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Articles by Velma McColl
Comment: All of Canada’s regions are in our national interest
A commentary by Chuck Rumsey, Tamara Krawchenko and Velma McColl, the president and CEO of Ecotrust Canada, an associate professor at the University of Victoria and the board co-chair of Ecotrust Canada. Ottawa’s proposed Bill C-39 would create a formidable new approach to regional development by empowering the cabinet to designate “regions of national interest.” Under this designation, eligible projects would receive accelerated federal approvals.
Climate Policy Post-COP26: Finally Catching Up with the Future
As with prizefights and campaign debates, United Nations Conference of the Parties meetings, or COPs, are burdened by the weight of expectations before the gavel even goes down on the first plenary. Earnscliffe Principal and climate policy expert Velma McColl was in Glasgow during COP26, and outlines how the policy action produced during the conference lines up with where the world needs to be.
Overtime at COP26
November 12, 2021 Velma McColl November 12, 2021 Filed from Glasgow at 9:00 pm local time, 4:00 pm EDT. As I write, negotiations have gone into overtime in Glasgow. This has happened at nearly every climate change summit since 1993’s COP1 in Berlin. The gavel does not come down on time, despite honest and creative efforts in designing the agenda. The UK, with Italy, deserves full marks for stepping up. Like every country brave enough to take this on before, they will wear the results.
COP26 Midpoint: Even Doing Better Than Ever, We Can Still Do Better
November 5, 2021 |In Policy Special, COP26 Velma McColl November 5, 2021 We’re at the midway point of COP26 in Glasgow. Some 130 global leaders have come and gone and put their best cards on the table. What happens over the next week will be left to ministers and climate diplomats, an invisible and often unsung group of officials who propose the rules in backrooms and establish the global governance for how we address and manage greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions well into the future.
COP26: Getting past the ‘Blah Blah Blah’ and to Net Zero by 2050
October 29, 2021 Reuters Velma McColl October 29, 2021 Climate change is a human problem. Hundreds of decisions that we make at home, at work and the rest of our lives result in greenhouse gases concentrating in the atmosphere and heating the planet. As we start making more and more choices as citizens that reduce and eliminate carbon and methane, we accelerate our ability to address our shared planetary challenge of reducing the impacts of climate change.
Veteran Tory MPP named Speaker as Queen's Park session begins
Call it foreshadowing: Ted Arnott (left), who was elected Speaker of the Ontario legislature on Wednesday, is seen in this file photo escorting former speaker Gary Carr to his seat in 1999. (CP PHOTO/Kevin Frayer) TORONTO — Ted Arnott, a veteran Progressive Conservative legislator, has been elected Speaker of the House for the Ontario legislature. Arnott won on the first ballot against fellow Tory legislators Randy Hillier, Jane McKenna and Rick Nicholls.
2015 - the year multilateral climate diplomacy made a comeback
The seeds of success at COP21, the international climate negotiations in Paris, were sown in the disappointments of six years earlier. In 2009, many claimed the chaos surrounding COP15 in Copenhagen marked the end of multilateralism — a fatal blow to the UN. It seemed to speak to the futility of trying to bridge so many interests, so many regional voting blocks, that no agreement could possibly be crafted to meet all the multilateral conditions for a global climate deal.
Getting to a new climate deal: ‘It seems impossible until it is done’
“You will be proud to stand in front of your children and grandchildren.” French President Francois Hollande at Le Bourget, 12/12 More from Velma McColl available here. Politics – good politics – should represent the future to the present. Often elusive in any single country, from any single government, many have suggested that it was naïve, impossible even, to expect the world’s countries to ever choose good global politics on climate change over competing national interests.
The heat’s on: Paris climate talks head into extra innings
More from Velma McColl available here. PARIS — Starting with Thursday’s overnight indaba, ministerial diplomacy at the COP21 climate talks kicked into overdrive Friday, lasting through the day and now extending into another night. Ministers are tired, some are frustrated but, for many, political will has strengthened and ministers are now doubling down on conversations with colleagues.
The Paris homestretch: Optimism at the COP21 indaba
More from Velma McColl available here. “If you want to go swiftly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” African proverb On Thursday night in Paris, countries were still choosing distance over speed, carefully drawing together the elements of a balanced global climate agreement. Thursday was a pivotal moment in the negotiations.
Nearly midnight in Paris: Moving everyone to ‘us’
More from Velma McColl available here. Each night, a spotlight rotates from the top of the Eiffel Tower. Whether you are people-watching in a sidewalk café or strolling on the many bridges over the Seine, it prompts you to lift your eyes to an international emblem, part of France’s urban and cultural geography. There is no question you are in Paris, oriented in space and time by that beacon.
Suddenly, climate change policies are all the rage. What gives?
More from Velma McColl available here. PARIS — If I can apply a fashion image to climate policy, I’ll say that carbon pricing became prêt-à-porter in Paris in 2015. Presidents, state governors, mayors, business leaders, investors, environmental activists, academics and economists have been standing up at COP21 podiums calling for carbon pricing policies to play a central role in addressing climate change.
McKenna takes central role as climate talks get down to targets
More from Velma McColl available here. Taking transparency into a whole new galaxy, COP21 President Laurent Fabius committed to reaching a global climate change agreement this week in full sight of 30,000 delegates — by editing the final wording on screens for all to see. The move is so bold it verges on insanity — but it does send yet another signal that Paris will not repeat the mistakes made by the Copenhagen process six years ago.
Cities on the front lines of climate changes negotiations
More from Velma McColl available here. Can you imagine a major city powered entirely by renewable energy? That’s the target Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson has set for 2050, earning him accolades from fellow green mayors. Coming from five continents, they joined former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, and actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert Redford to hail cities as the central organizing units for climate solutions.
‘Out of chaos, simplicity’: COP21 gets down to the dealmaking phase
More from Velma McColl available here. A matrix of mind-numbing complexity. That’s really the only way to describe the scale and scope of what’s happening here in Paris in and around COP21. First, in the Blue Zone at Le Bourget, there are more than 20,000 government delegates and 10,000 observers working in a beehive of negotiating rooms and contact groups — the largest number ever at a UN process, on any subject.
COP21’s showbiz moment is over - now, it’s all about the deal
More from Velma McColl available here. PARIS — Now that all the star power has left the building, the rhythm of the climate change negotiations has returned to a familiar pattern. For the past two days here at Le Bourget, one of several Paris airports, the discussions have turned to the grinding behind-the-scenes sausage making that has yielded incremental progress for the last twenty years — but no ultimate global deal.
Bold statements and grand designs, but can politicians finally yield results?
More from Velma McColl available here. PARIS — The City of Light, Paris, always does things on a grand scale and Monday was no exception. Under a blanket of security, 150 leaders posed for a “class of 2015” picture, looking like the G20 on steroids with heads of small island states standing next to leaders from the world’s most powerful economies, powerful men and women representing every continent.
Can Paris make history this week for the right reasons?
Thousands of people gather for a rally on Parliament Hill, on Sunday against climate change. Many world capitals and major cities saw protests and demonstrations yesterday in the lead-up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, France. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Chartrand PARIS — Paris, a city brimming with renaissance history, is keen to add a modern chapter and by mid-December become synonymous with the first truly global climate change deal in more than two decades.
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