San Francisco has this week passed landmark legislation requiring all new buildings under 10 storeys in height to be fitted with rooftop solar panels.
The city’s San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed the new rule on Tuesday, making the metropolis the largest in the US to mandate solar installations on new properties.
Smaller Californian cities such as Lancaster and Sebastopol already have similar laws in place, but San Francisco is the first large city to adopt the new standard.
From January 2017 all new buildings in the city with 10 floors or fewer must have either solar PV or solar thermal panels installed. The measure builds on existing Californian state law which requires all new buildings to have at least 15% of their roof space exposed to sunshine, in order to allow for future solar panel use.
Supervisor Scott Wiener, who introduced the legislation, said the new measure would put San Francisco at the forefront of the US fight against climate change.
“In a dense, urban environment, we need to be smart and efficient about how we maximise the use of our space to achieve goals such as promoting renewable energy and improving our environment,” he said in a statement.
Wiener is also working on legislation that will allow “living roofs” – which provide low-cost insulation, minimise storm flooding issues and provide new wildlife habitats – to also be eligible to meet the new requirements. The proposals are expected to be introduced in the coming weeks.
“This legislation will activate our roofs, which are an under-utilised urban resource, to make our city more sustainable and our air cleaner,” Wiener added.
San Francisco has a target to source 100% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and has emerged as one of the US’s leading clean tech hubs with a raft of Silicon Valley investors and entrepreneurs backing a host of green technology start-ups in the region.
This April 22 will be unlike any previous Earth Day. World leaders, including Prime Minister Trudeau, will gather at the UN in New York to sign the Paris Agreement on climate change. This is good news because the agreement is a commitment to hold the increase in global temperatures to “well below 2 C above pre-industrial levels” and promises efforts to limit the rise to 1.5 C.
The not-so-good news is that the pledges made at Paris are not enough to meet those goals. If all of them were implemented, temperatures would still rise by around 2.70 C. More importantly, under current policies, temperatures are on track to increase by 3.60 C by 2100. Clearly more must be done to prevent catastrophic climate change.
Some recent media coverage has misrepresented and distorted what is in the Leap Manifesto.
For example, one columnist alleges: “It advocates that all oil be left in the ground and we bounce along happily on moonbeams and other rays.”
In fact, the Manifesto does not call for all oil to be left in the ground but instead questions “new infrastructure projects that lock us into increased extraction decades into the future.”
It also cites sound research from leading academics at McGill and Stanford Universities showing that it is indeed possible to get 100 per cent of our electricity from renewable sources within two decades and all of our energy needs from renewables by 2050, using known technologies.
Critics of the Leap have largely ignored the fact that its starting point is a call to respect the inherent rights of Indigenous peoples, “the original caretakers of this land,” by fully implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, something that the federal government has pledged to do.
Others have distorted its message by alleging that its authors are ignoring the plight of workers laid off from fossil fuel industries that are cancelling investments in oil, gas and coal projects due to low prices. In fact the Leap demands “training and other resources for workers in carbon-intensive jobs, ensuring they are fully able to take part in the clean energy economy.”
The allegation that the vision embodied in the Manifesto is unaffordable has been refutedby economists at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives who have provided a detailed analysis of options for funding the Leap through ending subsidies to fossil fuels, a financial transactions tax, tax reform and a carbon tax, among other alternatives.
Perhaps the most persistent criticism is that the Leap represents the views of only two individuals, Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis. In fact it reflects input from 60 Indigenous, social justice, environmental, labour and ecumenical organizations from across Canada who gathered last May to discuss the climate crisis. I know that every person at that meeting had a role in shaping the outcome because I was there.
What struck me about that gathering was the spirit of collaboration and a collective understanding of the need to listen to Indigenous perspectives. Indeed the meeting opened with an Indigenous prayer ceremony led by Ellen Gabriel from the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation. I remember asking myself “When was the last time I attended a secular meeting of social activists that began with a prayer?” I couldn’t recall a single example.
Another memory is that participants shared a sense of urgency to act on climate change recognizing the grave threat it poses to life on Earth as we know it.
So on this Earth Day I urge you to read or reread the Leap Manifesto and decide for yourself if you agree with its contents. If you do, then sign the Manifesto. Share it with family and friends. Tell politicians of every persuasion that it is a non-partisan call to care for the Earth and one another.
The Paris Agreement the political leaders are signing in New York today will remain only a piece of paper unless we collectively compel them to take decisive action. While it does not constitute a detailed roadmap, I am proud to report that KAIROS has endorsed the Leap Manifesto’s vision for social and ecological justice.
Top U.N. officials celebrate after envoys from 195 nations adopted historic accord to stop global warming in Paris, Dec. 12, 2015. PHOTO: FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
By Naomi Klein, reposted from the Boston Globe, Apr 22, 2016
GET READY for some high-powered hugging. On Friday, some 60 heads of state and government will gather at United Nations headquarters in New York City to officially sign the climate change pact known as the Paris Agreement.
When it was unveiled in Paris last December, the headlines were euphoric. A “major leap for mankind,” said one. Another declared that the pact marked the “end of the fossil fuel era.”
But there were dissenting voices, too: James Hansen, arguably the most respected climate scientist in the world, called the agreement “a fraud really, a fake,” because “there is no action, just promises.” And in Paris, thousands of climate activists took to the streets to protest a deal they said was so weak that it would lead to catastrophic levels of warming.
So who’s right? Is the Paris Agreement a historic political breakthrough or is it a potential ecological disaster?
It’s both.
The deal really does reflect significant diplomatic progress, with the United States and China no longer pointing fingers at each other and instead collaborating to champion the agreement. All major emitters, including newly industrialized economies, are committed to taking action, though the deal directs countries that have been major polluters for more than a century to lower their emissions faster.
The agreement also locks in an extremely ambitious target of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius — 3.6 Fahrenheit — while pursuing “efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 C.” (To put that in perspective, we have already warmed the planet by roughly 1 degree Celsius from where it was before humans starting burning coal on an industrial scale.)
That 1.5 C goal is a really big deal. Low-lying island nations came to Paris warning that if that figure didn’t make it into the deal, the world would be consigning their ancient cultures to disappearing beneath the waves. Many in the Paris convention center chanted the slogan “1.5 to stay alive,” and it pretty much sums up the enormous human stakes behind all the United Nations jargon.
The temperature target is also why we saw those over-the-top headlines declaring that the deal marked the end of the fossil fuel era. Even a 2-degree temperature target means that the vast majority of known fossil fuels need to stay in the ground. And for particularly dirty forms like Alberta’s tar sands, about 85 percent must remain unused. There’s just no room for expanding our reliance on these energy sources in a 2-degree world.
These bold goals are why many people who are deeply concerned about climate change cheered in Paris — and will do so again on Friday.
But here’s why some of us will be sitting on our hands. The Paris deal contains no plan for achieving its bold temperature targets. On the contrary, in Paris, our governments laid out a plan for warming the planet by twice that amount.
Strangely, this is not a controversial statement: Add up all the emissions-reduction plans brought by governments to Paris and it puts us on a pathway to warming the planet not by 1.5-2 degrees Celsius, but by 3-4 degrees, according to many analysts, including Kevin Anderson, deputy director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. And that’s a big problem, because Anderson bluntly describes 4 degrees of warming (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) as “incompatible with any reasonable characterization of an organized, equitable, and civilized global community.”
In essence, then, our governments said to the world: “We know what we need to do in order to keep us all safe — and we are willing to do roughly half that.” The text of the Paris deal even acknowledges what it describes as “the significant gap between” the concrete commitments countries brought to Paris and the agreement’s stated goal. It notes this gap between physical realities and political realities with “serious concern.”
This helps explain the many contradictions that have emerged since the deal was negotiated. Contradictions like Canada’s new government, which vocally championed the 1.5-degree target in Paris, returning home to push aggressively the construction of new pipelines carrying oil from the Alberta tar sands. That is, carbon we know must stay in the ground.
Or Exxon, which came out with a report in January stating that “we expect oil, natural gas, and coal to continue to meet about 80 percent of global demand” between now and 2040. Which is strange, because to have a good chance of keeping warming below 1.5-2 degrees, the global economy needs to be almost completely carbon-free by mid-century.
Meanwhile, recent climate news — never cheerful reading — has gotten much worse. We’re in the midst of a historic coral bleaching, with much of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef now a ghostly white. (Coral reefs are essential to supporting sea life.) In March, two separate major peer-reviewed studies warned that sea-level rise could happen much faster than previously believed.
James Hansen, who coauthored one of them, warned that failing to drastically slash emissions could mean the “loss of all coastal cities, most of the world’s large cities, and all their history,” with catastrophic sea-level rise as soon as this century.
“We can’t continue on this path of just hoping that emissions will go down, we’re going to actually have to take the actions,” Hansen said when the paper was published.
That’s why today’s climate activists are doing what their governments refuse to do: take on the power of the fossil fuel lobby directly. Students are demanding that their schools divest from fossil fuels, whole communities are coming together to stop new fossil fuel projects, and young activists are shaming politicians on the campaign trail for taking fossil fuel money.
Many in the political class have been taken aback by these events. After all, just a few years ago, new pipelines were rubber-stamped and everyone took fossil fuel donations. Clearly, the political culture is changing, and faster than experts can track — much like our climate.
Given the “significant gap” between physical realities and political realities openly acknowledged in the Paris Agreement, that change is a rare piece of good news for the climate.
Despite loud debates at the federal NDP convention, Canada’s Left, broadly defined, is on a roll, argue Ed Broadbent, Michal Hay and Emilie Nicolas.
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley gives a speech during the 2016 NDP Federal Convention in Edmonton. THE CANADIAN PRESS
By Ed Broadbent, Michal Hay,Emilie Nicolas reposted from TheStar, Apr 21, 2016
Something quite remarkable is happening in Left politics in Canada. And no, we don’t mean the fallout from the NDP convention in Edmonton, though we’ll return to that in a moment.
What we’re talking about is the fact that virtually every major Canadian news story of the past few months has revolved around the advancement of core progressive concerns.
The Left, broadly defined, is on a roll. Think about it. A small sampling includes:
Across the country, the fight for a $15-an-hour minimum wage is picking up steam. In Toronto and Montreal, Black Lives Matter and Montréal Noir are successfully pushing for public consultations and independent inquests in recent police shootings and are raising awareness about persistent systemic anti-black racism. Meanwhile, Indigenous rights activists have followed suit with widespread actions to draw attention to chronic underfunding and injustice.
The Alberta provincial budget’s determination to reject austerity and instead protect core public services, invest in new infrastructure and enact new climate protection measures is being widely applauded. The Supreme Court of Canada has rendered two historic verdicts, one dismembering the Harper government’s dubious criminal justice legacy, the other extending important new rights to Métis people.
Roiled by Liberal fundraising scandals, the Ontario and Quebec governments are in full-on damage control mode to rid politics of corporate and union contributions – a long-standing progressive demand. Finally, the federal government’s announcement of a process to reform our voting system is imminent, opening the door for Canada to join the majority of democracies with more effective electoral systems based on the principle of proportionality.
What’s not on the public policy agenda? Well, with few exceptions across the country, the hoary canards of the political Right: government retrenchment, “tough on crime” legislation, restrictions on civil liberties, and old-tyme climate change denial, are rarer than Canadian hockey teams in the Stanley Cup playoffs. In fact, both the Ontario and Manitoba Progressive Conservative parties have recently come out in favour of carbon pricing.
Why is this leftward tilt in our political discourse and public debate happening? One reason is certainly that in the wake of the recession, and with rising inequality, environmental degradation and flagging employment impossible to deny, the political Left has momentum around the world and Canada is part of this tide.
This increasing progressivism takes different forms in different countries. In Europe anti-austerity parties like Spain’s Podemos are gaining ground powered by record engagement of young people. In the United States, the unlikely candidacy of Bernie Sanders has captured the imagination both of aging hippies and tech-savvy millennials.
You know things are changing when Merriam-Webster dictionary reports that “socialism” was the most looked-up word on its website in 2015.
Which brings us to the current situation of the federal New Democratic Party. Admittedly, for those not in the room at the Edmonton convention, it’s difficult to understand why such a gathering would have such an upbeat atmosphere (and it was) yet produce such seemingly acrimonious results.
The reason, we think, that the same convention that gave Alberta Premier Rachel Notley countless standing ovations for her inspiring leadership and adopted a resolution to discuss the principles of the Leap Manifesto (not, it should be noted, the Manifesto itself) was because of a clear desire for change and to have their voices heard. The NDP delegates felt that there are historic opportunities for progressives across a range of issues, in Alberta and across the country, and want to ensure their party is best positioned to take advantage of this moment.
The truth is that the big new ideas to bring about more justice, prosperity, sustainability and democracy have always come from the political Left. This is tough and important work. To help the discussion along, the Broadbent Institute will be kicking off a national conversation, including new research, country-wide events and online engagement focused on energizing and building new constituencies for social democracy. It will culminate in the Institute’s Progress Summit next spring in Ottawa – one of our contributions to Canada’s 150th birthday year.
So let’s be clear: the most important headline about the Canadian Left is the vast number of headlines being driven by the Canadian Left. The necessary reflection being undertaken by the NDP is part of that picture. What confronts progressive leaders and activists across Canada, both in and out of politics, are a world of opportunities to move important issues forward in a way unimaginable even a few years ago.
Ontario Federation of Labour MEDIA RELEASE, April 21, 2016
Court Ruling Against Bill 115 Secures Charter Rights of Every Worker
OFL Calls on Premier Wynne to Bring Balance and Fairness to Labour Laws
(TORONTO, ON) ─ The Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) applauded yesterday’s Ontario Superior Court ruling upholding the collective bargaining rights of educational workers, including their right to strike. Hon. Justice Thomas Lederer found that the McGuinty Government’s controversial Bill 115, imposed in the fall of 2012, was a violation of Charter rights and freedoms, and was part of a process that was “fundamentally flawed.”
“From the outset, Bill 115 was a cynical strategy to attack the rights of educational workers to woo Conservative voters in two tight by-election races,” said OFL President Chris Buckley. “The plan backfired at the ballot box, toppled a Premier and now it has been soundly defeated in a court of law. This is a vindication for the unions who launched the Charter Challenge, the unions who stood by them, and for every worker who hopes for fair treatment under the law.”
On August 27, 2012, the McGuinty Government introduced Bill 115, Putting Students First Act, 2012, which stripped educational workers of their right to bargain collectively. Ontario’s labour movement responded with a province-wide mobilization that contributed to the crushing defeat of the Liberals in two by-elections and undoubtedly contributed to McGuinty’s decision to step down as Premier. The campaign culminated in a rally of more than 30,000 people outside the Liberal Leadership Convention in January 2013.
“The defeat of Bill 115 is a credit to the unions who launched the challenge, but it is also a victory that is shared by the hundreds of thousands of people who stood together against this blatant violation of workers’ rights. It is a testament to the importance of solidarity,” said Buckley. “Premier Kathleen Wynne has an opportunity to distance herself from the nasty anti-worker politics of her predecessor by making sweeping changes to Ontario’s outdated labour laws to improve employment standards, make it easier to join a union and bring balance and fairness to labour relations in this province.”
The OFL is part of a coalition called the “Fight for $15 and Fairness” and has launched thewww.MakeItFair.ca website as part of a campaign to improve Ontario’s employment laws.
The Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) represents 54 unions and one million workers in Ontario. For information, visit www.OFL.ca and follow @OFLabour on Facebook and Twitter.
Introduced as a private member’s bill. (These don’t often become law.)
Status
Introduced, as of April 21, 2016
Subscribe to a feed of speeches and votes in the House related to Bill C-262.
Summary
This is from the published bill. The Library of Parliament often publishes better independent summaries.
This enactment requires the Government of Canada to take all measures necessary to ensure that the laws of Canada are in harmony with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Elsewhere
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, provided by the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Mr. Speaker, I am greatly honoured to rise in this House to introduce this bill to harmonize the laws of Canada with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
As members know, a central component of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to action is to use the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as the framework for reconciliation. Therefore, if this bill is adopted, that would provide the legislative framework for a national reconciliation that is long overdue in this country. This would entail a collaborative process to ensure that federal laws are consistent with the declaration, and a national plan of action.
I am deeply honoured to introduce this bill.
In the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s recommendations and calls to action, call to action 43 states that governments should adopt and fully implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and that is what this bill sets out to do.
I remember the first question I asked in the House of Commons. It was addressed to the Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs. She thanked me for the work I have done on this bill over the past four years.
She also asked all members of the House to help with the work of reconciliation. Today, I am showing how I can help.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)
“Tonight it is with great humility and honour that I rise to open the debate on Bill C-641, an act to ensure that the laws of Canada are in harmony with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”
NDP MP Romeo Saganash on Thursday introduced a private member’s bill that, if passed, would require Canadian laws to be “in harmony” with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
Saganash said the bill is a reincarnation, with some tweaks, of a similar law he proposed in the last Parliament, when the Conservatives were in power. The Liberals supported his previous bill.
Saganash, a Cree MP representing the Quebec riding of Abitibi-Baie James-Nunavik-Eeyou, said his bill would test whether the Liberals can match their words on reconciliation with action.
“I think the first true test of this government with respect to Indigenous peoples was the budget, and it was certainly disappointing in some regards, and this is going to be their second true test,” said Saganash. “I am hoping that they will support this. I have had several discussions with the government, the ministers and other MPs on the other side of the House, they seem to be favorable with this bill.”
Saganash said his proposed bill lines up with statements made by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in speeches that addressed Canada’s relationship with Indigenous peoples and in the mandate letters he wrote to cabinet ministers. The bill would also meet the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) call to action on the issue.
“I think there is a lot of talk of reconciliation, a new nation-to-nation relationship in this country. I have heard all the words that have been spoken from the other side of the House in this Parliament, what I am proposing today is concrete action to back up those words,” he said.
Saganash said passage of his bill , known as Bill C-262 and titled the United Nations Declarations on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, would complete a circle that began in 1984 when he began work on UNDRIP which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2007.
“What I did this morning, and if this bill is adopted, would allow me to complete a circle I started out with (Ted Moses) the former ambassador to the UN for the Grand Council of the Cree Nation in 1984,” he said. “After 23 years of work, we got the UN declaration adopted…and what I did this morning is bringing that declaration into domestic law and that allows me to complete the circle.”
Canada, along with Australia, New Zealand and the U.S., initially voted against the declaration and Ottawa has since had an uncomfortable relationship with the document.
The previous Conservative government announced in 2011 it would endorse UNDRIP as an “aspirational document.”
UNDRIP’s adoption at the international level enshrined rights that “constitute the minimum standards for the survival, dignity and well-being of the Indigenous peoples of the world,” according to the document. One of the document’s most well-known concepts, which is repeated in several of its articles, is the principle of “free, prior and informed consent.” The principle in the document is applied in Article 23 in addressing resource development on Indigenous territory. Article 10 of the document also applies the principle to the issue of forced relocation, which recently surfaced in the wake of this month’s suicide crisis in Attawapiskat, a First Nation in Ontario’s James Bay region.
Saganash said many of the principles in UNDRIP have already been endorsed by Supreme Court of Canada rulings.
“I am just confirming what the state of the law is in this country,” he said.
Saganash said enshrining the bill in Canadian law would also eventually force the scrapping of Indian Act and overhauls to regulatory frames works for natural resource projects.
The legislative framework of the proposed bill would also impact issues such as intergenerational trauma, severe impoverishment, and suicide epidemics by providing the attention the issues deserve, he said.
Bill Namagoose, the executive direct of the Grand Council of Crees, appeared with Saganash during the Ottawa press conference held Thursday morning announcing the introduction of the bill.
“We are aware the present federal government wants a new relationship with the Indigenous peoples of this country and it is high time they have an instrument to renew that relationship,” said Namagoose. “I think this bill could be that issue and we urge the federal government to fully support it.”
One Liberal MP is stating he plans to support the bill. Winnipeg Centre Liberal MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette told ATPN National News Thursday he will vote for its passage through the House of Commons.
“We believe in the ideas of self-determination for Indigenous people, the concept of nation-to-nation hasn’t been defined fully yet, but I think it’s contained within UNDRIP,” said Ouellette. “It’s universal around the world, and why would it not apply here in Canada?”
Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett was non-committal on the bill when she was asked on APTN’s political show Nation to Nation.
“We will look at all options on getting this done, on honour commitment, including legislation,” said Bennett, in an interview with Nation to Nation host Nigel Newlove which will air Thursday evening. “This is an important, but large commitment, but we are going to get it right.”
Saganash’s bill has the backing of Sen. Murray Sinclair, the former chair of the TRC. In a statement of support also released Thursday, Sinclair said he would work to push the bill through the Senate if it reaches the Red Chamber.
“In many ways, Canada waged war against Indigenous peoples through law and many of today’s laws reflect that intent,” said Sinclair, in the statement. “The Indian Act is the leading example, but it is not alone. Other laws and policies need to be scrutinized with an eye to reconciliation and, where found lacking, will need to be changed.”
Saganash’s bill will go up for second reading in the House of Commons in about a year. It needs to pass the House, which is dominated by the Liberals, before it can reach the Senate.
