'A beautiful soul': Funeral held for baby boy killed in wrong-way crash on Highway 401
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
Officials from the Group of Seven wealthy nations announced Friday that they will aim to largely end greenhouse gas emissions from their power sectors by 2035, making it highly unlikely that those countries will burn coal for electricity beyond that date.
Ministers from the G7 countries meeting in Berlin also announced a target to have a "highly decarbonized road sector by 2030," meaning that zero emission vehicles would dominate the sales by the end of the decade.
In a move aimed at ending the recurring conflict between rich and poor nations during international climate talks, the G7 also recognized for the first time the need to provide developing countries with additional financial aid to cope with the loss and damage caused by global warming.
The agreements, which will be put to leaders at the G7 summit in Elmau, Germany, next month, were largely welcomed by climate campaigners.
"The 2035 target for power sector decarbonization is a real breakthrough. In practice this means countries need to phase out coal by 2030 at the latest," said Luca Bergamaschi, director of the Rome-based campaign group ECCO.
Coal is a heavily polluting fossil fuel that's responsible for a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans. While there are ways to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of coal, experts say it is almost impossible to reduce it to zero, meaning it will likely have to be the first fossil fuel to be phased out.
G7 members Britain, France and Italy have already set themselves deadlines to stop burning coal for electricity in the next few years. Germany and Canada are aiming for 2030; Japan wants more time; while the Biden administration has set a target of ending fossil fuel use for electricity generation in the United States by 2035.
A common target would put pressure on other major polluters to follow suit and build on the compromise deal reached at last year's U.N. climate summit, where nations committed merely to "phase down" rather than "phase out" coal -- with no fixed date.
The issue is likely to be taken up later this year at a meeting of the Group of 20 leading and emerging economies, who are responsible for 80 per cent of global emissions.
Getting all G20 countries to sign on to the ambitious targets set by some of the most advanced economies will be key, as countries such as China, India and Indonesia remain heavily reliant on coal.
Under pressure to step up their financial aid to poor nations, the G7 ministers in Berlin said they recognized that "action and support for vulnerable countries, populations and vulnerable groups need to be further scaled up."
This includes governments and companies "providing enhanced support regarding averting, minimizing and addressing loss and damage associated with the adverse impacts of climate change," they said.
Developing countries have for years demanded a clear commitment that they will receive funds to cope with the loss and damages suffered as a result of climate change.
Wealthy nations have resisted the idea, however, for fear of being held liable for costly disasters caused by global warming.
"After years of roadblocks, the G7 finally recognize that they need to financially support poor countries in addressing climate-related losses and damages," said David Ryfisch of the Berlin-based environmental campaign group Germanwatch.
"But that recognition is not enough, they need to put actual money on the table," he added. "It is now up to (German Chancellor Olaf) Scholz to mobilise significant financial commitments by leaders at the Elmau summit."
Separately, the United States and Germany signed an agreement Friday to deepen their bilateral cooperation on shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy in an effort to rein in climate change.
The deal will see the two countries work together to develop and deploy technologies that will speed up that clean energy transition, particularly in the area of offshore wind power, zero-emissions vehicles and hydrogen.
The U.S. and Germany pledged to also collaborate on promoting ambitious climate policies and energy security worldwide.
U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said both countries aim to reap the benefits of shifting to clean energy early, through the creation of new jobs and opportunities for businesses in the growing market for renewables.
Such markets depend on common standards of what hydrogen can be classified as "green," for example. Officials will now work on reaching a common definition to ensure hydrogen produced on one side of the Atlantic can be sold on the other side.
Germany's energy and climate minister, Robert Habeck, said the agreement reflected the urgency of tackling global warming. Scientists have said steep emissions cuts need to happen worldwide this decade if the goals set in the 2015 Paris climate accord are to be met.
"Time is literally running out," Habeck said, calling climate change "the challenge of our political generation."
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
There has been a "sophisticated" cybersecurity breach detected on B.C. government networks, Premier David Eby confirmed Wednesday evening.
Toronto police say a man was taken into custody outside Drake's Bridle Path mansion Wednesday afternoon after he tried to gain access to the residence.
U.S. President Joe Biden said for the first time Wednesday he would halt shipments of American weapons to Israel, which he acknowledged have been used to kill civilians in Gaza, if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of the city of Rafah.
Dakota Joshua had a goal and two assists and the Vancouver Canucks scored three third-period goals to claw out a 5-4 comeback victory over the Edmonton Oilers in Game 1 of their second-round playoff series Wednesday.
One of the Indian nationals accused of murdering British Columbia Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar says in a social media video that he received a Canadian study permit with the help of an Indian immigration consultancy.
Pfizer has agreed to settle more than 10,000 lawsuits about cancer risks related to the now discontinued heartburn drug Zantac, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the deal.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault is defending his comments about a new history museum after he was accused by a prominent First Nations group of trying to erase their history.
Independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had a parasite in his brain more than a decade ago, but has fully recovered, his campaign said, after the New York Times reported about the ailment.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.