base and no credibility."
"Yet
this very small group of irresponsible people... has taken media
attention away from the coverage of essential issues, like climate
change, foreign aid... maternal health and so on," he said. more
Tweet:WWF_Climate: #tcktcktck G8 summit focused on security concerns but neglected chief threat of climate change: ... http://bit.ly/cg1KXP #climate
(Toronto) Leading Canadian and international organizations questioned
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s priorities for taking time out of the
G20 to hold private meetings with big polluters and banks as G20
leaders were to start discussing the phase out of fossil fuel subsidies
and consider the levying of financial transaction taxes. more
As you prepare for the upcoming G8 and G20 summits, I am writing to you concerning the United States’ fulfillment of its commitment to food security and agricultural development finance made at the G8 last year in L’Aquila and its commitment to fast-start climate finance made last year at Copenhagen. more
June 25, 2010 Paul Waldie, Bill Curry and Jeremy Torobin, The Globe and Mail
Canada will announce $1.1-billion in new money toward a G8 pledge on maternal health Friday, sources say.
..."If you’re giving developing countries loans to help them adapt to climate change, as a rich country -- as a polluting country -- it’s kind of like driving your car into a neighbour’s house and then offering them a loan to repair the damage,’’ he said at a press conference.’’ more
YouTube: Clare Demerse, Pembina Institute: Relevance of the G8 and G20 to UN climate talks and Canada's role as host country. Alternative Media Centre, Toronto Canada.
Two
of three Canadians want the Harper government to show leadership at the
G8 and G20 summits and announce plans to eliminate subsidies for the
fossil fuel industry, according to results of a poll released on
Friday. more
A strong majority of Canadians want to see climate leadership at the G8 and G20 summits in Muskoka and Toronto, according to a poll released today by Climate Action Network–Réseau action climat Canada. The survey, conducted by the Gandalf Group over the past week, also shows strong support for phasing out Canada’s fossil fuel subsidies. more
Tweet:newint: Toxic tour hits Toronto - Activists have mobilized heartily for a week of anti-G20 action, and at Wednesday’s rally,... http://ow.ly/17SwUh
Tweet: PaulMalouf: "People First! We Deserve Better" #G8 #G20 Rally & March: Queens Park June 26 1:00 http://tinyurl.com/2c679x8 #oilspill #climate
June 24th, 2010
Tweet:radhatailor: Went to the Climate Action Network calendar launch. The room was filled with movers and shakers of environmental action! WOW! @CANRACCanada
World leaders will give final approval on a plan to radically overhaul the global climate change debate at summit meetings in Toronto this weekend in the hope of breaking the deadlock in talks for an international emissions-reduction deal, the Toronto Star has learned. more
Over the next few days, the world’s most powerful leaders will gather around two summit tables, the G8 in Huntsville and the G20 in Toronto. At the top of their agenda will be the economic recession, an immediate crisis that threatens global economic stability.
However, as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his counterparts consider ways to face this challenge, I urge them also to focus on the longer-term threat to our economic security: climate change. more
YouTube: Rally for Environmental Justice at Alexandra Park on June 23.
The 2010 Global Thought Leader Survey on Sustainability, released today in advance of the G8/G20 meetings, was conducted by McAllister Opinion Research on behalf of the Pembina Institute. Overall, 59 per cent of respondents work for various government sectors, making this one of the most significant barometers of what government officials think about progress and solutions on climate change and "greening" the economy. more
YouTube: Daniel T'selei, Northern Youth Climate Fellow at Climate Action Network Canada, talks about why he is attending the G20 meetings in Toronto and how climate change is affecting the Northern communities where he lives.
June 23rd, 2010
Check out Canada's Climate Calendar!
Reactions to this morning's Government announcements:
“Two big questions remain about today’s announcement. First, will the
financing be ‘new and additional,’ as the Copenhagen Accord requires?
Climate change has not made fighting poverty any easier or any less
important, so Canada’s contribution must come from new dollars that are
over and above our Official Development Assistance (ODA) commitments. more
“Today’s announcement has the potential to become a strong step forward
on domestic climate policy. But Canada still needs a plan to meet — or
beat — its 2020 emissions target, with an economy-wide price on
greenhouse gas pollution as the centrepiece. That plan must not only
clean up Canada’s electricity sector but also reduce emissions from all
other parts of the economy, including the fast-growing oil sands
sector. Without government action, the oil sands sector is projected to
account for 12 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gas pollution by 2020 –
the same as the pollution from electricity generation utilities.” more
The government has taken a step in the right direction today with the
announcement of 400 million dollars this fiscal year to support action
on climate change in developing countries, but we need to make sure
that they are not getting this money by raiding the aid budget. Where
is this money is coming from and where it is going? It needs to be
above and beyond money already promised for Official Development
Assistance and it must be channeled through appropriate agencies
decided upon through the United Nations framework. We also look forward
to further commitments to extend this money beyond this fiscal year. more
“As long as this number represents entirely new and additional funding to ODA, WWF-Canada is very pleased to see this announcement and we take it as a positive step in the right direction,” said Zoe Caron, WWF-Canada Climate Policy & Advocacy Specialist. “We look forward to matching instalments over the next two years to complete the $1 billion in fair-share funding.” more
OTTAWA — The Harper government will invest $400 million in international aid funds to honour commitments made at the last global climate summit in Copenhagen.
Environment Minister Jim Prentice made the announcement Wednesday at a news conference as he also reiterated a pledge to slash emissions from Canada's coal-fired power plants, one of the country's largest sources of greenhouse gases. more
YouTube: Wangari Maathai, Nobel Prize Winner and Founder of the Greenbelt Movement in Kenya, sends a message on Climate Change to the G8/G20 in Toronto, Canada.
Nine months ago, when the G20 leaders met in Pittsburgh, they pledged to “rationalize and phase out over the medium term fossil-fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption.” These subsidies, they said in the final communiqué, reduce energy security and “undermine efforts to deal with the threat of climate change.” more
June 22nd, 2010
Tweet: Climate change left off the table: I'm sure you've heard by now that the very expensive, highly securitized G20 an... http://bit.ly/azGPBi
June 21st, 2010
YouTube: Climate Change Voices from June 21st Rally.
TORONTO - WWF, the
global conservation organization, has criticized the G8 Accountability
Report
released today for not measuring progress on one of the most substantial
G8
development and climate change commitments to date: to limit temperature
rise
to an identified 2 degrees Centigrade threshold of dangerous climate
change. more.
YouTube: Zoe Caron, Climate Policy Specialist at WWF-Canada, speaks about how the G8/G20 can address Climate Change at the upcoming Toronto summit.
June 19th, 2010
Tweet:tcktcktck: G8/G20 leaders need to take strong action on #climate when they meet next week. Sign the declaration here: http://ht.ly/20HHs
Does Stephen Harper have a prime ministerial aversion to environmentalism?
Hosting the G8 and G20 allows Ottawa to set the agenda and move the debate forward on the world's most pressing issues. But when it comes to global warming, Harper prefers to see no carbon, hear no carbon and speak no carbon. Until his eleventh hour change of course, Harper tried to sideline the environment by describing it as a “sideshow.” more
It’s taking a lot of optimism to feel good about the recent okay-fine-if-we-have-to inclusion of climate change on the G20 agenda. We’ve been told that it still won’t be an official agenda item, but it will be inevitably discussed on the sidelines when the world’s leaders gather in Toronto later this month. more.
Back in 1996, a global effort to ban landmines was fizzling.
In
United Nations-led negotiations, getting a treaty required the
agreement of almost every country, including those most prone to use the
devices, which were killing or maiming tens of thousands of people each
year. more.
Dozens of G20 protesters dressed as a human oil slick took to downtown streets in a global day of action against the coming summit in Toronto.
The oil-clad group was led by a man in a papier-mache head of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who was booed and cheered by a noontime crowd Thursday outside of Union station.
(Toronto, ON) Stephen Harper will lead a procession of bankers through the streets of Toronto Thursday morning as part of a Global Day of Action on the G8 and G20 summits. Organized by the At the Table Coalition, an umbrella group of leading non-profit organizations, development agencies and environmental groups, Harper’s parade will be tailed by a Human Oil Slick and will come to an end at Union Station, where the “fossil fools” will dance around the issues and give away billions.
OTTAWA — Environment Minister Jim Prentice found himself upstaged on Tuesday, following a speech about cracking down on pollution from coal-fired power plants, as a foreign diplomat suggested the Canadian minister was overstating the big picture about international progress in fighting climate change. Read more
Tweet:PowershiftG8G20: Hey Windsor, Sarnia, London, Waterloo &
Toronto we got some great news for you. Check out the Speaking Tour when
it... http://bit.ly/d8nYjR
