Senate expenses climbed to $7.2 million in 2023, up nearly 30%
Senators in Canada claimed $7.2 million in expenses in 2023, a nearly 30 per cent increase over the previous year.
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)
Senators in Canada claimed $7.2 million in expenses in 2023, a nearly 30 per cent increase over the previous year.
Police say a baby and a pedestrian suffered non-life-threatening injuries after a vehicle struck a baby stroller and dragged it for two blocks before stopping in Squamish, B.C.
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
Individuals being barred from entering Ontario’s legislature while wearing a keffiyeh say the garment is part of their cultural identity— and the only ones making it political are the politicians banning it.
The RCMP says it has uncovered a plot by two men in Montreal to sell Chinese drones and military equipment to Libya illegally.
The U.S. Justice Department announced a US$138.7 million settlement Tuesday with more than 100 people who accused the FBI of grossly mishandling allegations of sexual assault against Larry Nassar in 2015 and 2016, a critical time gap that allowed the sports doctor to continue to prey on victims before his arrest.
The Vancouver Canucks will be without all-star goalie Thatcher Demko when they face the Nashville Predators in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series.
A 35-year-old man wanted in connection with the murder of Toronto resident 29-year-old Sharmar Powell-Flowers nine months ago has topped the list of the BOLO program’s 25 most wanted fugitives across Canada, police announced Tuesday.
The Canadian Medical Association is asking the federal government to reconsider its proposed changes to capital gains taxation, arguing it will affect doctors' retirement savings.
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.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a Grade 4 student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.