Yesterday
the InterAcademy Council (IAC), a collaboration among the world's leading
national science academies, issued its report on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — the UN body mandated
by governments to conduct regular, comprehensive assessments of the science of
climate change.
UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had asked the IAC to conduct an independent review
of IPCC processes and procedures after it emerged that the last major IPCC
report contained a few errors in the section that projects future impacts of climate change. As
numerous distinguished scientists have pointed out, these errors have no effect on the overwhelming evidence that the
world is warming, that greenhouse gases from human activities are mostly to
blame, and that we face severe global impacts if we don't act urgently to cut emissions. Yesterday's
IAC report does not change that picture. read more...
Leading Thinkers Give Their Views on Sustainability
Thought leaders feel that a carbon tax, or a carbon tax with
cap-and-trade, is the best approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Cap-and-trade alone is not the best solution.
This is just one of the findings of The 2010 Global Thought Leader Survey on Sustainability, a groundbreaking survey of more than 5,000 sustainability thought leaders in Canada, the U.S. and Europe. The survey was commissioned by the Pembina Institute from McAllister Opinion Research.
Thought leaders from government, academia, industry, institutions
and non-profit organizations completed the survey, which featured a core set of
sustainability-related questions plus four specialized sections: climate change,
sustainable energy, green economics and oil sands.
Paul Martin (Part 3) Climate Change and the Global Conscience - Bring climate change to the G20
The 21st Prime Minister of Canada speaks with Pembina's David Dodge
about climate change and the need for a global conscience. Martin called on George Bush and the U.S. to come
to the table when the U.S. was thumbing its nose at climate change in 2005, now
ironically he's calling on Canada to bring climate change to the table at the
upcoming G20 meeting in Toronto.
Backgrounder: The state of climate science in light of recent claims
Pembina's climate change analysts dug into the recent controversies around climate science to prepare a backgrounder looking carefully at the allegations linked to:
the so-called "Climategate" incident;
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) error concerning the rate of glacial melting in the Himalayas;
the IPCC's 2007 Fourth Assessment Report;
contentions that global warming is slowing down.
We concluded that the science of climate change remains very sound
and defensible, while acknowledging the importance of transparency
within the research community. Overall, our analysis found that the urgency of the issue and the case for action remains unchanged.
Canada needs a massive investment in clean energy technology to cut
our GHG pollution. The solutions are at hand: more
efficient vehicles and buildings, wind and solar power, and even carbon
capture and storage have already been demonstrated on an industrial
scale.
But Canada has not yet succeeded in dramatically accelerating
investment in such technologies. Download our "Transforming Canada's
Energy Economy" fact sheet to find out more
about the policies it would take to move technologies
like these out of the fringes and into the mainstream.
Climate Leadership, Economic Prosperity
is the first Canadian study of its kind to show how reducing GHG
emissions would affect employment and gross domestic product at the
regional level. It also provides a comprehensive outline of policies
that would enable Canada to meet both the federal government's current
emissions target for 2020, and a more ambitious target derived from
scientific analysis of the emission reductions needed to limit average
global warming to 2°C.
With strong policies, Canada can meet a 2°C target in 2020 and have a
strong, growing economy, a quality of life higher than Canadians enjoy
today, and continued steady job creation across the country.
Our Fair Share: Canada's Role in Supporting Global Climate Solutions
With countries racing to reach a new global climate deal by December, financial support for climate action in developing countries has emerged as an essential building block for a successful outcome. Based on current estimates of the costs of emission reductions and adaptation, Canada's contribution would be about C$2B to C$6B per year.
Canada is the world’s 8th largest emitter of GHG pollution and has the world’s 13th largest economy. This means we have both the responsibility and the capacity to support climate mitigation and adaptation in developing countries. Formulas for sharing the effort show that Canada’s “fair share” is about 3-4 per cent of the global total.
