A new salmon farm in Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island was dismantled and hauled away this week after being occupied by members of Ahousaht First Nations and local supporters from Tofino.

“This is the very first salmon farm that’s pulled out of B.C. because of protesters,” said Alexandra Morton, an independent salmon research scientist who has documented the devastating impacts of salmon farms on wild salmon and other marine species. Morton was part of the two-week occupation.

Lennie John, an Ahousaht man, was the first to tie his boat to the floating fish pens in the long narrow channel near the eastern shore of Flores Island with its intact ancient cedar rainforest and many creeks supporting runs of wild salmon. This is also home of the Ahousaht First Nations. Cermaq, a Norwegian-based salmon farming company (recently purchased by the Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi) was granted permits this summer to install its 16th farm in Clayoquot Sound.

“We blocked Cermaq’s access and told them they were trespassing,” John, an Ahousaht tourism business owner, said.

“You wouldn’t want someone to come into your house and make a mess,” John told more than 100 people attending a Clayoquot Action event, called “Take a Stand for Wild Salmon,” in Tofino on Wednesday. Clayoquot Action is a local environmental organization.

John was soon joined by others who literally camped on the steel catwalks that frame large salmon net pens that can hold up to a million Atlantic salmon at a time when fully stocked. The group spent two weeks camped on the open water despite the very windy and wet weather the region is known for.

Occupation of Cermaq fish pen. Photo: Alexandra Morton.

“I’m tired of being told to keep quiet. A handful of warriors stopped this. Imagine what a Nation could do?” John said.

“We want to get rid of all the fish farms on our territory,” John Rampanen, a member of the Ahousaht First Nation, told DeSmog Canada. There have been serious declines in shellfish, salmon and herring since salmon farms appeared in the nation’s traditional territory around 1999.

According to Cermaq’s website there is an agreement with three chiefs of the Ahousaht First Nation that covers issues such as financial and social benefits and employment. However the nation’s traditional and elected leadership ended up supporting the occupiers, Rampanen said.

Salmon are the life-force that powers the ecology and economy of British Columbia, Morton said.

“We’d be fools beyond forgiveness if we cut this off for future generations,” she told the crowd at the Clayoquot Action event in Tofino.

Morton, among others, has published scientific reports and papers documenting the impacts of salmon aquaculture on B.C.’s wild Pacific salmon, which are in sharp decline almost everywhere farms are located.

With up to a million salmon jammed into small open-ocean enclosures, disease and parasites like sea lice are common, requiring chemical insecticides and antibiotics to keep the fish from dying. As young wild salmon pass underneath the pens they are showered by sea lice. A single louse can kill a young fish according to Morton’s studies.

Underwater ‘sound canons’ are used to keep seals away from the net pens but also drive away orcas and other whales because of the sound pollution, Morton added. Three or more kilograms of wild fish are required as feed to produce one kilo of salmon. The ocean bottoms under and around the open-ocean net pens are usually devoid of any life, buried under the excrement of up to a million salmon overhead.

Aquaculture is big business in B.C. with about 750 aquaculture operations producing salmon, other finfish and shellfish. The total harvested value was nearly $534 million in 2010, according to government statistics.

Last May a petition with more than 106,000 signatures called on B.C. Premier Christy Clark to place a moratorium on new farms. In July, Clark approved four new farms including the one near Flores Island. 

“Nothing has ever stopped these farms. Not science, lawsuits, protests or petitions. Now the blockade has stopped one. You have to put your body on the line,” Morton told DeSmog.

“We know salmon farming in the ocean is wrong. We have to do something,” Joe James Rampanen, another occupier, said.

There is widespread support for the occupiers within the Ahousaht First Nation and other communities. That support included those who have family working for Cermaq and other operators.

“They feel ashamed they’re involved but what choice do they have?” Rampanen told DeSmog.

The aquaculture industry could modify its practice of operating in pristine regions where wild salmon thrive. Rampanen said companies could raise their fish on dry land like the freshwater fish aquaculture industry does.

Image: Cermaq

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The courts are “our best hope for averting dangerous climate change” believes Dutch lawyer Roger Cox who recently won what may be one of the most important legal cases this century.

Last June a court in The Hague ruled the Dutch government had to increase its carbon dioxide emissions cuts from 17 per cent to 25 per cent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels. Canada’s 2020 target is an increase of about seven per cent over its emissions in 1990 and it will not make that target.

Although the right-wing Dutch government fought the case, it will comply with the judgment, Cox said during a presentation at the Osgoode Hall Law Society Tuesday evening in Toronto. The event was hosted by the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), a non-partisan think tank.

Cox represented an environmental group, the Urgenda Foundation, and almost 900 citizens in the two-year case. They argued the Netherlands is obligated to cut emissions between 25 and 40 per cent by 2020 since all developed countries, including Canada, agreed to this at the UN climate negotiations in Cancun in 2010.

The big question is: could the decision be replicated in Canada?

“Climate litigation is inevitable,” said Lorne Sossin, dean and professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University.

While it might be difficult to win, simply bringing a climate lawsuit forward would be important, Sossin said.

One major reason is that courts require compelling evidence — and there is an abundance of that on climate science and how to cut emissions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), International Energy Agency and other respected bodies.

“Politicians and the media falsely claim acting on climate will harm the economy but it’s easy to prove in court reductions are not so difficult,” said Cox.

The Dutch government didn’t even contest these facts, Cox said.

“The courts will try to find a remedy once they know the real facts of climate change,” said David Estrin, senior research fellow and certified environmental law specialist at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

Informing the court about climate science and the far-reaching impacts and risks to future generations was half of the Dutch case, Cox said.

“Few people anywhere really grasp the seriousness the problem. There are so many aspects people don’t yet get,” Cox told DeSmog.

One of those is that nothing new that uses fossil fuels can be built after 2018  to have a chance of keeping global temperature rise below 2C.

“Given the overwhelming enormity of the harm from climate change” Canada’s judiciary may have to play a role if the state refuses to act appropriately said Hon. Stephen Goudge, Q.C., formerly Justice of the Ontario Court of Appeal.

The Dutch court saw a “gigantic problem and found a way to deal with it,” Goudge said.

Governments have a “duty to protect the interests of future generations” the District Court of The Hague found. And it also ruled since it is far cheaper to act now, the state is obligated to act now rather than unfairly burden future generations with the costs of cutting emissions and coping with impacts.

The Dutch government also tried the Stephen Harper government’s favourite “we’re too small to matter” talking point. The Netherlands emissions are less than 0.5 per cent of global emissions compared to Canada’s 2 per cent. The court pointed out that the government couldn’t prove those cuts would not have an impact, Cox said.

But isn’t acting on climate solely a matter for governments? The court said the state has the responsibility to act reasonably and had not in this instance. “A legal question with political consequences is still a legal question, the court ruled,” Cox said.

The Dutch government has said it will appeal parts of the decision. In a recent report, the Dutch environment agency said the Netherlands could easily increase cuts to 25 per cent by 2020, but only if it begins right away. Delay would make reaching the court-mandated target difficult and expensive.

Cox is involved in a similar case underway in Belgium and would like to see cases brought in other countries. He just accepted an appointment at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and will be working on how to use international law, commitments and treaties in domestic courts and on legal concepts of climate justice.

Canadian law is based on common law while the Dutch have a civil law system, as does Quebec.  It would be much easier to use the Dutch decision in a climate case in Quebec, said Lewis  Klar, former dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Alberta.

However Klar told DeSmog there is little chance a climate case could win in Canada even using the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“Few legal experts thought we would win when we started,” Cox said.

In the end, the court “really felt the need to act due to the clear climate science and the risks to future generations,” he said.

Photo: Urgenda/Chantal Bekker

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Marilyn Baptiste of the Xeni Gwet’in First Nation in British Columbia has won the prestigious $175,000 Goldman Prize  for her five-year effort to prevent construction of the Prosperity gold and copper mine 600 kilometres north of Vancouver.

“I hope the Goldman award will bring world recognition to help us protect our land,” Baptiste told DeSmog Canada.  “We’d like to improve our lives, but our land and water comes first."

That simple statement echoes the words of millions of indigenous peoples in Canada and around the world facing governments and industries intent on extracting minerals, oil, coal, gas and timber from their lands.

“It’s the same story everywhere,” she said.

However, the beginnings of a new story may be in the works in Canada. Baptiste is a member of the Tsilhqot’in people who won a landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision in 2014 that granted aboriginal title to more than a 1,750-square-kilometre area in the Cariboo-Chilcotin area.

For more than 20 years, the 3,000-member Tsilhqot’in opposed clear-cut logging on its unceded territory in and around the Nemaiah Valley. The Tsilhqot'in have no treaties with governments, but the B.C. government approved the logging regardless. The Supreme Court ruled that B.C. had infringed on the rights of the Tsilhqot’in.

Most of B.C. is unceded territory, so the implications of the Supreme Court decision are potentially far-reaching for the rest of the province.

“Our land, our water, our future generations are not for sale," Baptiste said.

Vancouver’s Taseko Mines Ltd, the proponent of the renamed “New” Prosperity Mine, says it will proceed with its project because it is outside of the 1,750 square kilometre Tsilhqot’in territory.

Taseko has spent 20 years trying to get the open pit mine built beside Teztan Biny (Fish Lake). Although the project was approved by B.C., a federal environmental review panel rejected the project in 2010 for its serious potential environmental and cultural impacts. In a rare statement, then minister of environment Jim Prentice said the project would destroy Fish Lake and surrounding streams and wetlands.

A Taseko animation of the New Prosperity Mine plans for Fish Lake via Youtube.

Taseko made some changes, called it "New" Prosperity and re-submitted it to the federal review panel soon after with the blessing of the B.C. government. Taseko started to work on the mine in 2011 without getting federal approval.

That’s when Baptiste stood up and started a one-woman blockade preventing construction crews from reaching the proposed mine site. Alone and in a very remote location, Baptiste drew her courage from the mountains around her.

Baptiste stands over a map of Tsilhqo'tin Territory. Photo: Goldman Environmental Prize

“We’re part of the mountains and lakes. They’re our source of health and sustenance….It is just my duty and responsibility to protect our lands, water, wildlife, wild plants for our future generations,” she said.

Baptiste was soon joined by members of her community and the Tsilhqot’in Nation in blocking the road.

The federal government rejected Taseko again in 2013, saying it would cause irreversible environmental damage. Taseko’s response was to sue the federal government. And then again when it lost.

In January 2015, the B.C. government granted Taseko a new extension to build the mine.

“It’s been five years but it feels like ten,” said Baptiste.

“We’re definitely going to continue to oppose the project.”

The open pit mine would be up to 1.6 kilometres wide and more than 500 metres deep. The contaminated tailings will be dumped into a tailings pond near the lake — the specifications of which are based on those of the Mount Polley tailings pond, Baptiste said.

The Mount Polley tailings pond, about four square kilometres in size, failed in August 2014, releasing millions of cubic metres of contaminated water. It was considered one of Canada’s biggest environmental disasters.

Indigenous peoples appreciate modern technology and want to enjoy the benefits, but not if that means the destruction of their land and waters, Baptiste repeated.

“We can’t continue the way we are going. Mother Earth is telling us we are going the wrong way.”

Laws and regulations for mining and the extractive industries need major reforms, something First Nations in the Mount Polley area are actively engaged in pursuing. Governments need to work with local people, not ignore or disrespect them as the B.C. government has, Baptiste said.

Image Credit: Goldman Environmental Prize

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Vancouver city council’s unanimous decision to commit to running on 100 per cent renewable energy is the kind of political leadership the world desperately needs says Jørgen Randers, professor of climate strategy at the Norwegian Business School in Oslo, Norway.

“Despite the looming catastrophe of climate change the market will choose to do nothing,” Randers said in the keynote speech at the ICLEI World Congress 2015, the triennial sustainability summit of local governments in Seoul, South Korea.

Nor will voluntary actions on climate be enough. Strong legislation, intelligent policy and collective action are the only ways to keep humanity from a nightmare future, said the former business executive who still sits on boards of major corporations.

“It is totally obvious what we should do. And it is only a little more costly.”

However capitalism is exactly the wrong system to deal with a long-term risk like climate change, Randers explained. Capitalism is designed to allocate capital to the most profitable projects and climate action is an additional cost.

Of course, failure to act will be an economic disaster as regions and countries are forced to devote more and more of their capital and labour to coping with climate impacts. Flooding, heat waves, water and food shortages and building defences to buffer those impacts will be very costly, he said.

Randers is a co-author of the landmark 1972 book Limits to Growth, which was updated in 2004. His latest book is 2052 A Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years. Based on the latest scientific, economic and other data, 2052 is a real-world look into the next 40 years. It says global CO2 emissions will not begin to decline until 2030 producing a very hot planet 3 to 4 C hotter than today by 2080.

“The climate will just get worse and worse…it will be very unpleasant especially for the poor,” he said.

“There is a strong moral imperative to act on climate,” Andrea Reimer, Vancouver’s deputy mayor, told DeSmog Canada in Seoul.

“There’s also a fantastic economic case. So why shouldn’t Vancouver be a leader on this?” Reimer said.

Andrea Reimer addresses crowd at ICLEI World Congress 2015. Photo: Stephen Leahy

A new study substantiates this. It found that world’s biggest economies could save $520 billion a year if they go 100 per cent renewable. Such a shift would generate three million new jobs.

On March 25, Vancouver voted to make such a shift. More than 90 per cent of the city’s electricity already comes from hydro and shifting to 100 per cent will only take a few years.

Converting all of the cities’ heating and cooling systems will likely take until 2030 or 2035, she said. City staff are working out the details and timelines. Transport will be tougher still, perhaps taking until 2050.

“This could happen sooner with national and provincial government support,” Reimer said. Cities and local governments only get about eight per cent of total taxes paid by Canadians.

Vancouver is one of about 50 cities pioneering the path to a low-carbon future. Others include San Diego and San Francisco in California, Sydney, Australia, and Copenhagen which plans to be carbon neutral by 2025. Nearby Malmo, Sweden, will be 100 per cent renewable for all three sectors — electricity, heating/cooling and transport — by 2030.

Tackling all three sectors at same time works far better than just doing one said Anna Leidreiter, coordinator of the Global 100 per cent RE Alliance — an international alliance of organizations pushing for a shift away from fossil fuels. It is much easier to cope with renewable energy fluctuations and stabilize the grid when heating/cooling and transport are integrated, Leidreiter told DeSmog Canada.

That’s Germany’s approach where more than 80 regions are already 100 per cent renewable and 60 more regions are on their way.

Even Seoul is moving on this. The rapidly growing megacity of 11 million plans to generate 20 per cent of its electricity from renewables by 2020 by covering all of its public structures — water treatment plants, subway stations, schools etc. with solar panels.

Another essential policy for effective climate action is a carbon tax that rises to $100 a tonne, Randers said. “Carbon markets will not do it,” he said.

Even Ontario’s recently announced cap and trade market has been criticized by the likes of Canadian economist Jeff Rubin for being too weak to be effective. Cap and trade schemes operating in the European Union’s have also been found to be too complex, costly and ineffective by most analysis. However, even critics will agree a price on carbon is essential for meeting our global emission reductions goals.

British Columbia’s carbon tax shift is widely considered a smart policy and the best of its kind in North America. A 2013 study DeSmog reported on showed the carbon tax has allowed B.C. residents to enjoy the lowest income tax in the country (not Albertans), use the least amount of fuel per person and have arguably the healthiest economy. However, the tax needs improvement. For starters, the rate has been frozen at $30 a tonne since 2012 and there are backwards exemptions for the oil and gas sector.

Ultimately, people and businesses want to live and work in clean and green urban areas. And whoever develops expertise in shifting to 100 per cent renewable energy will own the 21st century, Reimer said.

Image Credit: Bart Speelman via Flickr

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Cities are responsible for 70 per cent of global CO2 emissions but they can save the planet by greening one community at a time said Vancouver’s David Cadman at the close of the ICLEI World Congress 2015, the triennial sustainability summit of local governments in Seoul, South Korea.

“We can do it. We must do it,” Cadman, the retiring president of Local Governments for Sustainability, told some 1,500 delegates from nearly 1,000 cities and local governments in 96 countries on April 11.

The majority of climate actions and most plans to reduce CO2 emissions are happening at the city level, Cadman told DeSmog Canada in Seoul.

Vancouver and 50 other cities have committed to 100 per cent renewable energy and 500 more are part of ICLEI’s Cities Climate Registry that documents verifiable CO2 emission reduction actions and commitments that amounted to 2.8 billion tons a year in 2014.

Cadman, a former City of Vancouver councillor, has been president of ICLEI since 2006. It’s an international organization headquartered in Bonn, Germany, with 280 staff and 23 other offices scattered around the globe. ICLEI, which stands for International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, started 25 years ago in Toronto to help cities become more sustainable. It now goes by the more manageable name of "Local Governments for Sustainability," but still uses the original acronym.

Canada’s federal and provincial governments were very strong supporters in the early days but the past decade has been very different.

“We seem to be chained to the fossil energy industry in Canada and it’s pulling us down. Cities and organizations can hardly dare to speak out about this now,” he said.

Germany was only too happy to bring ICLEI to Bonn eight years ago and has been generous with its support, along with the European Union. Now the organization is experiencing what is being called an “Asian pivot,” with the mayor of Seoul, Park Won Soon, as the new president.

Park has helped Seoul to become one of the world’s leaders on sustainable development. With 11 million people and growing fast, Seoul will reduce its energy use and increase renewable generation including rolling out 40,000 solar panels to households by 2018 and 15,000 electric vehicles. By 2030, CO2 emissions will be cut 40 per cent.

“Action on climate will be by local governments no matter what national governments decide,” Park Won Soon told DeSmog Canada.

“We need to act quickly, we need to act energetically,” the mayor said.

China’s megacities are also joining ICLEI. At the congress, Hailong Li, deputy secretary general of the China Eco-city Council said the country will have 100 low-carbon eco-cities by 2017. That will drive down the costs of energy efficiency and renewable energy, Li said.

China also intends to become an expert on eco-construction and to market its expertise to the rest of the developing world.

By 2030 another 3.5 billion people will be living in cities so it is absolutely critical that the infrastructure be sustainable said Cadman who will continue to be active as special representative to the new ICLEI President.

“I’m 70 now and need to reduce my workload. My wife says she’d like me to be around a bit longer.”

Canadian cities could also do more and sooner if they had the support of provincial and federal governments, he said. That may be changing at the provincial level with growing support for various forms of carbon taxes that will help generate funds and financial incentives to reduce emissions.

“The provinces are doing the heavy-lifting on climate while the Harper government sits on the sidelines.”

Fossil fuels are in decline — divestment is taking off and investments are shifting to renewable energy. There’ll be no pipelines to the West Coast and no new investments in the oilsands, Cadman said.

Even in B.C., the hoped-for markets for LNG may not exist with China building gas pipelines to tap reserves in Iran and Russia, he said.

“Canada needs to move away from selling raw resources, but is any political party ready to go there?”

Image Credit: David Cadman and Park Won Soon at the World Congress 2015. By Stephen Leahy.

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A moratorium on any new oilsands expansion is imperative given Canada’s failure to properly assess the total environmental and climate impacts Canadian and U.S. experts say in the prestigious science journal Nature.

Even with a moratorium it will be very difficult for Canada to meet its international promise to reduce CO2 emissions that are overheating the planet according to government documents as previously reported by DeSmog.

“Continuing to approve pipelines and new projects guarantees Canada will not meet the Harper government’s Copenhagen emissions reduction target,” said Wendy Palen, an ecologist at Simon Fraser University. 

“These are the plain facts Canadians need to be aware of,” Palen, a co-author of the Nature commentary, told DeSmog.

Canadians also have no idea of the overall ‘big picture’ of the impacts of oilsands production and transport because each project is assessed in isolation.

In total more than 280 square kilometres of boreal forest and peatlands have already been eliminated to make way for oilsands development. That amounts to an area more than twice the size of the City of Vancouver.

According to a 2012 study the destruction of this region of the boreal forest – a natural carbon sink –released about 100,000 tonnes of CO2 that had been safely stored underground. And it also meant the end of the region’s ability to absorb some 58,000 tonnes of CO2 every year. Over a 20-year time span that’s 1,161,000 tonnes of CO2 that stays in the atmosphere – close to half the annual emissions of the City of Vancouver.

This does not include CO2 emissions from developing oilsands projects themselves nor the emissions from burning millions of barrels of oil produced there each year. 

This piecemeal approach is like determining the risk of cigarette smoking by only looking at the potential harm from smoking one cigarette, environmental economist Mark Jaccard said.

As critics have pointed out during recent pipeline review processes, regulators like the National Energy Board do not consider the climate impacts of pipelines and oilsands projects. It’s considered ‘out of bounds’ Jaccard, another coauthor of the report, said.  Each project is presented as an ultimatum: approve the project or lose an economic opportunity, he said.

“This approach artificially restricts discussion to only a fraction of the consequences of oil development,” Jaccard and 7 co-authors argued in the report. The authors represent an interdisciplinary group of experts in environmental science, economics, policy development and decision science.

What Canada and the U.S. need is a “more coherent approach" to evaluate all oilsands projects and pipelines in the “context of broader, integrated energy and climate strategies.”

But first Canada and the U.S. need to impose an immediate halt to new oilsands developments and related pipeline construction, the authors write. (The U.S. is considering developing its own oilsands in Utah and elsewhere). Then the two countries can jointly develop a strategy that allows energy developments to proceed only if they are within environmental limits and respect other national commitments to human health, social justice and biodiversity protection.

However this strategy would need a formal, legislated acknowledgement of the reality that oilsands development impacts the climate. It also should create either a carbon tax or cap-and-trade mechanism to ensure the oil industry absorbs "the full social costs of carbon combustion."

Finally this strategy should assess the full range of potential impacts compared to alternatives. And it should include the options of saying ‘no’ to a project.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Canada and the U.S. need to co-ordinate their climate policies in an interview on the CBC’s The National last week. She acknowledged we need to get beyond project-by-project approvals.

With new regulations on power plants, the U.S. may be on its way to meeting its Copenhagen emission reduction target, which is identical to Canada’s.

While Prime Minister Harper “clearly doesn’t care about climate change,“ Jaccard told DeSmog,  President Obama does and could make approval of the Keystone XL pipeline contingent on Canada meeting its 2020 target.

“Economists around the world now agree the costs of carbon pollution far outweigh the benefits,” Jaccard said.

Image Credit: Aerial view of the Alberta oilsands. Copyright Alex McLean with the Pulitzer Center for Journalism.

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Marine life in the high seas soak up twice as much CO2 from the atmosphere as Canada emits every year, a new study by the Global Ocean Commission revealed Tuesday.

Scientists estimate that phytoplankton absorb and bury more than 1.6 billion tonnes of CO2 in the seabed every year.

This would be news to readers of the Globe and Mail’s detailed two-page spread on the Global Ocean Commission report, which failed to mention this vitally important carbon reduction service (or that it is worth an estimated $148 billion a year).

Additionally, if governments ended fishing in the unclaimed oceans beyond 200-mile economic zones, near-shore fish catches would soar, even more carbon would be safely removed from the atmosphere and the oceans would be healthier said co-author of the study Rashid Sumaila of the University of British Columbia’s Fisheries Centre.

“The high seas are like a failed state. Poor governance and the absence of policing and management mean valuable resources are unprotected or being squandered,” said David Miliband, co-chair of the commission and former foreign secretary of the United Kingdom.

Governments like Japan, Spain, the U.S. and China subsidize fishing fleets to destroy the high seas by overfishing and deep-sea bottom trawling to the tune of $152 million a year.

Here’s the kicker: The dollar value of all the fish caught way out there is actually negative when costs like fuel and subsidies are subtracted. Turns out high seas fishing fleets get 25 per cent of their income from subsidies according to a 2009 analysis by Sumaila.

“Most would not be fishing the high seas without subsidies” Sumaila told DeSmog Canada.

Restoring ocean productivity

Fishing should be banned in the high seas, which represent 64 per cent of the world’s oceans just to protect and enhance its role as a carbon sponge, he said. But that is just one of 14 other valuable services the high seas provide humanity according their study, The High Seas And Us: Understanding The Value Of High Seas Ecosystems.

The study was commissioned by the Global Ocean Commission, an 18-month-old organization comprised of business leaders and former senior politicians including former Canadian prime minister Paul Martin.

The commission is calling for the negotiation of a new agreement under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to prioritize ocean health and resilience and restore ocean productivity. It also called for an elimination of subsidies on high seas fishing within five years.

The commission’s proposals also call for mandatory tracking of all vessels fishing in the high seas, a ban on the transshipment of fish at sea, measures to end plastics pollution and binding standards for the regulation and control of offshore oil and gas exploration and exploitation.

Carbon really does sink

Phytoplankton are the carbon-eating plants of the seas and pass on this carbon when they’re eaten. When organisms die in the deep seas, their organic matter ends up on the bottom of the ocean, which makes for an effective, natural carbon sequestration process.

Fishing is crippling this free carbon-removal system. This is especially true for bottom-trawlers that bulldoze the sea floor scooping up every living thing. Trawling is by far the most common fishing method and recent studies warn it’s destroying corals and the sea bottom leading to “long-term biological desertification.”

Last May, scientists writing in the journal Science called for an end to “the frontier mentality of exploitation” of the high seas and recommended a ban on trawling to protect the carbon-removal service and halt the decline in the productivity of the oceans. The amount of wild fish caught peaked 20 years ago.

About 70 per cent of fish caught inside the 200-mile limits spend some time in the high seas. If the high seas are protected those fish are likely to grow larger and become more numerous, benefitting near-shore fisheries, Sumaila said. 

A number of studies of marine protected zones where fishing is banned or very limited show these areas act as baby-fish incubators increasing the overall population of fish.

If fishing was banned in the high seas, fisheries profits would more than double, the amount of fish would increase 30 per cent and the amount of ocean fish stock conservation would increase 150 per cent according to a study published in PLOS Biology last March.

Given the reality that fishing the high seas is a money loser, even a low carbon price could make a fishing ban valuable, not to mention the other potential benefits of regulating international fisheries. Sumaila said the $148 billion-a-year value of the high seas carbon sponge is a conservative estimate, and it could actually be as high as $222 billion.

Fishing and trawling bans have been proposed before. Last December the European parliament narrowly rejected a bottom-trawling ban on its vessels.

“We need wide public understanding of the vital importance of the high seas to all of us,” concluded Sumaila.

Top 10 High Seas Fishing Nations (according to Sumaila’s study) in descending order: Japan South Korea Taiwan Spain USA Chile China Indonesia Philippines France

Image Credit: Plastic bag floats in the water. Photo by Patrick Kelly in Global Ocean Commission report.

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This week the federal government was legally obligated to establish protected habitat for threatened North Pacific humpback whales. Instead the Harper government suddenly moved to take the humpback off the “threatened species” list. That would eliminate the legal requirement under Canada’s Species At Risk Act for protecting habitat along the British Columbia coast.

The government based the downgrade on a recommendation made by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), the independent scientific body that designates which wildlife species are in trouble, in 2011.

Critics have noted the decision eliminates a major obstacle to both the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline and the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. After the conditional approval of the Northern Gateway pipeline by the National Energy Board's joint review panel, the University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre launched a legal complaint on behalf of B.C. Nature requesting the government's recovery strategy for humpback whales be taken into consideration.

A federal recovery strategy for humpback whales on the B.C. coast released in October cited potential increased oil tanker traffic as a danger to dwindling populations. The recovery strategy, released after a five-year delay, also noted the danger toxic spills posed to critical habitat.

If built, the two pipeline projects would increase oil tanker traffic from eight to 28 per month, increasing the risks of collisions with whales, potential spills in vital habitat and excessive noise.

The good news is that the North Pacific humpbacks are recovering after nearly being wiped out by whale hunting, Marty Leonard, chair of COSEWIC, told DeSmog Canada.

The whales were listed as a species of “special concern” back in 2011, Leonard said. “Their numbers are increasing which is good to see. But they still face threats.”

Those threats include oil spills, collisions with ships, entanglement in fishing gear and overfishing of their food sources.

The Pacific Ocean is the largest feature on the planet — bigger than all land areas combined. After 250 years of whaling, an estimated 1,400 humpbacks remained in the North Pacific. They’re among the largest marine mammals reaching 14 metres in length and weighing up to 40 tonnes. Hunting was banned in 1965 and today there are about 20,000 in the entire region. Perhaps 3,000 are found seasonally in B.C. waters.

The Species At Risk Act took affect in 2003, prior to which Canada had little endangered species protection.

In 2005, COSEWIC listed North Pacific humpbacks as a “threatened” species. COSEWIC defines “threatened” as a species likely to become endangered if nothing is done. “Endangered” means about to go extinct. The government’s move will demote the status of humpbacks to “species of special concern.”

The federal government is required to produce an official “recovery strategy” for all species on the endangered and threatened lists, including legal protection of essential habitat.

Despite its legal obligation, the Harper government has persistently failed to do so for humpbacks and another 170 species.

In September 2012, Ecojustice lawyers filed a lawsuit in response to the Harper government’s delay on behalf of five environmental groups, the David Suzuki Foundation, Greenpeace Canada, Sierra Club BC, Wilderness Committee and Wildsight.

In February 2014, the Federal Court ruled the Harper government was breaking the law and was very critical of the government’s delay.

“We took the federal government to court and won,” said Caitlyn Vernon of the Sierra Club BC. 

“There is clearly an enormous systemic problem within the relevant Ministries,” Justice Anne L. Mactavish wrote in her judgment.

Justice Mactavish also noted that when it comes to protecting species, delay can lead to extinction.

The lawsuit prompted the Federal government to develop a recovery strategy for North Pacific humpbacks in September 2013, eight years after being listed as threatened.

The recovery strategy required legal protection of designated feeding grounds to be in place by this week, Vernon told DeSmog.

But rather than implement such protections, the government moved to downgrade the status of the whales to eliminate the need for legal protection of habitat.

“It’s good news humpback numbers are increasing, but their recovery is fragile. The science is clear that increased tanker traffic from the proposed pipelines will affect that recovery,” said Vernon.

“One oil spill and they’re back on the endangered species list.”

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The B.C. Ministry of Environment stands by its "implausibly low" estimate of methane leaks from the natural gas sector according to an official “information note" triggered by DeSmog's two-part article series last May.

The DeSmog investigation revealed methane leaks were likely 7 times greater than the B.C. government is reporting based on data from US studies. The real climate impacts of those leaks would be like adding at least three million cars to B.C. roads.

DeSmog's findings were subsequently confirmed by international energy experts in June. "Canada appears to have vastly underestimated fugitive emissions (leaks) from gas exploration in British Colombia [sic]," possibly because of "inadequate accounting methodology" they reported.

Their report documents studies and data from other countries showing methane leaks range between 2 and 9% of total production compared to B.C.'s reported 0.3%. This difference is "substantial" they said.

The Environment Ministry's July 22, 2013 information note to Minister Mary Polak acknowledges a "recent article referencing 'implausibly low' BC shale gas emissions was published in DeSmog Canada…." and as a result "B.C. Sustainable Energy Association and others are questioning if the natural gas to be used for LNG production is clean and if industry is operating with appropriate social license."

B.C. Gas Industry "Different" Than Rest, Says Ministry of Environment

The Ministry dismisses those questions and the evidence of under reporting by saying the gas industry in B.C. is "significantly different" and its methane leak estimates (no measurements are done) are accurate. That would make its gas industry, which is largely foreign-owned, the world's leader on controlling methane leaks.

Super, Natural B.C. indeed.

Natural gas is mostly methane. There are thousands of places where small methane leaks can occur in natural gas operations including drilling, gathering, processing and pipelines an industry expert previously told DeSmog. The industry doesn't like to call them leaks, preferring the term “fugitive emissions.” As DeSmog reported last May no one measures the leaks, not the industry, not the Ministry of the Environment nor the industry regulator, the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission.

Methane matters because it is a powerful greenhouse gas, much better at trapping heat than CO2.  Initially this heat-trapping power was considered 21 times greater than CO2 over a 100-year time period. Later this was increased to 25 times. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released last September concluded that methane is 34 times better than CO2 at trapping heat on a 100 year time scale, and 84 times greater on a more climate-relevant 20 year time scale.

The Ministry of Environment continues to calculate methane using 21.

The Public Deserves Real Answers Based on Real Data

The B.C. gas industry exports 65% of its annual production to Alberta and the U.S., 15% stays in B.C. and 20% is 'lost' according government statistics (B.C.'s Natural Gas Exports). That 20% amounts to 7.4 billion cubic meters in 2010 out of a total production of 36.4 billion cubic meters  Most of this gas is not actually 'lost' but used by the industry to power equipment and pump the gas through the pipelines. What is truly lost is lost through flaring, venting and leaks of methane.

Let's assume for a minute there are no leaks or venting and that all 7.4 billion cubic meters of this 'lost' gas is used to power equipment. That would result in 14 million tonnes of CO2 emissions. (When a cubic meter of gas is burned it produces 1.9 kg of CO2 according to Environment Canada.)

However the Ministry says B.C.'s entire oil and gas sector emitted 6.2 million tonnes (Mt) in 2010 and the July 22nd information note says 10.5 million tonnes in 2011. Something doesn't add up.

These questions need real answers backed up by up-to-date, independent and measured-in-B.C. data. This information is essential for B.C. MLAs to properly debate rules for carbon pollution and taxes for dramatic expansion of gas production for liquefied natural gas (LNG) development.

The 2014 legislative session opens in less than a month.  

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(WARSAW, Poland) — "I'm ashamed to tell anyone here I'm a Canadian. When they find out they say 'ohh we pity you'," said Leehi Yona, a 20-year old Montrealer who attended the UN climate talks in Warsaw, Poland.

"All Canadians would be outraged if they knew how Canada behaves on the world stage," Yona, a student at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, told DeSmog on the last day of the two-week negotiations. She's in Warsaw with the US Climate Action Network, a coalition of environmental groups.

"I'm determined to tell as many Canadians as I can what's happening in Warsaw."

About 12,000 people are involved in the climate treaty negotiations known as COP 19. At least 1,500 are members of environmental and civil society organizations. In a nutshell, COP 19 is step towards creating a new climate treaty by 2015 to keep global warming to less than 2˚ C and to help poor countries survive the mounting impacts.

There's little love for Canada in Warsaw. For two long weeks nations of the world have tried to come to grips with the climate crisis. Canada's representatives blocked and delayed progress, generating no small amount of anger from the Philippines, Bangladesh, African countries and small island states facing threats to their very existence.

"The international community has given up Canada. We're seen as a tragic story now," Yona said.

Even international environmental organizations can't be bothered to criticize Canada any more. After being judged the worst country at the last five UN climate meetings, Canada didn't even make the list. 

There were dozens of young Canadians in Warsaw. Most weren't even born when Canada was the leading international force in the 1980s and early 1990s, launching many environmental initiatives like the Rio Earth Summit in 1992.

"Canada has rarely spoken for itself in Warsaw," said Anjali Appadurai of Vancouver who is a youth representative working as a notetaker for the Third World Network. "When they do speak, it's to pay lip service to the COP process. There is a selfish arrogance and lack of respect," Appadurai told DeSmog. As an observer she has far more access since media are barred from witnessing most of the negotiations.

Appadurai is a COP veteran. As a college student in 2011 she delivered the  “Get it Done!” speech at the close of COP 17 in Durban, garnering media attention around the world. It was an echo of nine-year-old Severn Cullis-Suzuki's moving speech at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.

Cullis-Suzuki received a standing ovation. Appaduari was banned from the COP 17 and future COPs for participating in an "unsanctioned protest" afterward.

National governments acting through the UN have increasingly restricted the role and activities of youth and participants from civil society at these meetings, she said. No posters. No flyers. No demonstrations except at pre-approved times in designated locations well away from the negotiations. When allowed to speak at official sessions, civil society organizations' speaking time has been cut in half to a single minute. 

At last year's COP 18 in Doha, Appaduari was allowed in after a week of appeals and a "Twitter storm" by civil society organizations. She had to sign a declaration promising to behave. Her participation this year was under similar circumstances.

"I had to sign a contract saying I will behave and not participate in any unsanctioned actions," she said.

In Warsaw three youth were banned for five years for holding up signs naming Filipino communities destroyed by super typhoon Haiyan. "It's getting a little bit scary. Youth and civil society are being pushed to the margins," Appaduari said.

That was one of the reasons why more than 800 members of environmental and civil society organizations walked out of the climate talks on the second last day of negotiations.

It takes a huge effort and expense for students to spend one or two weeks at a climate convention. "The UN tells us they want our voices here but no one listens," Yona said. "I came because I refuse to accept inaction on climate. We will have to live with the consequences."

Yona is making things happen. She's President of Green Schools Coalition of Montreal, an environmental advocate and organizer. Civil society organizations are shifting from an international focus to the local and expect to see an increase in community engagement around the world in 2014.

"I want to tell my children I did absolutely everything I could," she said.

A wide-ranging international coalition of youth is being created to help each other win battles in their local communities, Appaduari said.

"We want climate justice and to create a radically different future than the terrible one we're facing today." 

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Canada and every other rich country need to crash their CO2 emissions 10% per year starting in 2014 to have any hopes of ensuring a not-super-dangerous climate for our grandchildren, said Kevin Anderson of Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester.

"We can still do 2C but not the way we're going," Anderson said on the sidelines of the UN climate talks, in Warsaw, Poland.

Anderson wasn't just referring to the lengthy-and-acronym-laden COP 19 process held inside Warsaw's 58,000-seat soccer stadium. It's too late for any normal approaches to emissions reductions. Preventing climate disaster requires a radical measures and our economic system is not up to the task he said.

"Massive amounts of capital needs to be directed towards a low-carbon future straight away."

Not only does that mean governments redirecting the more than $500 billion they spend subsidizing fossil fuels, it means financial institutions and pension funds need to pull their money out of dirty energy and put it into green projects. If they're not willing, then governments will have to make them he said.

And for the next five years most of that money should go into reducing energy consumption. Alternative energy can't be built fast enough or at the scale needed to 100% replace dirty energy sources.

Automobile manufacturers like Kia and BMW already have non-hybrid, non-electric vehicles with double the fuel efficiency of the typical car on the road today. If governments put in tough new efficiency standards, CO2 emissions could fall 40-50% in 10 years he said.

As "pushers of petroleum" the Harper government isn't about to do anything like this said David Cadman, President of ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability), the only network of sustainable cities operating worldwide.

"They don't understand science and are willing to leave future generations with a bleak and nasty world," Cadman told DeSmog in Warsaw.

The practical alternative vision is a green low-carbon future that is different but far better than the present. And cities are leading the way. Currently a group of 441 cities representing 15% of people on the planet are taking concrete action to reduce their emissions said Cadman, a Vancouver city councilor.

Cities like Vancouver, Mexico City, Hyderbad India, Osaka, Japan, and Bangkok have registered their efforts to reduce emissions on an official Cities Climate Registry. The idea is to raise the global level of ambition through taking measurable, reportable, verifiable local climate action. After only two years these cities have now found ways to reduce their collective CO2 emissions by 2.2 billion tons a year.

Cities are amongst the biggest source of emissions but equally important is their role in giving birth to a low-carbon global culture that we need to thrive said Cadman.

"The green way of living will be fairer, more compact, create more jobs, reduce energy and other costs, and be more in harmony with nature and our own true natures. It's the opposite of where we are now where a few get rich."

The climate action by cities and subnational governments (regional and provincial) is finally being noticed at the UN climate talks that are dominated by national governments. Thursday, 21 November was “Cities Day”, a first-of-its kind initiative that bundles numerous city-focused events.

"Cities are central in tackling climate change. They are proving grounds for our efforts in ensuring a low carbon future that benefits people and the planet,” said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon at the opening in Warsaw.

Now that cities are finally inside the UN tent, Cadman hopes their actions will help inspire generally fearful national governments to take ambitious action.

"That won't be enough however. Climate is simply not a priority of national governments. Cities and regional governments have to mobilize the public," he said.

This mobilization means working with civil society organizations, First Nations, business and especially young people.

"We have to work together to motivate national governments to help create a green future for all of us," Cadman told a packed audience on Cities Day.

Time is short. There are just two years before the new climate treaty is signed in Paris. That agreement needs to be the turning point.  We can’t wait for a second chance to keep global temperatures below the 2C threshold.

"Everyone must be involved. Nothing else is more important.”

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