Climate and Energy

The following is a guest post by John Bonine, a colleague and friend to West Coast Environmental Law. He wrote it as a personal observation to friends, and we reproduce it here with his permission. 

Nearly 5 years ago, the Ukrainian environmental lawyer and law professor, Svitlana Kravchenko, who would later become my wife, asked a question during a conference in Florida. Her question should confront all of us as a result of the release a few hours ago of the latest proposed text of the “Paris Agreement” on climate change.  

WCEL turns 40

This year, West Coast Environmental Law is proud to celebrate our 40^th anniversary and the many accomplishments the organization has achieved over the past four decades.

Developing country negotiators at the UN Climate Conference in Bonn, supported by environmental organizations, have declared today to be Loss and Damages Day – focusing on the need to rapidly reduce the world’s greenhouse gas emissions to avoid even more loss and damages than we’re suffering already and on the need for a robust loss and damages mechanism. 

What are loss and damages you ask? White House Climate Advisor John Holdren has been quoted as saying:

Talia McKenzie first found out that she was going to be living next to a gravel pit the day she picked up the keys to her new home in the Cowichan Valley. Next door, her new neighbours had begun an application process to mine gravel on their property – specifically, 7.5 million tonnes of aggregate extracted over an area of 27.9 ha (about 69 acres). That is a very large gravel pit; yet, as she soon learned, the government would not subject it to an environmental assessment. But Talia isn’t taking ‘no environmental assessment’ for an answer.

Environmental law organizations are increasingly talking about your right to a healthy environment.  And that’s a good thing.

Governments and businesses rely heavily on the advice of professionals on a wide range of environmental, resource management and land use planning decisions. That’s why it’s critical that the professionals who are making key decisions about our ecosystems and the evolution of our communities know about current climate science, and incorporate it into their recommendations to government and industry.

On January 25, 2017 West Coast and over 50 other organizations from around BC wrote to 190 local governments asking them to take action to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for its role in causing climate change. If you agree, it’s time for you to get involved too – by asking your Mayor and Council and other local government officials to respond to, and act on, this letter.

Earlier this month, a large number of First Nations and organizations celebrated an important step forward when all of their cases challenging the federal approval of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipelines and tankers proposal were given the green light to proceed by the Federal Court of Appeal.

The Yinka Dene Alliance (YDA), a group of First Nations whose territories cover 25 percent of Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipelines route, is ramping up enforcement of its own laws in the face of efforts by Enbridge to begin preliminary work in YDA territories for the proposed pipelines.  YDA is vocally opposed to the proposed pipeline and its member