Summary of Canada's Position at UN talks in Copenhagen - Oh crap!

This comes from the Climate Action Network operating in Copenhagen, Denmark at the UN talks.
It's a summary of Canada's position at the UN talks in Copenhagen.
Read it and weap...

Canada is Getting Away with Something…

AT HOME…

Canada is one of the top 10 per capita and net emitters of GHGs… 

-­- Net emissions: 747 Mt in 2007 (8th overall) ­

- Per capita: 22-­-3 t per person in 2007 (9th overall)

Canada’s emissions reduction target is 3% below 1990 levels by 2020;

despite being announced 2 ½ years ago, there is still no domestic plan to meet this target.

Canada is the only G7 country with no national program to support renewable energy.

Canada is home to the world’s dirtiest industrial project: the Alberta and Saskatchewan Tar Sands whose
emissions have increased 200% since 1990 and are projected to account for 44% of the growth in
 

Canada’s emissions by 2020 if not regulated properly.

Canada is “failing to follow” the US -­--­--­- who is currently considering legislation that will exceed its target (with a far more ambitious 2050 target) and is investing 14 times more per capita in renewable energy.

IN THE NEGOTIATIONS… 

Canada is the only country that does not intend to meet its Kyoto Protocol emissions reduction target and is 34% above its 6% below 1990 levels by 2012 KP target.

Canada does not support a second commitment period for the Kyoto Protocol.

Canada is one of only two countries not supporting a standardized 1990 baseline year.

Canada is the only country who has called for major developing countries to take on absolute emissions reduction targets.

Canada has not yet committed any new finance in the short-­-term to support mitigation or adaptation in developing countries.

Canada supports a ‘forward looking baseline approach’ in LULUCF which would lead to emissions ‘loop holes’ and false phantom credits.’






This copy was downloaded off of Windfall Ecology Centre website.
If you would like the .pdf file download it here

Comparing Places - To move or not to move...

In the grand scheme of things, most people in this world don't move around very much, and certainly not over large distances in short periods of time as I have been doing in the past 2+ weeks. People stay in their homes, go to work, see their friends and arrive back in the same spot before they go to bed, then they wake up and do it all over again, and it's for one simple reason: they can't move, they're stuck in the life they have. 

It's an odd thing to consider sometimes, though most of us are stuck in one way or another by the circumstances of our lives. We know this because we're not living out our absolute, perfect, dream-like lifestyle. We have responsibilities, commitments, and social pressures pulling us back to "where we belong." These sorts of things are common the world over and they stop us from doing what we really want all the time.

At this moment I'm in Toronto, on my 9th city and 3rd continent in just 3 weeks, and I'm noticing some stark differences and glaring similarities between places and people.

The most interesting to me at the moment - perhaps also because this is an enviro blog - is the way in which people move around; be it from home to work and back again or over longer distances for other reasons.

I started in Taiwan where people are in love with their scooters, cars are a status symbol and the brand new MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) is desperate to be recognized as a legitimate form of transportation.








From Taiwan I flew (yes, I know, I hate flying, too) to Europe and stayed in Germany, Holland, Denmark and Britain where mass transit is relied upon for nearly every journey where possible and convenient, though cars still play a role. I found it telling that in Denmark bikes are still used a great deal even in winter, AND that the girl whose birthday we went out for in London made an "unusual request" that we take a taxi to the restaurant instead of the underground. Clearly, cars in Europe aren't quite what they are elsewhere.

And lastly, I've come home to Canada, where bikes are for pleasure, the mass transit is horribly underfunded and cars carry their single passenger over great distances every morning and evening for the commute. The alternatives to taking a car in Canada are groaningly moving forward at a snail's pace. The argument remains: "I need my car because everything is so far away." True, things are far, but do you really need a four-seater to go get groceries or commute 20 minutes to work everyday? Probably not, unless you're bringing 3 imaginary friends with you.

Now, I don't like to country bash, and pointing out the faults in my own country is easy when you live abroad and are happy about it, but I find it a little frustrating coming back to Canada. After having traveled so seamlessly through Europe on smooth-gliding high speed trains and well managed tram systems which run throughout the country - even in small cities like where I used to live in Germany - I'm ready to start criticizing a little bit.

There comes a time when we have to wake up as a country and realize that the world is passing us by, and all the while we're convinced of our own superiority. Asia is hard at work building their transit infrastructure and using Europe technology to do so. They're asking the experts and paying them well to make their societies more livable. We are not.

Good transit is also a poverty issue, and you can ask any economist; poverty is bad for business. If a person from Mississauga can get quickly and easily across the city without a car, then more job opportunities open up. In this way cities can reduce the poor's dependence on welfare and gain more tax-paying citizens.

At the moment we have the economic advantage, but that is largely dependent upon variables like infrastructure and - perhaps most importantly - attracting talent. What does it say about Canada when the most talented of my friends (and the least as well) aren't staying in Canada because they want to, but rather because they feel stuck in those responsibilities, which keep the rest of the world from moving around?

It won't stay like this forever. Those who stick with what they've always done will only get what they've always had. In a world that's progressing very quickly, we just can't afford to have such a crappy mass transit infrastructure. It's a detriment to our people and it's a large part of why I don't want to move back to Canada.

Environmentalism is no longer a movement of hippies and frustrated youth, it's a global movement that is touching every economic field with a large, firm index finger.

If we continue to ignore that, in transportation or any other sector, we will be left behind.

MOVIE - The Age of Stupid...Wow, THAT was a GOOD movie!

The Age of Stupid

One Catastrophically Educating Documentary


Watch the Age of Stupid Trailer on YouTube

Last night I went to a free showing of The Age of Stupid, a documentary about a man alone in a desolate world in 2055 looking back at our time and wondering how could we have not stopped Climate Change when we had the chance?

The movie uses news clippings from the present day and the future to help draw a picture and uses the lives of 6 people from different continents and vastly different walks of life to fill in the color.

One might say that it's the gravity of each person's different situation that gets you right in the chest, or it could be the juxtaposition where he pairs ridiculous statements with images that make it so blindingly obvious that there's something wrong with our world today.

Perhaps the greatest message is sent through the familiarity of all the news and each person's stories. We all know someone who is "just like that guy." In fact, my parents are easily comparable to the fellow from the US and I could even draw parallels of myself to the Indian guy. A fact which scares me a bit.

The point at which I felt most like crying and screaming at the same time was at the end of the film (bare in mind it was made in 2007) there was a short message in the top left corner saying that the Copenhagen United Nations Conference MUST BE the type of action which the best science of the times is asking for. And now here we are and no one expects it to be so.

It makes me so sad I wanted to cry...

But that is to say, the movie provided me with a much needed jolt. I've always been "enviro friendly" but every now and again I need a swift kick in the ass to get me moving again. The Conference of Youth couldn't do it here, nor could the Klima Forum, but THIS movie, The Age of Stupid, has done just that.

We all need to refill the tanks of motivation now and again...See The Age of Stupid

--Tim
Director KHH Enviros
http://khhenviros.110mb.com
khhenviros@gmail.com

Revamping Transport - Best Sesion I've had so Far!!!!

Now that was a wonderful session!

A transportation lecture, exactly how it's supposed to be:  

Clear, Concise, Intelligent, and Honest.

The presenter not only knew his subject matter inside and out but was also willing to admit the limits of his knowledge and ability to answer questions. That's a rare gift. Plus, he listened carefully to questions and answered them well without straying too far from the topic. Also rare to find in the intellectual community that has been gathered here. More often they just like to hear themselves speak.

He began with a description of the problems with urban transportation, which most of us over-look when thinking about the issues; the inefficiencies of use, the lack of logic in planning and manner in which scientific knowledge is ignored by policy planners.

For example, the amount of kilometers traveled on average by single occupancy vehicles over short distances which could be avoided. In short, if you're going to the supermarket you needn't go 5 times a week for 5 short trips, but instead could go once a week and buy what is needed for the whole week. Huge possibility for improvement here...ahem...Mom and Dad ;-)

In addition to the inefficient manner in which we've been using personal transport he addressed public transportation and what could be done to both improve cost AND environmental impact at the same time. Their goal being to completely electrify urban transport would not only protect against fluctuations in fossil fuel prices, but also to create a cheaper, more pleasant system to live near.

All of his arguments were backed up with sound statistics which came from the study his university did on their own rather than relying on secondary data of questionable validity. This way we could all see where his arguments were coming from.

Finally, he debunked a few myths and misconceptions, which pervade in the minds of all people when considering how to change the transport system such as: people love their cars too much and will not give them up. He showed that in fact it's only roughly 20% of people who love their cars so much that they're not willing to listen to any arguments pertaining to a changing transport system. 80% of people is more than enough to keep the conversation going.

The fellow was from the Stockholm Environment Institute of York.

His name I didn't get because I came late but he was Awesome!

This is the first session I've been to that made me glad I came all the way from Taiwan to hear this stuff. It's about friggin' time! :-)

Klima Forum - Uprooting the Grass, uh, do I have that right?

Last night was the openeing ceremonies of Klima Forum 09 here in Copenhagen.
Uh, interesting, yes, to say the least.


Just imagine if you will, watching 5 bobbing heads all sitting behind a string, woodwind or horn instrument staring at two guys playing the...ahem...Ice.

Yup, that was their gig, they played ICE!
And not just any ice my friend, this was ice that was brought in directly from the Arctice Circle to be played before the uprooty, grassy crowd that came to see it.

The really funny thing was, IT SOUNDED PRETTY DARN GOOD; as far as ice music goes that is. Why I remember a good ice hammerin' session back in aught six. We was hangin' out in Bangkok and this fella comes in talkin' and refrigerameration or sumphin'. Before you need it we'd found two Bangkok prostitutes to play the banjo, three seamen playing SPOONS and this ice guy layin' it to them with a haunting air you wouldn't believe.

Uh, actually, that never happened, but it would've been funny if it did. Back to the Forum...

The highlight of the night for me was the African fellow who kept making us shout "Mobilize, resist and " the last one I think was "organize," that would've made sense, but anyway he had lots of energy and I loved his accent.

Shortly after him came Noami Klein, the Canadian author.

She almost shot herself in the foot by admitting that her climate expertise is slim to none, but it made little different after she got into her corporation bashing mode. She's intelligent and makes good sense, but geez, can't they just all get along?

My old mama used to tell me "you'll never get a dog to sit if you stand back and throw rocks at it, you gotta step up first and show it some love."

Seriously, though, Mrs. Klein's arguments were well formed and well presented. The part that truly impressed me was the "marketization of hope," comment directed mostly at Coca-Cola (with their Hopenhagen campaign), Siemens (and their Future City) and of course, President Obama who has done an excellent job of reaching out to the hope in people instead of the fear like his predecessor, Naomi said, but has "missed more great opportunities than any other President in history."

To that, I must agree, despite how much I love the guy. We all know that the President of the United States is no longer the most powerful man in the world, 'cause if he was, things would've changed a lot more during his year and a half in office, and Naomi Klein illustrated that very well.

By the end of the evening - which included more weird music - the tone of the Forum was clear: this is for everyone who is pissed off that their governments haven't done hardly anything the people are asking for. It's a chance to learn about why, but not yet clear if this forum will help us organize to fix it.

A forum is usually just a place to talk...
...we'll see...

--Tim
KHH Enviros Director
http://khhenviros.110mb.com
khhenviros@gmail.com

The Days Are Shorter in Copenhagen

It's bloody cold if you've just arrived from Taiwan, lemme tell ya!

Today is December 8th, it's a Tuesday morning and the second day of the 15th Conference of Parties (COP15) for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). We've seen a lot and done a lot so far, though it's been less than what I had expected.

Let's start with the Conference of Youth (COY) that happened on the weekend leading up to COP. This was mainly the reason I came, because I needed to network with more people from Asia. For that reason, COY went well for me. However, I don't like to be a negative Gus but I can't just be polite and say it went well, it didn't. COY was a mess! There was very little structure built into the conference, people were often confused as to what we were doing (myself included), and so much time had been wasted due to inefficiencies.

The reasons for this I found out later on: the funding they had been promised didn't arrive until a week or two before the conference began. That alone could put the hurt on any major event. But more to it, the folks who were running it were already so overstretched with other duties that they were unable to give COY the attention it deserved, and it showed.

Mostly it was a lot of little things that either weren't done before hand or could've been rectified on the spot but instead took a day to do.

Things like:

• Not having signs posted with a schedule
• Not having visual aids during talks so that Non-English speakers could know what was being talked about
• Not having whiteboard markers in the seminar rooms
• Not preping presenters well for the Non-English speaking audience they were facing
• Not having proper guidance for open space sessions and trying to make 30 people all agree on a course of action

This is not to jab at the organizers of COY. In my mind, considering the resources they had at their disposal they did the best job that could possibly be done. But if anyone thinks that a conference like that is the best effort of the world's youth, they're sadly mistaken. We youth are intelligent and talented, though not yet organized, that's all that's lacking. We can do better, I'm convinced of it.

Before I close out this blog though, I would like to say Thank You to the organizers for doing anything at all. Without COY I wouldn't have met any of those incredible young people. As far as providing a space for people to meet each other, they did a fantastic job! Sometimes all you need is to sit us down in a big room together and say "go to it, meet each other."

--Tim
KHH Enviros Director
http://khhenviros.110mb.com
khhenviros@gmail.com

Green Tip – Take a Look at the WHOLE

Courtesy of Tim Higgs
Greetings green people. This month our tip is less of a tip and more of a bit of ecological education.

Often when we think about the environment there are certain things that flash through our minds. Many people think about saving the whales, turtles, pandas, tigers or any number of endangered species; others think immediately about dumping toxic waste in the oceans or rubbish on the streets and in parklands; air pollution in major cities and around industrial areas also hits high on pollutants that are more dangerous to humans; and more recently people have begun to think about climate change as it’s quickly risen to the top of political, environmental priorities.

Most organizations prefer to focus on one or a few of the problems separately. The reasons for this are obvious: it takes a great amount of human and financial resource to tackle any problem and few organizations have enough of both to try to fix everything.

However, in staring too long at one problem it’s easy to forget how they’re all connected together and mutually affect each other; particularly for us regular folk. For example, when someone throws a battery on the ground it’s not just litter that looks bad. Over time it will break and leak battery acid, which in turn seeps into the ground and eventually into the water table. That’s not just bad for wildlife, it’s bad for us because battery acid is extremely difficult to filter out of water and often cities haven’t the capabilities to do so.

Another example: air pollution in cities does not stay where it’s produced. It moves with the wind affecting eco-systems far from where it was created. Birds also die regularly from smoke inhalation when they get too close to heavily polluted areas. Dead birds aren’t just a tragedy either. Often small birds that are most vulnerable will eat insects like mosquitoes, which annoy humans and spread disease. Killing the birds helps the insects flourish. Do you really want more bugs in your backyard?

I could go on and on with stories like this of environmental degradation traveling from place to place affecting the out of sight out of minds we ALL forget about when we’re staring at a problem.

This is not a message of despair; we all have enough of that in our lives, particularly if you watch the news every day. Rather, it’s a bit of a reminder to step back and look at all the consequences of a given action, because it rarely stops after you’re finished.

And to end on a positive note, if we could put green roofs (make the roof into a park-like area) on every building in Kaohsiung, it would quickly have the effect of bringing back bird species that have been lost for decades from the city center, cooling buildings significantly enough to lower air conditioning costs and reducing the amount of coal we burn to create the energy, and it would help remove some of the particulate from the air so that your lungs breathe easier and the view of our beautiful central mountains could be seen more often.

See, planting a tree makes more sense than just something pretty to look at. Take a look at the whole once in a while and you see a different picture. ;-)

On The Road To Copenhagen

This is a bit of a personal blog from me, Tim, the managing director of the KHH Enviros.

I created this group in hopes of helping the expatriate community in Kaohsiung find an outlet for their want to do some good in this world. Most people when they set out from their own country do so to see the world, but few end up getting involved in the community they land in because there are so many barriers to doing so. The most obvious and difficult to overcome is quite obviously the language barrier. Chinese is just friggin' difficult to learn. No doubts there.

But as it turns out through my efforts I managed to re-make a mistake I've been making my whole life: I've stretched myself too thin. Trying to do too many things at once has always been an issue for me, and though I feel I did an excellent job managing the Kaohsiung Massive Football Club, I feel I've done a less than perfect job of running the KHH Enviros.

Now I think I know why. You see, managing a football club with all your friends on it is encouraging. I see my friends 3 or 4 times a week and they're always wanting to know what's happening with the club, so it ended up taking priority over everything. It's not such a bad thing to give priority to because I think it helps a lot of people who arrive to find a family overseas. It's a ready-made community that anyone who feels like kicking a ball around can jump into. That's a good thing.

However, now that my time as captain has ended (I've resigned) it's now for the real challenge of creating something great out of nearly nothing.

I have had loads of help up to now from great people like Renata, Sarah and Kayla and the work we've done with the Senior Girls High School was great, but I KNOW that we're capable of so much more and Kaohsiung is so ready to jump into this enviro movement that's been developing. In fact, my students at Jhong Shan University asked me what they could do to help just last week. They want to create an enviro group at the university. That's awesome! And far beyond what I had hoped or expected. They're so busy with school you see, but then again, isn't every university student?

Coming to the point of this blog, I'm currently in Germany visiting friends on my way to Copenhagen, Denmark for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in December. Thanks to New Life Copenhagen I'll be staying with a student at their university for free! I'm excited but have no idea what to expect. What I would like is to network a little bit and get a bit of that energy and fervor back that I used to have but had put mostly into football.

I know that this world needs the sort of groups that I've made and I feel a bit bad about my half-assed efforts over the past two years in Taiwan but I'm only one person and I don't regret all the work I put into the football team. Plus, it's not like we've done nothing. We've created a monthly newsletter and green tips and videos series. We've run beach clean ups, fundraisers and had some interest in the group from Taiwanese students.

There's lots to build on and I plan on building it up over this next year in Taiwan.

--Tim
khhenviros@gmail.com
The KHH Enviros website

KHH Enviros Interviewed by Taipei Times

Well,
As the old saying goes: if you scream loud enough, eventually someone will ask you "what's wrong?"
It appears that person was Jenny Hsu from the Taipei who interviewed Tim, our Managing director...ahem, me.

The article is now online at Taipeitimes.com but here's a copy just in case you missed it.
Or click here to go to the Jenny Hsu's Interview with the KHH Enviros
------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMUNITY COMPASS: Canadian on a mission to turn Kaohsiung green
GREENHEAD: Instead of complaining about the smog and the litter, Tim Higgs organized KHH Environs to teach people how to 'greenify' the city
By Jenny W. Hsu
STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, Jul 21, 2009, Page 4

VIEW THIS PAGE

For environmental activist Tim Higgs, being a contagious agent who spreads the “green bug” in Kaohsiung is exactly what he has in mind.

The 26-year-old Higgs, who hails from Ontario, Canada, got involved in the global environment protection movement because of his experience working with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as well as in the private sector, on energy and water efficiency in Canada.

“I loved my job because it was something that made you feel good about yourself when you went to work in the morning,” he said, referring to his job in Canada.

“Moreover, I was constantly learning new things each day on the job,” he said, adding that he missed that feeling when he moved to Germany.

But even there, he was inspired by the German government's commitment to green energy and the people's love for the Earth, he said.

When he moved to Kaohsiung last year, he said he was greeted not only by the area's famous southern hospitality, but also by the heavy smog that enveloped the city.

“You don't need a big reason to want to do something for the environment here in Kaohsiung. Just look around you or breathe in the air in the city,” said the English teacher, recalling the time when he lived in an apartment downtown, where he could not even open the windows without smelling exhaust fumes from heavy traffic.

“Within in a day, there would be a layer of dirty black grime so thick that you couldn't dust off. The pollution was in your face all the time and you just couldn't escape from it,” he said.

Instead of moaning and groaning about the constant battle with the smog-filled air and the litter, Higgs decided to roll up his sleeves and go to work by organizing the KHH Enviros, a community-based group to educate the public about ways to “greenify” the city.

Higgs used a technique called “community-based social marketing,” which involves engaging the community from a market perspective.

“What you do is first find out everything you can about the problem you are seeking to solve. Once you have done that, you find out about the barriers that are stopping people from doing a behavior that you want them to do,” he said.

Take littering for example, he said, a big barrier to people disposing their garbage properly is the low number of public garbage cans.

Taiwan's trash pick-up system presents another problem to making people more environmentally conscious, he said.

The next step to shaping public behavior is to get them to change the way they view themselves — from ordinary citizens that are detached from the movement to “green people” who are committed to cleaning up the city in a sustainable manner.

Higgs and his group of volunteers do this by passing out stickers that say “Greenhead.”

“This might sound simple but it is an effective method. Having the sticker on your scooter, you are telling the world that you are an 'environmental person,' which means whenever someone asks you about it, you either have to strengthen the identity inside yourself or discard it. We find that most people do the former,” he said.

In addition to organizing projects such as beach clean-ups, the group offers various “green tips” on its monthly newsletters to raise public awareness that protecting the environment is often easier than many would think.

Higgs said one of the goals of KHH Enviros is to be able to partner up with the city government on different city beautification projects.

Like many NGOs in the country, KHH Enviros faces the twin problems of cash and staffing shortage. For more information on the group and volunteer opportunites, check out www.khhenviros.webs.com/home.html

Radiohead's Enviro Saavyness

This is blog post number 2 and finally I'm able to use this. This is from Brett, the owner of The Lighthosue Pub. We had our fundraiser there a while back and Brett and I chatted about Music and environment. He mentioned Radiohead is very enviro conscious and make every effort to live that way. Brett was good enough to send us this info about Radiohead's enviro friendly actions.
Cheers Brett

The Following is from a Q mag. review of a show last June 2008 in Milan..."On their six month international trek, the band are doing everything they can to reimagine the touring rock bands immediate environment: congruent with Thom Yorke's role as spokeman for Friends Of The Earth's Big Ask campaign, Radiohead are touring with a weather eye on their carbon footprint. This means playing city centre venues with good public transportation links and buying a separate PA that remains in America for when they play there(no onerous air-freight for this band who, in every sense, like to keep their feet on the ground). It also means investing in energy-storing batteries costing 200,000 Britsh Pounds and an innovative, eco-smart LED lighthing rig that uses between a fifth and a 1oth of the power.

Here's an interesting link from the bands web site about calculating the feasabilities of world tours
http://www.radiohead.com/deadairspace/index.php?a=310

and heres a link about their lighting rig , PA, carbon reduction and "no-air freight policy
http://www.radiohead.com/themostgiganticflyingmouthforsometime/

interesting stuff

Lighthouse Brett
Btw, the Lighthouse is a great place for food and drink and sports if you're into it.
Here's a map to the Lighthouse

New Blog @ KHH Enviros

Greetings all,

This is the beginning of the blog from the KHH Enviros.

This will serve as a forum for anyone who wishes to post something environmental.
To post to this blog, please use the form to the right. If approved it will be posted within a few days.

Thank you
--KHH Enviros team

Testing

Testing KHH Enviros new blog