Trudeau, Biden and their apparent love-hate relationship with oil
CBC
Our planet is changing. So is our journalism. This story is part of a CBC News initiative entitled Our Changing Planet to show and explain the effects of climate change and what is being done about it.
Just a few hours before flying to Glasgow for his first United Nations climate conference as U.S. president, Joe Biden had oil on his mind.
He was lobbying OPEC members and other countries around the world to urgently turn on the taps and pump out much more crude.
Then, less than 24 hours later, Biden was on stage at the conference in Glasgow, imploring the world to take decisive action on climate change, meet ambitious emissions reduction targets and commit significant dollars to help poor countries adapt to a changing environment.
It seems odd, contradictory and no doubt sprinkled with a touch of hypocrisy.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau finds himself in a similar spot — using his speech on Day 1 of COP26 in Scotland to boast about Canada's climate record and encouraging other countries to follow suit. Yet Canada is one of the largest oil-producing nations in the world and a heavy emitter.
Alberta is currently pumping out a record level of oil every day, and the output is expected to keep climbing. More export pipeline space and multi-year high prices are reason enough to encourage the industry to boost output.
For both leaders, there is much more nuance to their relationship with crude than that two-faced perception.
Biden wants more oil to provide relief at the pumps. Gasoline and diesel prices are high and continuing to climb, fuelling inflation woes in the United States and Canada.
"I do think that the idea that Russia and Saudi Arabia and other major producers are not going to pump more oil so people can have gasoline to get to and from work, for example, is not ... right," Biden said Sunday night to journalists in Rome following the G20 leaders' summit.
For Trudeau, the oilpatch is a key economic driver as one of Canada's top exports (and likely in the No. 1 spot with surging prices in recent months).
Both leaders have also set goals to significantly decrease the level of greenhouse gases in their respective countries — with the U.S. aiming to slash emissions by 50 to 52 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030, while Canada's goal is to cut emissions by 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels over the same period.
"Biden's comments are not helping," said Eddy Pérez, international climate diplomacy manager with Ottawa-based Climate Action Network Canada.
"It really impacts the ability of the United States to influence countries like China and India and Brazil to do more."
Whoever becomes attorney-general — the top lawyer — in Susan Holt's new Liberal government will face piles of lawsuits, along with decisions about how quickly to clear some of them away.
A video obtained by CBC Toronto shows a violent arrest by Peel Regional Police in Mississauga on Monday in which a Black man appears to get knocked unconscious.
Community members in Cote-des-Neiges are asking what comes next for students of an elementary school that has been at the centre of a political and media firestorm.
A personal care home in Winkler, Man., has been forced to close 26 desperately needed beds after its elevator became unstable, and petitioned the provincial government for months before Shared Health finally committed to fund the repair.
Josh Peterson knows gunshot wounds. He says he expected the worst when he showed up in the hospital emergency room to check on his 66-year-old dad.
Four years ago, the P.E.I. government said it had ordered a corporation owned by a member of the Irving family, Red Fox Acres, to get rid of some of its land because of a contravention of P.E.I.'s Lands Protection Act.
The number of people experiencing homelessness in Edmonton, as counted by Homeward Trust, has increased by nearly 2,000 in the past year, up to 4,697 in September.
You've probably done a double take walking by some of your neighbours' yards this Halloween season, as sets of spooky skeletal eyes stare back at you.
A senior official at the Niagara Detention Centre (NDC) told the inquest into the deaths of five men that there can be tension between managing inmate health care and securing the jail.
Except on a few special days a year, Windsorites aren't allowed to buy or set off fireworks. But as the city's South Asian community prepares to celebrate Diwali, two local business owners say the Festival of Lights should be added to the list of holidays.
Calgary's rental market has gone through a major shift in recent years.