Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
John Kerry, America's top official on climate change, said Tuesday that the U.S. and China were making progress on putting together a group from both countries to work toward quickly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
In an interview with The Associated Press during the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, Kerry said the two nations, the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases, were close to agreeing on the structure of the group and how decisions would be made.
"We are going to work on the practicalities of how we move faster" to reduce emissions, said Kerry. "Maybe we can help with technology of some kind to help China move faster. Maybe China could help us better understand some things we could do better."
The agreement was reached during the UN climate summit last year in Glasgow, Scotland. For the first time, China agreed to crackdown on methane leaks, a highly potent greenhouse gas. On Tuesday, Kerry said that reducing coal consumption would also be a central area of focus for the group.
The progress report came as government officials, corporate leaders and other elites at the World Economic Forum grappled with how to confront climate change and its devastating effects. A central question was: to what extent can oil and gas companies be part of a transition to lower-carbon fuels?
In different times the question could have been academic, the kind of thing critics of the forum, which takes place in a tony ski village in the Swiss Alps, would say had no relevance to the real world. But today, the question is both practical and urgent, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine has forced many countries that depended on Russian oil and gas to make swift changes to energy supplies.
The debate comes as examples of acutely felt impacts of climate change multiply, including recent heat waves in Southeast Asia to flooding in parts of South America. Meanwhile, the world's top climate scientists have repeatedly warned that increased investment in fossil fuels are hurting chances to keep warming to limit warming to 1.5 C (2.7 F), and thus avoid even more devastating effects.
Kerry, Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, and several European officials argued Tuesday that the war in Ukraine should not be used as an excuse to lose focus on renewable energy goals.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen warned the 27-nation bloc should never again become dependent on untrustworthy countries, like it did with fossil fuels from Russia, as it moves toward a greener economy.
She said the "economies of the future" will no longer rely on oil and coal, but rather the green and digital transitions will rely on other materials like lithium, silicon metal or rare earth permanent magnets which are required for batteries, chips, electric vehicles or wind turbines.
"We must avoid falling into the same trap as with oil and gas," she said. "We should not replace old dependencies with new ones."
Von der Leyen added that the war in Ukraine has strengthened Europe's determination to get rid of Russian fossil fuels rapidly. EU countries have approved an embargo on coal imports from Russia but member countries have yet to find a deal on sanctions on Russia's oil and gas.
Attendees in Davos this week were also discussing several other high-priority issues, like the Russia-Ukraine war, the threat of rising hunger worldwide, inequality and persistent health crises.
That included Turkey's pushback to Finland and Sweden applying for NATO membership. Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said at Davos that a delegation from his country and Sweden will travel to the Turkish capital Wednesday for talks.
Both Haavisto and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in separate comments at the gathering that they believe they can overcome Turkey's concerns about what it sees as Finland's and Sweden's support for groups it considers terrorists.
"We have to do what we always do in NATO, and that is to sit down and address concerns when allies express concerns," Stoltenberg said.
But even in discussions of those issues, climate change was often ever present, as was the tension over what role oil and gas companies may play in a transition to green energy. Davos represented one of the biggest platforms to discuss climate change ahead of the next UN climate summit in Egypt in November.
Vicki Hollub, CEO of Occidental Petroleum a major oil company, said that oil and gas industries had a central role to play in the transition to renewable energy.
Instead of talk about moving away from fossil fuels, Hollub said the focus should be on making fossil fuels cleaner by reducing emissions. She said Occidental had invested heavily in wind and solar energy and planned to build the largest direct air capture facility in the world in the Permian Basin. Direct air capture is a process that pulls carbon dioxide out of the air and buries it deep in the ground.
"The U.S. can provide ample resources to the rest of the world. However, it's becoming more and more difficult to do that because of the fact that we are getting a lot of headwinds," she said on Monday. "One is the belief that we can end the use of oil and gas sooner rather than later."
Joe Manchin, a U.S. senator from West Virginia who has opposed a major bill on climate change proposed by President Joe Biden, said Monday that fossil fuels were key to ensure energy security, and America had the resources to help ensure such security for the world.
"We can't do it by abandoning the fossil fuel industry," said Manchin, a Democrat, adding that no transition could take place until alternatives were fully in place.
Many energy experts argue that viable alternatives are already in place. For example, the cost of wind and solar have come down considerably in recent decades while efficiencies of both have dramatically increased. At the same time, other more nascent technologies have promise but need massive investment to develop.
Kerry, in the interview, said he was still hopeful that climate change legislation in Congress was still possible. There is no sign of progress, or even any movement, by the Biden administration.
"When you are a legislator, hope springs eternal," said Kerry. "You always are working to try to get the votes to make something happen."
When asked whether he planned to step down soon, as some have speculated because Congress is clearly stalled on climate legislation, Kerry said no.
"Nobody is going to be in one job forever, are they?" Kerry asked. "But I'm not planning to move on. I'm working toward the COP (in Egypt) and we'll see what happens."
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Associated Press journalists Kelvin Chan and Jamey Keaten in Davos, Dana Beltaji in London and Samuel Petrequin in Brussels contributed to this report. Peter Prengaman is The Associated Press' global climate and environment news director.
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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP's climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
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.