Good morning,
The COP26 climate summit enters a crucial phase on Monday, as delegates turn their attention to thrashing out details over how countries will work together to try to meet emissions-reductions targets and set new ones in the future.
Week one saw world leaders and business tycoons make bold announcements, including commitments to stop deforestation by 2030, reduce coal use and end international financing of fossil-fuel projects. The final five days in Glasgow, Scotland, will be dominated by hard-nosed negotiators, environment ministers and experts versed in the nitty-gritty of the disputes they are trying to resolve.
Host Boris Johnson set the tone by urging negotiators to “pull together and drive for the line.” Countries “must come back to the table this week ready to make the bold compromises and ambitious commitments needed,” the British Prime Minister said.
One of the biggest challenges is resolving the Paris Agreement’s Article 6, which is supposed to create a mechanism to enable countries struggling to meet emissions-reduction targets to buy credits from those exceeding theirs.
Read more:
- ‘Radical pragmatist’? Canada’s Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault insists he can be both
- Quebec pledges to transition all government vehicles to zero emission by 2040 at COP26
- Greta Thunberg blasts COP26 as a ‘greenwash festival’ for wealthy countries
Climate change activists read mock newspapers in George Square, Glasgow, in support of victims of oil exploration and against fossil fuel investments in Africa during the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference, on Nov. 7, 2021.Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
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‘They just vanished’: Tigrayans disappear for months in secret Ethiopian detention camps
Medhanye, a 31-year-old Ethiopian of Tigrayan ethnicity, was watching a soccer match with his friends at a café in Addis Ababa when the police suddenly arrived. The police demanded they turn over their identity cards, which show their ethnicity, and then separated 11 Tigrayans, taking them to a site where hundreds of others were being held.
At dawn the next morning, they were forced onto three buses and driven to a secret detention camp in the Afar region. For the next 93 days, he said he was imprisoned – and often tortured – at the camp with hundreds of other Tigrayans. Medhanye finally managed to pay a bribe for his release last month.
Disappearances, ethnic profiling and mass arrests of Tigrayans have become increasingly common this year, especially after territorial gains by Tigrayan rebel forces in the escalating civil war, according to human-rights groups and other independent sources.
Read more:
- Canada keeping only essential staff in Ethiopia as security deteriorates
- Report accuses all sides in Ethiopia’s year-long war of committing abuses in Tigray
Alberta, oil industry losing PR battle to anti-oil-sands groups, head of inquiry says
The commissioner of a widely criticized Alberta public inquiry into the funding of environmentalists says his report should serve as a wake-up call for the Alberta government and the oil sector that they’re on the losing side of the public-relations fight over resource development.
In 2019, the Alberta government appointed Steve Allan, a forensic accountant, to investigate the role of foreign money in opposing the oil sector. He released his final report in October. The inquiry was a key election promise from United Conservative Premier Jason Kenney, who has contended that the province has been the victim of a foreign-funded campaign to block fossil-fuel projects.
Allan said in an interview that the oil industry should take lessons from the environmental movement, which he noted has mounted a “brilliant campaign” against development in Alberta’s oil sands.
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Rogers says it won’t appeal B.C. court decision that gives Edward Rogers control over the telecom giant: Rogers Communications says it won’t appeal a ruling that allows Edward Rogers to replace directors of Canada’s largest wireless carrier without holding a shareholder meeting. The announcement from the company late Sunday means the decision by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick will go unchallenged, ending weeks of uncertainty over control of the telecom giant. This statement came days after he regained his role as the chair of the company’s board.
The long road to recognition: Indigenous veterans to be honoured on Indigenous Veterans Day: As Canada marks Indigenous Veterans Day and remembers the sacrifices of First Nations, Métis and Inuit soldiers, it will also be a moment to reflect on how many of them were denied benefits given to others who served in the Canadian military. While other veterans received government assistance to help rebuild their lives, Métis soldiers were told to go back to their trap lines, said Manitoba Métis Federation President David Chartrand.
Opinion: The Remembrance Day poppy is 100 years old in Canada. Our attitudes to war and peace must keep evolving with it
Forty years later, New Brunswick is selling land connected to troubled Campobello Island ‘paradise’ in online auction: Larry Kuca and Jim McDougal had a plan to turn Campobello into a coastal getaway for moneyed American visitors. Their Campobello dreams were scuttled after the two men, along with Bill and Hillary Clinton, got drawn into a legal saga – namely, the Whitewater scandal. Now, about 40 years later, the land Kuca and McDougal hoped to turn into a vacation hot spot may finally be developed.
New investigations into Thunder Bay deaths leave key questions unanswered: In 2018, the Office of the Independent Police Review Director issued a report that found the Thunder Bay police failed to conduct proper initial investigations into several deaths of Indigenous people, singling out nine out of 37 it reviewed for another look. Those reinvestigations are now complete, but Josh Kakegamic and his mother, Lorene Kakegamic, remain frustrated with a lack of substantive information or progress related to the case involving their loved one, Kyle Morriseau. Josh, Kyle’s brother, said he provided investigators with tips two years ago and never heard back.
A depleted aquifer stymied plans for a Stronach ranch – until a Florida governor intervened: Adena Farms was supposed to be home to Frank Stronach’s next big venture. He amassed 384 square kilometres of land for his cattle ranch, built a slaughterhouse and brought in 8,000 head of cattle. But there was one big hitch: water. The St. Johns River Water Management District is the government agency in charge of allocating water use in the part of Florida where Adena Farms is located, including approving or denying permits. But according to former employees of the district, the administration of former Florida governor Rick Scott repeatedly interfered in ways that helped Stronach and other permit seekers like him.
Read more: Canadian magnates, American influence: Stronach empire injects millions into U.S. politics
Competition commissioner says Canadian laws need U.S.-style makeover: The head of the federal Competition Bureau says Canada’s competition law is in need of an overhaul, and that it should follow the U.S. lead in reforming its framework. It’s been 14 years since the law was last reviewed, and since then, Canada has lagged behind its Australian, European and American peers. Commissioner Matthew Boswell cited Canada’s tight timelines, which make it more difficult for regulators, compared with their U.S. counterparts, to review and respond to mergers that may hurt competition.
Listen to The Decibel: Supreme Court debates condoms and consent: Canada’s top court is reviewing the issue of “stealthing,” the act of deliberately removing or not wearing a condom after a person’s partner insists on one, in a case that’s expected to affect the legal interpretation of consent. The Globe’s justice writer Sean Fine joins the podcast to discuss the two approaches being debated over how to determine what constitutes sexual assault.
MORNING MARKETS
Global markets look ahead to U.S. inflation data: World shares steadied near record peaks on Monday as risk assets found support from an upbeat U.S. October payrolls report, but they face another test later in the week from a reading on U.S. inflation. Just before 5:30 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 was down 0.12 per cent. Germany’s DAX slid 0.13 per cent while France’s CAC 40 edged up 0.14 per cent. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei lost 0.35 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slid 0.43 per cent. New York futures were little changed. The Canadian dollar was trading at 80.32 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
For the Liberals and NDP, the hard part about a parliamentary deal is who will deal with Parliament itself
“Such an arrangement would typically require the NDP to pledge support on key confidence matters such as budgets, but if the New Democrats renounce all rights to vote non-confidence, the Liberals would be able to stymie many of Parliament’s demands.” - Campbell Clark
Why the TTC needs a vaccine mandate
“Vaccination is strongly in the interest not just of the riders but of the employees themselves, who would benefit from the assurance that fellow workers were vaccinated. Health and safety is a top union priority, so it’s a puzzle why the union is making such a fuss over the one measure – mandatory vaccination – most certain to keep them safe.” - Marcus Gee
Rogers boardroom battle overshadows digital infrastructure deficit
“As Edward Rogers, son of the founder, slugs it out in court with the company, his mother and two siblings, every corporate dollar spent on lawyers is one less dollar to spend on improving Rogers networks.” - Andrew Willis
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
David Parkins/The Globe and Mail
LIVING BETTER
Left with no one to photograph, Laura Pedersen turned the lens on herself
When COVID-19 brought everything to a standstill last year, Laura Pedersen writes that she “had no idea what to do.” The freelance-based photographer’s livelihood was tied to photographing people at large events, and with those types of assignments suspended indefinitely, Pedersen started taking self-portraits of the emotions she was trying to process.
MOMENT IN TIME: Toronto’s traffic gets heavier - in more ways than one
Traffic piles up on the Gardiner Expressway as commuters head home during the evening rush hour in Toronto, March 14, 2011.Kevin Van Paassen/The Globe and Mail
For more than 100 years, photographers and photo editors working for The Globe and Mail have preserved an extraordinary collection of 20th-century news photography. Every Monday, The Globe will feature one of these images. This month, we’re looking at causes of air pollution.
When postwar North Americans embraced the automobile, they were, in part, embracing the idea of escape from crowded cities choked with industrial pollution. Before long, the rise of commuter traffic created new air-quality problems as cars clogged up highways that were meant to whisk drivers to their suburban paradise. Better emissions standards have reduced tailpipe pollutants, but other problems have emerged. This photo of Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway from 2011 may look like a typical rush hour, but it shows fewer SUVs than would be seen on the road today. Starting in 2012, the city has experienced a steady increase in fine particulate pollution near highways – which has been tied, in part, to the increased wear and tear on brakes and tires through the use of heavier passenger vehicles. Ivan Semeniuk
Subscribers and registered users of globeandmail.com can dig deeper into our News Photo Archive at tgam.ca/newsphotoarchive
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