I am currently dangling from a tripod, blocking the entrance to
@rbc
, the 5th largest fossil fuel funder in the world because decades of politely asking banks to stop fueling climate change hasn’t worked.
Kudos to
@JustinTrudeau
for telling oil execs face-to-face that there's "not a chance" he'll back off on oil sector emissions cap. After watching decades of empty promises by oilpatch to cut emissions, good to see federal government will now hold them to their word.
Early drought has led Alberta government to restrict water withdrawals & warn industrial users of worse to come. Yet while oil companies warn their shareholders of risk of climate change-induced water shortages, the
#ableg
Minister responsible remains in denial.
The evidence:
I (briefly) held up an "Act on Climate Now"
@GreenpeaceCA
banner at Poilievre's Toronto Axe the Tax rally. CPC has no plan to deal with climate crisis that drove over 160,000 Canadians from their homes fleeing wildfires last summer or farmers looking at another bone-dry summer
Just in case you were feeling sorry for oil companies, remember that Shell predicted the rise of
@GretaThunberg
, and a wave of climate lawsuits, way back in 1998 h/t
@amywestervelt
My 10 year old daughter is doing her online course work and yells up to the attic: "Dad, do you know anything about energy, like which ones are renewable or not?"
<Dad rushes downstairs>
As someone who has been arrested, tear-gassed, charged on horseback, stepped on and thrown down a flight of stairs by police officers - I'm pretty sure they don't need new laws to prevent people from blockading hospitals
The 23rd spill (14K barrels & counting) from 12 yr-old
#Keystone
pipeline is larger than previous 22 put together. I expect focus of coverage will be on how much money Canadian oil companies lose while pipeline is closed, but this is an ecological disaster
CBC reporting that New Brunswick Proud and Strong - whose funding comes from the (Preston) Manning Centre - is behind the robocalls telling voters to go to polls a day late
Me: Well I guess, you can't print 'Holy Shit' as a reaction, even if the scientists did find toxic air pollution from oil sands is 1900% - 6300% times higher than what industry reports.
Them:
Holy shit. All of Canada's Big 5 banks are members of UN's Race to Zero initiative, which just gave them a June 15, 2023 deadline to stop funding new fossil fuels, implement just transition plans & align lobbying efforts with net zero, or get kicked out
We’re disrupting bank business-as-usual because BAU is killing us. Canada’s big 5 banks have put over $800 billion into fossil fuels since the Paris Agreement was signed. RBC has put $390M into the Coastal Gaslink pipeline
#fossilbanks
I’m a middle-aged dad with a mild fear of heights. I hsve been politely asking banks to stop funding fossil fuels for decades but they want to sell gasoline to the arsonists and water to the fire department
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres sub-tweets
@jkenney
this morning during release of latest IPCC report: "Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals, but the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels."
RBC has provided $390M to the Coastal Gaslink pipeline, and the pipeline company’s parent Corp is housed in the RBC tower we are blocking today
#gitimden
When banks go along with a militarized RCMP invasion of Wet’suwet’en territory to make money, that’s wrong. RBC has refused to meet with the Wet’suwet’en - they should.
#WetsuwetenStrong
We want him to look at it every time that he makes a decision on whether to fund fossil fuels. We want him to agree to meet with affected communities in Lytton & Wet’suwet’en & look them in the eyes
Canada’s big 4 oil companies (Suncor, Imperial, Cenovus and CNRL) reporting over $12 BILLION in profits in just 3 months ($130M/day).
Yet they claim they can’t afford to reduce the immense harm they are doing to our climate/communities.
We can’t afford to let them off the hook.
The height of hypocrisy: the Government of Alberta - which has a ban on new renewable energy projects - boasts about how they are supporting wind and solar power in this video made for
#COP28
#greenwash
This is the message Alberta is bringing to the world at COP28 👇
Alberta is an innovation hub, attracting sustainable investments with low operating costs and a skilled workforce.
We are leading in clean energy technology, with hydrogen production, and waste-to-energy, while
Poilievre has a 'Burn, Baby, Burn' climate plan that puts all Canadians hold dear at risk. We cannot let him slide through without talking about what he would do on climate change.
Is this parody? I’ve been biking to work in Toronto for 20 years and they are usually about two weeks a year when it’s too cold/icy. It’s colder to stand around waiting for transit.
Forty more kilometres of bicycle lanes? This is not California. We live in Canada. Even in a good winter, it is either too cold to ride a bike or there is snow on the ground five months of the year. Sometimes six. Column by Autos reporter
@NorrisMcDonald2
:
Well this is awkward: federal Auditor General
@OAG_BVG
disses Trudeau government's investment in TMX: "Investing in the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion (TMX) is an example of policy incoherence with progress toward climate commitments"
#cdnpoli
@aer
@rebeccakschulz
12. When it comes to climate change and drought, hope is not a strategy. But it seems to be the only one the Government of Alberta is prepared to offer.
Very strong editorial in today's
@globeandmail
. I feel my 30+ years subscribing to the paper entitles me to complain about climate &
#cdnpoli
coverage, but this is a solid, well-researched piece. Kudos
Scandal alert: Leaked documents show Enbridge & FortisBC are part of a "consortium to combat electrification" because "Natural gas (fossil fuel) is in for fight of it's life."
With the Just Transition Act as a key part of the Liberal-NDP
#cdnpoli
agreement, I wanted to share this fun fact: Jason Kenney’s mighty
#ableg
War Room has been running a “Stop the Just Transition” petition for months. It has 198 signatures.
Alberta tax dollars well spent.
Canada's latest GHG Inventory is out. Total GHGs in 2019 are 730 MT, up 2 MT from 2018 and 7 MT since Liberals took office in 2015. The largest (and growing) sources are:
1. Extracting and refining oil and gas.
2. Burning oil and gas in our vehicles.
Ouch: “The Alberta government has become the oil patch’s own worst enemy by weakening environmental monitoring & oversight to the extent that foreign investors and foreign companies alike face reputational risks by investing in oilsands”
#ableg
Hearing that RBC had a town hall for staff today & re
@GreenpeaceCA
protest “Leaders said the government asks them to fund this stuff [fossil fuels]”
Say it ain’t so,
@s_guilbeault
#fossilbanks
Canada should produce + send heat pumps & wind turbines to Europe the way we sent tanks & planes during WWII. Renewables can meet energy needs, promote peace, undercut power of petrostates while avoiding most devastating impacts of climate change
#cdnpoli
4. El Nino years tend to have very low snowfall levels, so not much water for Spring melt. El Nino’s occur regularly but last year’s incredible heat & dryness means reservoirs (that'd normally tide us through a dry year) are already depleted. That’s climate change playing out…
@aer
11. In her relentless attacks on federal climate action & refusal to take significant action at home,
@rebeccakschulz
is doing her best to make it not rain or snow, worsening the outlook for agriculture, industry and raising the risk of another round of destructive wildfires.
@aer
9. The Alberta government, on the other hand, is in denial. The Nov AB govt drought presentation, AER bulletin & AB gov webpage on drought management are all silent on the link between climate change & drought. I'd love for someone to find somewhere they make this link...
3. We will come back to ‘Hope for rain’ as a strategy while ignoring climate change, but worth noting that in that same presentation, the government is already ordering some users to stop withdrawing water.
2. In November, AB Ministry of Environment & Protected Areas said river flows and reservoir levels were ~50% of normal and that “spring water levels are expected to be dire.” They will “plan for extreme drought and hope for rain/snow.”
Hoo boy: Feds just announced they will consider all new or expanded thermal coal mining projects to be contrary to national interest (i.e. you can apply, but we're going to reject your proposal). Applies to current Coalspur project in AB
#cdnpoli
#ableg
Trying to imagine a Canadian government official saying this: John Kerry tells Big Oil to join energy transition or “sit there with stranded assets”. via
@priceofoil
NOT THE ONION: The
#ableg
War Room is now accusing the UN of misinformation on climate science because... they correctly state that getting to zero carbon means transitioning off of fossil fuels. Here's the UN statement the War Room is so upset about
Today's Supreme Court decision is a victory not just for the carbon tax. It recognizes climate change as a threat to Peace, Order & Good Government & lays out a roadmap for the federal govt to set minimum standards that provinces can exceed but not undercut.
@aer
6. O&G companies have been expecting this kind of warning (though we can expect the jostling for water rights to get nasty). They know that climate science has long been predicting more intense droughts in the Prairies (punctuated by more extreme storms)
Does Imperial Oil really need a public bailout
@Bill_Morneau
? After $2.2B in profit last year, it had a $188M loss in Q1 2020 but that's because they gave their shareholders $438M ($164M in dividends, $274M in share buybacks)
#cdnpoli
#PeopleNotPolluters
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers responds to the federal government emissions cap framework
Despite the federal government’s stated objective that the emission cap should not put a limit on Canadian oil and natural gas production, the unintended consequences of
Wow. The UN's
@antonioguterres
&
@cathmckenna
are putting the proverbial boots to greenwashers, which by their definition includes all the big Canadian banks that claim to be committed to net zero:
An
#elxn43
story worth following beyond the headline: It’s not just that the company co-founded by Scheer’s campaign manager (Hamish Marshall) has contracts with both CPC and CAPP for election advertising
#cdnpoli
This is how heat waves should be covered (not sunbathers on the beach): European heat wave isn't a surprise — it's a warning of what inaction could mean for our future | CBC News
Climate Cassandras weep.
In the Greek myth, Apollo curses the Trojan princess Cassandra with the gift of prophecy. The catch: she must always tell the truth and yet will never be believed.
She watches her city be burned to the ground because no one acted on her warnings.
5. On Dec 12 (while Premier & Environment Minister were busy blasting feds over methane regs designed to limit future warming / drought),
@AER
told oil & gas companies it regulates to prepare contingency plans in the event that they can’t withdraw water
@aer
8. To mitigate risk, CNRL built a reservoir to hold 28 days worth of water. Someone should ask them how confident they are re that reserve given recent events. Plus: lots of questions re allowable industrial withdrawals vs base flow levels req'd for healthy river ecosystem
3. This is new and likely very good (depending on the TBD carbon budgets). It cleverly calls the oil companies’ bluff on claims of climate leadership / net zero commitments by making their aspirations (that I don’t believe for a minute) a legislated requirement
Activists from
@GreenpeaceCA
have taken over Chrystia Freeland’s constituency office to say Later is Too Late: no more watering down or delays of long-promised climate policies, and add regulation of banks on climate to Budget 2024
#cdnpoli
Today's the last day to fill up before the Ford government’s attempt to supercharge climate change by subsidizing pollution makes life more dangerous and expensive for your family
#onpoli
That was the same banner we brought to Chrystia Freeland's office last month. Liberals need to take next steps (like regulate banks), but CPC would take us backwards at a time of record-breaking extreme weather
@aer
10. In her op ed “Taking Action on Drought”, AB Environment Minister Schulz doesn’t even mention climate change but ends with untended pathos: “We cannot make it rain or snow, but all of us have a role to play.”
That tremor you felt this morning - it was a massive shift in the energy-nerd tectonic plates as the oh-so-mainstream
@IEA
puts out a report with headline "There is no need for investment in new fossil fuel supply in our net zero pathway"
We need to cut with both sides of the scissors: supply and demand.
And the last people we should take advice from on phasing out fossil fuels are the CEOs of companies that sell it.
A new poll reveals that six in 10 Canadians believe now is the time for the federal government to make “major changes to fix long-standing problems in society” like inequality, racism and the climate crisis.
#cdnpoli
Postmedia is running an op ed today from an
@ImperialOil
board member on how climate action is too expensive.
Climate inaction is the most costly option. By far.
#cdnpoli
For the last 80 years, energy security has meant maintaining access to cheap oil by any means necessary, including war. It is now being redefined as freedom from oil.
#peace
#FossilFreeRevolution
#StandWithUkraine
Outside the courtroom where
@fordnation
is spending $30M of our tax dollars to try to block feds from filling the climate action gap Ford govt has left by gutting ON climate plan
#onpoli
FTR, my beloved trolls:
1. Climate change is real, caused by burning fossil fuels & bad for us
2. We must urgently reduce demand for & supply of fossil fuels so our kids have a liveable world
3. Trying to change a (harmful) system you were born into is human, not hypocritical
We know we won't always get it right, but we're working to improve. Here's a glimpse of our ongoing efforts throughout the year to support
#Reconciliation
.
#NIHM2023
@aer
7. In its 2023 disclosure of climate-related risks to shareholders, CNRL estimated the risk of “Changing precipitation patterns and types” as “likely” & cost of not begin able to withdraw water as $27M/day to their oil sands facilities
So no carbon pricing and now no carbon regulations? Clean Fuel Standard was the largest source of GHG reductions in the Pan-Canadian Framework on climate change. So how would the Conservative climate "plan" work (or is not working the real plan)?
#cdnpoli
"When we work, Canada works" is the theme of the new national campaign by the Canadian Energy Centre. It will feature facts, data and stories about the role Canada's oil and natural gas can play as we continue to face challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic.
I still can't quite believe that there are more full-time beat reporters covering cannabis than climate and/or environment in Canadian mainstream media. Please subscribe / support
@NatObserver
@thenarwhalca
and others doing this vital work.
In today's episode of "oil companies doing bad things", a US Congressional report implicates Canada Pension Plan-owned company in a pro-fracking campaign that involved fake-grassroots groups, misleading claims, paid counter-protesters & accusations of harassment + bribery 1/n
5. Also new is the shift from a zero emission aspiration for 2040 to a promise of a legislated requirement for 50% of new vehicles to be zero emission by 2030 & 100% by 2035. Sends clear signal to auto companies to get cracking (and build them here).
I am genuinely surprised to see UN Secretary General be this clear (he's correct, I just expected something with a little more diplomatic bafflegab): "This [IPCC] report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet."
Pardon the language but... holy shit this is a big victory for free speech.
Resolute Forest Products ordered to pay CDN $1.15M to Greenpeace USA for legal fees from SLAPP suit.
BREAKING: Judge's order for logging giant to pay Greenpeace almost $1 million in attorneys’ fees and costs proves trying to silence free speech is an expensive mistake
Greenpeace statement here👉
The Alberta Inquiry put out a press release on June 18 saying enviro groups could review the allegations & evidence against them. They later told us we wouldn't get access until morning of June 29, but July 16 deadline for responses is fixed.
Still hasn't happened...
#ableg
Good morning,
@CDNEnergyCentre
rapid response team. It's been 17 hours since I tagged you re 3 climate-related misrepresentations on your "Welcome to Cdn Energy Centre" page. You corrected the error re being a crown corporation, so I hope you will correct the record on climate
@smccarthy55
I'll tag
@CDNEnergyCentre
in here - care to clarify? Do you "know" oil and gas demand will rise for decades? Is Environment Canada's data wrong? Why should we believe you over the IPCC?
#ableg
I’ve been to almost, if not all, of the major climate marches in Toronto in the last 30 years. This was unprecedented in size and eloquent rage
#climatestrikeTO
Based on Biden’s latest climate Executive Order, US will join EU and UK in ending international public finance for fossil fuels. This will ramp up pressure on Trudeau to do the same (Export Development Canada finances a LOT of oil and gas projects)
#cdnpoli
CPP funds MAGA: Canada Pension Plan bought an oil company, then gave $607K to support Republican, pro-fracking candidates in Colorado to defeat environmental protection measures
#cdnpoli
#cppib
The Trans Mountain pipeline is officially a money-loser, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. In best case scenario its net present value is -$600M, worst case its NPV is -$6.3B
#TMX
#cdnpoli
"a stunning rebuke to all the Cdn oil executives & politicians claiming that they can simply slap on some government-funded carbon capture & continue with business as usual"
IEA report warns oil and gas companies against banking on carbon capture
See my theory on how oil money is being laundered through the Manning Centre to support Conservatives via NB Proud & Strong (which also goes by Proudly New Brunswick) in this thread:
A theory as to who is funneling money through the Manning Centre to right-wing "Strong and Proud" social media attack groups (not to be confused with Jeff Ballingall's Proud franchises)
#elxn43
#cdnpoli
cc
@ByJamesKeller
@KellyCryderman
World's top fossil fuel funder
@RBC
is hiring new exec to “Develop and implement effective & lasting responses to Climate activism”
Maybe if you don't do bad things, people won't say bad things about you?