BREAKING Bob Cole, veteran CBC broadcaster and former voice of 'Hockey Night in Canada,' dead at 90
Bob Cole, legendary CBC broadcaster and former voice of Hockey Night in Canada, has died. He was 90.
Greta Thunberg and fellow youth campaigners struck a skeptical tone for this week's climate talks in Italy, saying much has been promised but little done to tackle global warming in almost three decades since the landmark Earth Summit.
Fears that climate change is worsening grew after a UN report in August warned the situation was dangerously close to spiraling out of control, with the world certain to face further disruptions for generations to come.
"Thirty years of blah, blah, blah," Thunberg told the opening session of a Youth4Climate event on Tuesday.
Thousands of young activists have converged on Milan this week with some 400, from about 190 countries, due to engage with policymakers to hammer out proposals for possible solutions.
"So-called leaders have cherry picked young people to meetings like this to pretend they are listening to us, but they are not listening," Thunberg said.
"There is no planet B ... Change is not only possible but necessary, but not if we go on like we have until today."
The youth activists, who fought to get climate change to the top of the global agenda years after leaders at the 1992 Rio Summit in Brazil pledged to tackle environmental problems, are being challenged to help come up with the solutions ahead of the COP26 United Nations summit in November.
Their proposals will be vetted by climate and energy ministers gathering at the same venue for their pre-COP26 meeting, and some will find their way to the Glasgow summit.
The meetings come as soaring energy prices on world markets stoke fears of a popular backlash against climate reform.
The U.N. COP26 conference aims to secure more ambitious climate action from the nearly 200 countries who signed the 2015 Paris Agreement and agreed to try to limit human-caused global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
"Young people need to start getting involved in the actual negotiations," said Rose Kobusinge, a youth delegate from Uganda. "We want 1.5 (degrees) and we won’t go beyond that."
At their pre-COP26 summit, which starts on Thursday, some 50 climate ministers will tackle hurdles, including differing views on the pace of transition and who pays for it.
While new energy and funding pledges from the U.S. and China have left negotiators more upbeat, many G20 countries, including major polluters like China and India, are yet to deliver updates of their short-term climate action plans.
"Now is the time for leaders of the biggest economies and the biggest greenhouse gas emitters to make much bolder commitments," Britain's COP26 President Alok Sharma, said in a video message on Tuesday.
Climate activists are demanding policymakers match rhetoric with action and stump up the billions of dollars needed to wean the world off fossil fuels to cleaner energy during a year that has seen record-breaking heatwaves, floods and fires.
"Money speaks, and if rich nations don't restructure debt for poor nations and commit US$500 billion for climate action from 2020-2024, there's no point in wasting time at these meetings," Oscar Soria of the U.S.-based activist network Avaaz said.
Wealthy nations who pledged a decade ago to mobilize $100 billion a year to help vulnerable countries adapt and transition to cleaner energy are still short of their 2020 goal.
"It was promised by 2020 and we are still waiting," Vanessa Nakata, a youth delegate from Uganda, said.
(Additional reporting by Gavin Jones; Editing by Alexander Smith)
Bob Cole, legendary CBC broadcaster and former voice of Hockey Night in Canada, has died. He was 90.
New York's highest court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction, reversing a landmark ruling of the #MeToo era in determining the trial judge improperly allowed women to testify about allegations against the ex-movie mogul that weren't part of the case.
Honda is set to build an electric vehicle battery plant next to its Alliston, Ont., assembly plant, which it is retooling to produce fully electric vehicles, all part of a $15-billion project that is expected to include up to $5 billion in public money.
MPP Sarah Jama was asked to leave the Legislative Assembly of Ontario by House Speaker Ted Arnott on Thursday for wearing a keffiyeh, a garment that is banned at Queen’s Park.
Researchers are working to better understand if some Canadian military veterans may be suffering from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, also known as CTE -- a disorder previously found in the brains of professional football and hockey players after their death.
Residents of John D'Or Prairie, a community on the Little Red River Cree Nation in northern Alberta, were told to take shelter Thursday morning during a police operation.
During a special winner celebration near their hometown, Doug and Enid shared the story of how they discovered they were holding a Lotto Max ticket worth $70 million and how they kept this huge secret for so long.
A West Virginia father is getting some sense of closure after authorities found the remains of his young daughter and her mother following a deathbed confession from the man believed to have fatally shot them nearly two decades ago.
The first cargo ship passed through a newly opened deep-water channel in Baltimore on Thursday after being stuck in the harbor since the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed four weeks ago, halting most maritime traffic through the city's port.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.