And thanks so much to John for filling in for me last Sunday.  The all-day Saturday November 13 (until late evening) negotiations kept me quite tied up.  The last-minute change to the text was so disappointing.  As you all likely know, it changed from “phase-out” coal to “phase down” coal. Changing a massive COP decision through a verbal amendment from the floor – clearly cooked up in the to-ing and fro-ing of deal-making around the room in informal milling about – is simply unheard of in a United Nations setting. It violated the normal negotiations of the multilateral process.  I have been to 12 COPs and never seen anything like it.

No surprise so many countries expressed unhappiness and even anger.  Delegations had apparently been told there could be no changes to the text put forward at 8 am Saturday morning by the president of COP26, Alok Sharma.  It was a “balanced package” they were told.  It would go to a “take it or leave it” final conclusion.  If you read the articles I wrote for Policy magazine, you know my view of the way Boris Johnson’s government handled the COP. https://www.policymagazine.ca/author/elizabeth-may/

Too much showmanship; not enough work to gain commitments well in advance to improve the totality of national commitments.  We went in to COP26 knowing the commitments, even if fully met, would shoot us well past 1.5 degrees C.  The only way that outcome was going to change would have been if in the first few days leaders had significantly improved their targets (or NDCs under Paris, “Nationally Determined Contributions.”)  When the high-flying speeches were over, and the leaders headed home leaving ministers and negotiators behind, it was clear that we were still nowhere near 1.5 degrees.  The updated synthesis report from the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) confirmed mid-week, that new promises, if met, would lead to 13.7% higher global emissions in 2030 than in 2010.  To hold to 1.5 degrees, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has made it screamingly clear that carbon dioxide levels globally must be 45% reduced below 2010 levels by 2030.  Before COP26 opened, the projections showed a 16% increase.  We have shaved a small amount from the deeply dangerous overshoot.

Still, I think COP26 may represent a turning point.  The final plenary was nearly free of false celebrations and self-congratulatory adulation.  If anything, I heard a resolve from many nations that the work must continue non-stop to get the necessary commitments to be able to hold to 1.5 degrees.  That sense that hope is still alive must be nurtured.  I totally agree with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres that “1.5 degrees is on life-support.”  But that means it still lives. We must redouble efforts.     I will report on COP26 and my reasons for thinking it could be a turning point on Tuesday night at a webinar open to anyone who registers. (details in the P.S. below)

This Sunday morning finds us back in Ottawa for the first time since October 2020.  John and I stayed on the other side of the Atlantic long enough to visit his son and family in Norway. While so far from home, we have been agonizing over the devastation of our home province.  John got a call in the wee hours of Saturday morning, awakening us in our London hotel, asking if his farm in Ashcroft could house a family that had just lost everything to the flood waters of the Nicola River.  Rescued by helicopter, there was no way to take their livestock.  Heartbroken, they shot each animal to spare it drowning in panic. The call was from a mutual friend who had used our Ashcroft home in July when evacuated due to the wildfires.  Later, John has learned that another friend from the area is unaccounted for, and her house by the river is, simply, gone.  The climate emergency is ravaging the same communities, the same First Nations, the same farms and people who lived through the heat dome and the wildfires of summer.

Our lack of preparedness should make every government ashamed.  We signed and ratified the UNFCCC in 1992. It committed Canada to both avoid “dangerous” levels of climate change and put in place measures to adapt to those levels we could no longer avoid.  The failure to invest in plans for adaptation is just as significant a failure as the abject failure to confront the fossil fuel lobby and our galloping emissions.  British Columbians know what dangerous climate change looks like. What was a future threat to be avoided in 1992 is a real life (and death) reality in 2021. And we are now at 1.1 degrees global average temperature increase. Holding to 1.5 degrees, as hard as it will be to accomplish, commits us to increased dangers.

Parliament sits tomorrow and I will let my name stand for Speaker.  I am going to make it clear that I am not running for Speaker – as I promised voters in Saanich-Gulf Islands that if I intended to become Speaker I would consult widely in advance.  Instead, I want to make a number of key points about the job of Speaker and about how, over about 50 years in Canada, we have allowed that job to be eroded in the interest of increased powers for large political parties and their back-room spin-doctors.

Canada is the only country using the Westminster Parliamentary system where the Speaker has voluntarily ceded his/her/their sole authority to decide who gets the floor in Question Period and debate.  I am relatively confident that Anthony Rota will be re-elected Speaker, although there are five other challengers. So why speak tomorrow at all?

In my view, the increased partisanship in the House has been one of the contributing factors to Canada’s failure to achieve the necessary reductions in greenhouse gases (GHG).  It is often repeated that no Canadian government has ever hit its targets in GHG cuts.  But it tends to be obscured how many other countries, particularly European nations, have exceeded their targets.  One factor is our inability as Canadians to sort out the provincial and territorial roles in pulling for a national target.

Incredibly, the European Union representing over twenty separate, sovereign nation-states has always done a better job than one federal government with ten provinces and three territories in sharing the challenge of meeting global promises.

Back in 1997, at Kyoto, the EU made a commitment of a group EU goal.  The shared goal was split, with progressive nations doing more, to allow laggards to stay within the shared goal. Coal-dependent Poland, as an example, was allowed its continued emissions, while the UK, Germany, France and others did the heavy lifting in slashing emissions.  The EU is now 45% below 1990 levels while Canada (at last report) was 21% above 1990 levels.

It always boggled my mind that Canada’s first ministers squabbled and allowed emissions for all of Canada to continue to climb.  In fact, it is not just that Canada has not achieved any target we set. We have not once in thirty years gotten the direction right. We pledge to reduce and continue to increase.

There are of course many factors, but the increased partisanship of parliament does not help.  And the increased control of parliamentary process by party whips is not in the interests of the common good or a healthy democracy.  The Speaker plays a key role in all of this.  Other democratic reforms would also advance climate goals.  Getting rid of First Past the Post would have a salutary effect.

As I worked through COP26, I was inspired by the growing role of Green parties around the world.  One EU colleague mentioned, almost casually, that across Europe, including some non-EU countries, a total of 15,000 Greens hold office – municipally, at state/provincial, national levels and in the European Parliament. And in the negotiations at COP26 it mattered that nine climate ministers are Greens. Had Germany completed its negotiations for a new coalition government in time, it would likely have been ten ministers (nine from Scandinavia and Europe and one from New Zealand.)

Our last night in London, we had dinner with the brilliant Sian Berry, member of the Greater London assembly and a runner up as Mayor of London.  She is also former co-leader of the Greens of England and Wales.  She stepped down as leader earlier this year in solidarity with the Trans-community.  Sian knew that Green leaders have no power, but she expressed to The Guardian a responsibility to have persuaded the chief spokespersons of the party to support the trans community.  https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/14/sian-berry-quits-as-green-party-leader-in-dispute-over-trans-rights

These are choppy waters in which I also am in conflict with some Green friends. What Sian and I share – with Greens around the world – is the certain knowledge that even when our personal and individual experience can be painful, the Global Green movement is indispensable.  The fight to keep 1.5 alive – the fight to underscore “1.5 to stay alive” – is our shared work as Greens.  And in that we remain confident that the Green Party is our most strategic agent for the change we need.

I hope you can join our webinar on Tuesday.  Stay well and safe,

Elizabeth

PS  to join the webinar:

Topic

Post-COP26 Debrief – MP May reports back from Glasgow!

Time

Nov 23, 2021 06:00 PM in Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Meeting ID: 813 2466 6211

Passcode: 9711

To Join the Meeting

Join from a PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone or Android device:

Please click this URL to join. https://us02web.zoom.us/w/81324666211?tk=2hRWsDyzsdOm9GpqAfwL9o_gfT2ffvIOeyvyCS1mgaA.DQMAAAAS71PtYxY3WUZ5V1BLclI0T2lIdWRyR2VTTy13AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Saanich-Gulf Islands Greens
http://www.sgigreenparty.ca/

The post Good Sunday Morning – November 21 appeared first on Elizabeth May.

I begin with apologies for this sub-standard replacement – me in exchange for your regular correspondent.  I am writing this on Saturday night outside the negotiating room at COP26, where the delegates are just now going back into the final plenary session in hopes of coming to agreement on the next steps in the fight to keep global warming to below 1.5° C above pre-industrial level.  “1.5 to stay alive” is more than a catchy slogan, it is the real hard goal for planet Earth.  There is hope here, along with cynicism – real movement at this meeting, some real but guarded optimism among the delegates.

Right now there is both excitement and suspense – the President’s latest text was released at 8 am today, informal discussions and negotiations went on until 1 when all the high-level delegates were brought together in an “informal plenary” to get the sense of the meeting.  Most countries accepted the text, with the standard disclaimer that it couldn’t possibly be all that they were hoping for, but it was enough to move ahead with.  Then some rebuffs from India and China and supporters – the text was not acceptable, nothing like enough commitments to the developing countries for loss and damage, too much restriction on their ability to determine their own path.  Setback.  Can it get done? After hearing from perhaps 50 countries, a short adjournment for high-pressure country-to-country negotiations, and now they’re preparing to get back to see if a formal agreement is possible.  This is for the highest possible stakes, of course.  I see on the livestream from the meeting room intense discussions among people like John Kerry of the US the European Union “Green Deal” chief Frans Timmermans, Alok Sharma the President of the COP with the chair from Bolivia, and later from India, who gave an impassioned criticism of the deal as now written, and other one-on-ones all around the room.

Just this minute, China and India have presented a “small” revision to the text.  Just one little word – change “phase out” coal to “phase down”.  Now Switzerland objects to the change, but will accept the new text.  The EU echoes the sentiment.  Lichenstein says “for the greater good we must swallow this bitter pill”.  Mexico is very disappointed, but goes along.  Marshall Islands and Fiji reads into the record “profound disappointment” to see the “bright spot of coal phase-out dim”.  The President is now apologizing to the meeting for the way the process has unfolded, but, “hearing no objections, it is so decided”.  So everybody is disappointed, but willing.  Now the meeting is rocking through the unanimous acceptance of various matters to implement a number of terms of the Paris Agreement.  Applause throughout the room with each gavel stroke signifying acceptance.  The Glasgow Agreement will guide the implementation of the Paris Agreement for the next few years.  Hallelujah.  I’ll leave a more detailed exposition to Elizabeth next week.  For now, here are links to her latest pieces for Policy Magazine, “Glasgow Crunch Time”, and “Sharma Rolls the Dice”:

https://www.policymagazine.ca/letter-from-glasgow-crunch-time/

https://www.policymagazine.ca/letter-from-cop26-glasgow-president-sharma-rolls-the-dice/

For my part, I’ve been talking with any number of people here and gathering recent data about the truly astonishing increase in the deployment of solar and wind energy around the world.  I’ve been studying disruption – the wholesale replacement of outdated industries by newer technologies – for years.  I believe this the beginning of the global disruption of energy production –fossil fuels, big hydro and nuclear energy will simply be uncompetitive within 10 years or so.  And that gives the planet a mathematical possibility, perhaps even growing to a likelihood, that we might be able to keep to 1.5.  Huzzah!  It’s happening.  If anyone is interested in the numbers, let me know at kidder@telus.net.

But in Canada, and even more in BC, we continue to bet the farm on continued development and expansion of the existing industries, in the thoroughly misguided hope that export markets will be there when the pipelines and LNG plants and big dams are finally completed.
I think that’s a fool’s errand.  Further, the much talked-about “just transition” of workers and resources from fossil fuels to renewables is a pipe dream – these shifts always happens more rapidly and more massively than incumbent industries can imagine – unless our governments start looking forward, instead of planning by looking in the rear-view mirror, what we are in for will be an unplanned and most unjust disruption of workers and small businesses.  This is a shameful dereliction of duty.

Governments should know better – instead of encouraging the disruption by boosting renewable energy, getting out of the fossil businesses while companies still have at least a little cash to remediate the immense damage they’ve done to land and water and indigenous communities, keeping rivers and the potential for agriculture alive, reducing the potential for  catastrophic leaks and spills, our governments want to delay as long as possible the inevitable transformation, for the commercial benefit of their industrial supporters.  But, once the train of disruption is clearly underway and accelerating, they’ll rush to the station to clamber aboard the caboose, and then try to take credit for building the engine.  Bah.

I hope I don’t bore you with a bit of personal stuff.  But it has been my great pleasure to support Elizabeth at this meeting for a couple of weeks now, and I thought you might enjoy a different sort of observation.  For Elizabeth, this has been just another perfectly ordinary couple of weeks.  Up at 5:45, a taxi and two trains to start at 8 in freezing rooms and tents and pavilions, discussions and meetings and research and writing and discussions until 9 or 10 in the evening, dinner somewhere, two trains and a taxi back to our billet, bed by midnight or so, up and at it again next morning.  In the middle of all this, Elizabeth keeps up with media here and from Canada, Zooms with constituents and youth and other parliamentarians, meets piles of admirers every day for chats and pictures, makes introductions for new Green MP Mike Morrice to his work and to other Greens and activists from around the world, with time out to join 150,000 others for hours last Saturday in the Glasgow wind and rain.

And all this as she hobbles about with a walker to get around as her knee recovers from surgery and her other knee waiting for same – in and out of cars, on and off trains, a million steps a day in this enormous meeting place.  We’re both now keenly aware of the myriad invisible barriers that hamper people with even the mildest accessibility problems.  And we are enormously grateful here in Glasgow of the wonderful generosity and helpfulness of complete strangers.  But Elizabeth, through her continuous discomfort and occasional real pain, is always charming and appreciative, and she has won many more admirers over here.

And I am even more appreciative of the woman I am lucky enough to be married to.

Thanks for reading, thanks for your support for Elizabeth,

Onward and upward,

John

Saanich-Gulf Islands Greens
http://www.sgigreenparty.ca/

The post Good Sunday Morning – November 14 appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Read her article here: POLICY MAGAZINE

Pictured below: MP May meets with Little Amal, a giant puppet at the heart of The Walk, travelling 8,000km in support of refugees.

To learn more about Little Amal and the Walk initiative, please visit www.walkwithamal.org

The post Letter from Glasgow: Day Four… A Blustery March, Mixed Messages and Cautious Optimism at the Weirdest COP Ever appeared first on Elizabeth May.

At this writing we are half-way through the conference, so it could still go either way. I am not out of sympathy with Greta Thunberg’s denunciation of the “greenwashing.” But it is not so easy to even understand what is happening here.

First, the physical weirdness. This is the first big global conferences in a pandemic. With over 35,000 registered delegates, COP26 is ten times larger than the 15th COP of the Biodiversity Convention (CBD) that took place last month in Kunming, China.

We are masked. We keep distancing – mostly. We take daily COVID tests before entering the massive conference site – over 3 hectares of meeting rooms, plenaries, temporary restaurants and coffee shops, and all the trappings of “home” for climate pressure groups, lobbyists, diplomats and bureaucracy for two weeks.

Most of the space is well ventilated (read: breezy and freezing). I type this while wearing fingerless gloves. Meeting rooms have strict occupancy limits which means that, for the first time in the twelve COPs I have attended, I am not able to access the actual negotiation rooms. I am able to attend daily briefings for members of the Canadian delegation, often attended by our new minister and my old friend, Steven Guilbeault (in which information is shared on a confidential basis.)

Another physical weirdness, for which there is no COVID-related explanation, is that it is almost impossible to find electrical outlets – although CBC’s Laura Lynch told me yesterday the media centre is warm and has lots of plugs… I am jealous, but cannot figure out how I get in there.

But at least, I am in. Colleagues from around the world have been denied visas. Rwandan Green Party leader and MP, Dr. Frank Habineza sent me this email, after confirming we could meet for dinner Monday:

I received the travel clearance and the Note Verbale yesterday then submitted the visa form, but the UK High Commission has informed me that practically it will be impossible to come, since visa handling is done in South Africa, that they would expect the passport back by Wednesday and then travel on Thursday, thus becoming meaningless to come.

The UK government had made a commitment to ensure an equitable COP and to ensure that COVID and other restrictions did not result in fewer participants from Indigenous communities, the Global South, and civil society. This has been a massive fail. The developing world is far less well represented than at other COPs.

Being on the inside of COP, but not in the negotiation rooms, I work the corridors and get information from friends from around the world – seeing super knowledgeable, highly networked colleagues from Brazil, Malaysia, Germany and on and on. And of course, I press our federal government through the ministers attending and their staff. I also attend some of a nearly endless variety of presentations in small, cubby-like spaces found in a labyrinth of “pavilions.”

Is it worth being here? Absolutely.

Now to the higher-level weirdness. Why does this COP feel so disconnected from normal COP process?

Clearly, Boris Johnson is a showman. It only dawned on me after all the leaders had left that this COP is deviating from normal COPs in ways that reflect Johnson’s personality.

As the host country, the UK is essentially using this COP as a backdrop for self-promotion. The splashy press events are rolled out at dizzying speed. And the days are thematic. Finance day was a big one with Mark Carney announcing he had identified $130 trillion investor dollars ready and willing to finance a decarbonized world. (But are they committed to stop funding fossil fuels? Not so much.)

Similarly, that same day, it was announced that over 100 countries had signed on to the Glasgow Leaders Declaration on Forests and Land Use. A total of over 13 million square miles of forest around the world were supposed to be committed to halting deforestation and reversing the process by 2030. But then Indonesia, one of the signatories, cast doubt on what that commitment could be. Environment Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar said on Twitter on Wednesday, “Forcing Indonesia to (reach) zero deforestation in 2030 is clearly inappropriate and unfair,”

Canada has also signed, as did Brazil. The declaration was backed with public and private financial commitments of $19 billion (US$) to invest in protecting and restoring forests. Of that $1.7 billion is specifically committed to the efforts of Indigenous peoples in forest protection. But details are scarce.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/will-the-cop26-global-deforestation-pledge-save-forests

Add to those, other announcements – hugely encouraging commitments to slash methane emissions globally by 30% by 2030, with Canada committing to 75% reductions, to end the financing of foreign fossil fuel investments which Canada also adopted, and to increase the pressure for the Powering Past Coal Alliance, launched by Canada and the UK in Bonn at COP24 with 25 more countries signing on.

Still, all of these and many more, are not the product of negotiation within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the COP. These are voluntary commitments cobbled together as “alliances.” And, as ever, the headlines tend to over-sell what has been achieved.

For example, countries can still fund foreign fossil fuel investments as long as the facility has some form of carbon reduction technology attached. The commitment is to stop foreign funding for “unabated” fossil fuel developments… so add carbon capture and storage (expensive and largely discredited) and investments can proceed.

Do these announcements constitute progress? Most likely. They move the world in the right direction. In fact, Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, told the Powering Past Coal plenary that his team’s preliminary calculations of the impact of all the Glasgow announcements, if they were fully honoured, would take the projected global average temperature increase from an estimated 2.7 degrees C, calculated before COP26, to 1.8 degrees. That would be huge – although far short of the Paris goal of 1.5.

Still, the totality of commitments made by governments paints a very different picture. The UNFCCC synthesis report released on Thursday estimated that if all the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC’s – another word for targets) are delivered in full, by 2030 GHG emissions will have increased by 13.7 % above 2010 levels. The previous synthesis report projected an increase of 16% above 2010. Progress? Yes. But overall, it is still disaster. The IPCC Special Report on 1.5 degrees had made it clear emissions have to drop by 45% below 2010 levels by 2030 to hold to 1.5 degrees.

Another way to measure and stay grounded in science is to look at the carbon budget. This is from a useful website called Climate Clock:

“According to the IPCC’s latest estimate, the remaining carbon budget is 500 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions from 2020 onward. We will have emitted close to 80 billion tonnes during 2020-21, leaving 420 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in the budget after 2021.

“The year that we emit the last of this remaining carbon budget is expected to also be the year that global temperatures reach 1.5ºC.

“The current emissions trend suggests that this moment is now only 10 years away.”

https://www.sciencealert.com/climate-clock-suggests-we-re-now-only-10-years-away-from-hitting-1-5-c

I know this is confusing for you – it is for me and I have been immersed in this stuff since the 1980s. We could leave COP26 with Boris Johnson claiming victory, the International Energy Agency saying we are closing in on 1.5 degrees, while the UNFCCC calculations mean we will fail to hold to 1.5 with the window on 1.5 closed, and closed forever, by 2030.

In all of this, each one of those proclaiming the “news” will have some truth in what they say. As will, of course, Greta Thunberg.

The next week will help clarify results from negotiations – a step away from the public relations-fueled announcement machinery. Can we get countries to agree that NDC’s must be boosted on an annual basis – not just every five years? Can we hold faith with the developing world, the low-lying islands states, Indigenous peoples and youth? Those are the peoples who stay focused on paramount goal: One point five to stay alive.

While there is life, there is hope.

So, yours hopefully, from Glasgow,

Elizabeth

P.S.

I wrote this for Georgia Straight:

https://www.straight.com/news/elizabeth-may-elements-of-big-stall-carefully-disguised-as-climate-action

I have been posting more frequent reports in Policy magazine. Watch their on-line editions for updates:

Letter from COP26: Day One…Heady Speeches, Little Movement

Letter from COP26: Day 2…Forests, Methane and Fingerless Gloves

Letter from COP26: Day 4…Money Talks

Saanich-Gulf Islands Greens
http://www.sgigreenparty.ca/

The post Good Sunday Morning – November 7 appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Read her article here: POLICY MAGAZINE

The post Letter from COP26: Day 4…Money Talks appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Read her article here: THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT 

Pictured below is MP Elizabeth May, O.C. alongside the Honourable Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault.

The post The Elements of the Big Stall, Carefully disguised as Climate Action appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Read her article here: POLICY MAGAZINE 

Pictured below: MP May and MP Morrice meet with representatives from Équiterre while in Glasgow.

The post Letter from COP26: Day 2…Forests, Methane and Fingerless Gloves appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Happy Halloween! And Happy Opening Day of COP26!

Last night, around the world places of worship rang out their bells as a climate warning.  The idea originated with the Bishop of Norwich in the UK and has spread beyond denominations. I am grateful that my own little church of St. Andrews in Sidney and Victoria’s Christ Church Cathedral, rang out the bells to mark the start of COP26.

Likely, as you read this, John and I, on the same train with Mike Morrice (our newest Green MP), will be making our way to Glasgow for whatever awaits us.

It is a groaner, but there are good COPs and bad COPs.  And only the next days will tell which one this will be.

Hopes for this one certainly were raised with Justin Trudeau’s major Cabinet shake-up on Tuesday.  The big climate news was the appointment of Steven Guilbeault as minister for Environment and Climate Change.   Steven is a friend of many decades, a colleague in the climate action network.  I had hoped he would go to environment in 2019 when he was first elected.  Clearly, Heritage was not a good fit for him.  For those reading this who do not know him by reputation, he is as well-known and iconic an environmental leader in Quebec as David Suzuki is in English Canada. A cynic could say: this is Trudeau’s bid to get a majority next time with an electoral path through Quebec.  A climate optimist could say: this is the moment when Trudeau realizes you cannot build pipelines and save the climate at the same time. Maybe both?

Meanwhile, Jonathan Wilkinson will also be coming to COP26 as the new Minister for Natural Resources. Wilkinson was in the news this week for a report he co-authored with his German counterpart.  They were asked by Alok Sharma, COP26 President (the title for the chair of COP, generally a minister in the host country’s government), to report on progress in meeting the Copenhagen pledge (from COP15 in 2009) that wealthy nations would create a climate fund of $100 billion/year for the Global South and climate action.  Now surprisingly, Wilkinson reported failure. And said it was progress.

 https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-developed-countries-to-miss-goal-of-100-billion-climate-aid-pledged-to/

I am so frustrated by stories like this for their absence of history.  The developing world did not demand $100 billion in funding. The USA, under former secretary of State Hillary Clinton, offered it in her Copenhagen speech – rather than do what the Global South was demanding – slash GHG emissions from the USA. She, and then former President Obama taking the stage days later, promised that by 2020 there would be a $100 billion climate fund.  In backroom deals, other countries signed on, including Canada.  The deal failed to win acceptance at COP15. Low lying island states, in particular, denounced the effort to buy them off:

“Can I suggest that in biblical terms we are being offered 30 pieces of silver to betray our peoples’ future. Mr. President, our future is not for sale. Mr. President, I regret to inform you that Tuvalu cannot accept this document.”
Ian Fry, International Environmental Officer for Tuvalu

Climate Finance is now a key art of the Paris Agreement commitments.  This funding gap does not bode well for COP26.

Another record of shame for Canada.  This report released on October 28^th demonstrates global failure of industrialized countries to meet their 2009 G-20 commitment to stop subsidizing fossil fuels.  It highlights that Canada has the worst record of shoveling cash to fossil fuels, while giving a pittance to renewable energy.

http://priceofoil.org/2021/10/28/past-last-call-g20-public-finance-institutions-are-still-bankrolling-fossil-fuels/

I am hoping for a marked change in Canada’s position.    This is my longer piece on the cabinet shuffle for Policy magazine, also making note of the appointment of another British Columbia minister, Joyce Murray, as new Minister of Fisheries. https://www.policymagazine.ca/guilbeaults-deep-end-dive-into-his-own-pool-at-cop26/

We desperately need to do absolutely everything we can for meaningful climate action. And the protests at Fairy Creek turn out to be meaningful climate action, as well as important work for old growth. This article on Fairy Creek and carbon in Focus magazine is an eye opener. As David Broadland writes, “The blockades, it turns out, are the opposite of ‘blah, blah, blah.’”

https://www.focusonvictoria.ca/forests/103/

Another study on how forests and carbon link is this new report from four environmental groups.  https://naturecanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Missing-the-Forest.pdflik

It got decent coverage from CBC exposing how loopholes have allowed Canada’s forest industry to significantly under-report GHG emissions from the forest sector.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/forestry-emissions-accounting-1.6227903

Another busy week comes to an end, but it will feel like a vacation compared to the whirlwind of the next two weeks!  Hoping and praying for more than we can ask or imagine!

Love,

Elizabeth

The post Good Sunday Morning – October 31 appeared first on Elizabeth May.

Read her article here: POLICY MAGAZINE

Pictured below: Elizabeth snaps a selfie with Kenyan youth leader, Elizabeth Wathuti (Liz Mazingira). In the second photo, MP May greets Minister of Transport Omar Alghabra on his first day at the Conference.

The post Letter from COP26: Day One…Heady Speeches, Little Movement appeared first on Elizabeth May.

OTTAWA – As more than 120 world leaders get ready to meet in Glasgow for the 26th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26), Green Party parliamentary leader Elizabeth May (MP, Saanich-Gulf Islands) is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to step up and be “the leader the world needs” to deliver real progress in the fight against global warming.

“Mr. Trudeau must grasp this opportunity to demonstrate that Canada is turning over a new leaf,” said Ms. May. “He can announce that we are committed to doing what is necessary – cancelling the Trans Mountain pipeline, ending fossil fuel subsidies, banning fracking and bringing in a strong safety net through a Just Transition bill for energy-sector workers.”

Ms. May will be attending the Glasgow negotiations along with Green Party MP-elect Mike Morrice (Kitchener Centre). “Heading to my 12th Conference of the Parties, I am determined that the carbon spent on the flight is more than offset by successful Green energy to push for meaningful change,” she said.

“As co-chair of the Global Greens Parliamentarians Association, I work with elected Greens from around the world in key positions to press for success at COP26. We are dangerously near tipping points that threaten humanity’s survival. Failure is not an option.“

Mr. Morrice said that COP26 is a critical moment. “To keep a safe climate future within reach, Canada must step up,” he said. “It’s past time for our federal government to accelerate its targets and action to align with climate science.

“After 15 years’ mobilizing action at the local level, I’m looking forward to joining broad coalitions of people and organizations advocating at COP26 for our government to do its fair share in the push for climate justice.”

###

For more information or to arrange an interview:

John Chenery

613-562-4916 ext. 215

john.chenery@greenparty.ca

The post Greens say Canada must step up and lead at Glasgow climate conference appeared first on Elizabeth May.