My Climate Change Website

This article was written by Jeffrey Jones and was published in the Globe & Mail on March 28, 2023.

Canada Infrastructure Bank is lending $277-million to developers of a Quebec biorefinery, which is being built to convert non-recyclable waste and cast-off wood into low-carbon fuels.

CIB, a Crown corporation, said the financing will support construction of Varennes Carbon Recycling, a $1.2-billion joint venture of Shell PLC, Suncor Energy Inc. Proman Canada Inc. and the Quebec and federal governments. It is the first funding arrangement under a recently expanded mandate for CIB to include in its financing green technologies such as low-carbon fuels; carbon capture, utilization and storage; and hydrogen production.

The project is already under construction in the off-island Montreal suburb of Varennes. It will employ waste-to-methanol technology developed by Enerkem, the Canadian cleantech company. It is designed to convert more than 200,000 tonnes of waste annually, including wood waste, into biofuels and commonly used chemicals. The waste products are currently landfilled or burned.

The biorefinery will have a capacity of up to 130 million litres a year when it starts up in 2025, and the developers say it is expected to cut more than 170,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year, which is 4.25 million tonnes over the project’s 25-year lifespan.

The facility will include one of the world’s largest plants for producing hydrogen using non-fossil-fuel sources: a 90megawatt electrolyzer, which splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. The developer said last week it had selected Indianabased Accelera, a unit of Cummins Inc., to supply the equipment.

The CIB loan is on top of $390-million in funding for the project from the Quebec government and $450-million from the private sector. There is also additional federal and provincial funding, CIB spokesman Ross Marowits said.

Ottawa founded CIB as a $35-billion corporation in 2017 to invest in large projects and encourage institutional investors, such as pension funds and private asset managers, to boost their investments in Canadian infrastructure. In 2020, it hired former Infrastructure Ontario head Ehren Cory as chief executive officer.

It has been criticized in the years since its inception. In May, the House of Commons transport committee issued a report that recommended the bank be abolished over concern among non-liberal members related to its efficiency. It noted several witnesses expressed concern during committee hearings about CIB that projects were not flowing as quickly as expected.

However, the bank’s role was expanded in the 2022 federal budget “to invest in private-sector-led infrastructure projects that will accelerate Canada’s transition to a low-carbon economy.”

In the past year, it has invested in a host of projects, including $970-million for the country’s first small nuclear reactor in Ontario; $500-million to triple the number of electric-vehicle charging stations in Canada; and $800-million for a First Nations-owned hydro project in Yukon.

“The Canada Infrastructure Bank is pleased to have acted quickly on its expanded role to support transformational efforts to accelerate Canada’s transition to a low-carbon economy,” Mr. Cory said in a statement announcing the financing for the Varennes project.

“Converting waste and residual biomass into clean hydrogen is the CIB’S latest effort helping the country reach net zero by 2050 and represents its first investment in low-carbon fuels.”

The developers said the project will employ 500 people during construction and 100 when it is operational.

This article was written by Bill Curry, Marieke Walsh, and Niall McGee, and was published in the Globe & Mail on March 28, 2023.

A 30% tax break to spur production of critical minerals will be key part of Ottawa’s green plan

Tuesday’s federal budget will announce a cleantech manufacturing tax credit aimed at encouraging the mining of critical minerals in Canada, a credit that will be worth more than $3-billion over five years, according to a senior government official.

The 30-per-cent cleantech manufacturing tax credit can be used to offset the cost of equipment used for mining and processing critical minerals, which are key to the green transition because they are the building blocks of clean-energy technology such as batteries.

The tax credit for manufacturing is separate from two similar programs that have previously been proposed by the government. The 2022 fall economic statement announced a 30-per-cent investment tax credit for clean technologies, which is aimed at the purchase of products that have already been manufactured, such as zero-emission vehicles or clean energy power systems such as solar or wind energy.

The 2022 budget also announced an investment tax credit for clean hydrogen production.

The Globe and Mail is not identifying the official because they were not authorized to be named while describing elements of the federal budget.

The budget’s inclusion of the manufacturing tax credit was first reported by Reuters.

The tax credit will be a key component of what the official said will be a substantive budget chapter on green energy and the clean economy. That section of the budget will chart Canada’s response to the Inflation Reduction Act, a package of American tax breaks and incentive programs that are worth about Us$400-billion and meant to spur a wholescale economic transition south of the border.

Introduced last year, the lucrative U.S. subsidies sparked widespread concern among industry associations and business groups that the spending package would leave Canadian companies at a deep disadvantage as they try to compete for capital.

The federal government has promised that the budget will represent Canada’s response to the American spending and that it will ensure businesses can continue to compete.

During his visit to Ottawa last week, U.S. President Joe Biden made the pitch that the Inflation Reduction Act will be a net positive for Canada, framing it as the basis for a North America-wide economic transition. He added that Washington wants to be able to source critical minerals and other clean technology components from allies such as Canada, in an effort to reduce dependence on China.

“We each have what the other needs,” Mr. Biden said, noting that Canada has the raw resources and the U.S. has the processing capacity.

Business Council of Canada president and chief executive officer Goldy Hyder said Mr. Biden’s visit “shined a light on ways that Canada and the U.S. can work together in the global race to the top on clean energy.”

“But it is critical that we deliver the goods,” he said, pointing to Tuesday’s budget as a test of the federal government’s ability to “act with ambition, speed and purpose.”

His organization has called on the government to respond to the Inflation Reduction Act without significant new spending, by rationalizing existing programs meant to spur clean technologies. Specific recommendations include streamlining environmental assessments to shorten approval timelines and predictable tax credits for clean technologies.

Last year, the federal government announced $3.8-billion in funding toward the Canadian critical minerals industry over eight years, which was the first significant round of funding the industry had received in this country.

While most of the funding has yet to be allocated, several mining companies have already benefited. Last year, Australian miner Rio Tinto received a grant of up to $222-million from Ottawa to help it decarbonize a 1950s-era plant in Quebec that produces steel, scandium and titanium dioxide.

Canada and the United States are increasing their spending in critical minerals as both countries attempt to establish a footing in an industry dominated by China.

Canada is far behind China in all the key battery minerals. The only lithium mine in Canada is owned and operated by a private Chinese company. Canada produces only small amounts of cobalt and graphite. While Canada historically has been a major nickel producer, there is little-orno refining capacity to process nickel for the electric car industry. Brazilian mining company Vale SA, however, has plans to build a new refinery in Quebec that would address that shortfall.

Jonathan Wilkinson, the federal Natural Resources Minister, told The Globe earlier this month that while Ottawa can’t match the amount of spending on offer from the United States, the federal government is considering a wide range of options to assist the industry. Among the measures the government was considering ahead of the budget was providing equity and loans to Canadian mining companies. That could be done through the Canada Growth Fund and Canada Infrastructure Bank, respectively, Mr. Wilkinson said.

The growth fund was announced in last year’s budget but has not yet been established.

Jonathan Wilkinson, the federal Natural Resources Minister, told The Globe earlier this month that while Ottawa can’t match the amount of spending on offer from the United States, the federal government is considering a wide range of options to assist the industry.

This article was written by Matthew Fortier and Bentley Allan, and was published in the Toronto Star on March 27, 2023.

MATTHEW FORTIER IS PRESIDENT AND CEO OF ACCELERATE AND BENTLEY ALLAN IS RESEARCH DIRECTOR FOR NET-ZERO INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY AT THE TRANSITION ACCELERATOR.

The past two years will be remembered as the moment when the global electric vehicle market achieved hockey-stick growth, with year-over-year sales tripling from 2020 to 2022. Capital investment in the global EV supply chain has similarly surged as governments around the world offer a range of incentives in the scramble to secure vehicle production mandates, new battery plants and critical minerals.

Canadian governments, to their credit, have not been left on the sidelines in this global race. In the past year, Ottawa and Ontario have deployed incentives to attract multibillion-dollar investments from Stellantis/ LGES, Honda, Ford, General Motors, Volkswagen, Mercedes and Umicore. Governments across Canada, meanwhile, are building charging infrastructure and supporting EV-focused innovation in both university labs and accelerators.

The Volkswagen announcement this month is a testament to that work. And to do it in the face of the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which would provide a battery factory approximately $2 billion per year of support, is all the more impressive and demonstrates a commitment to securing Canada’s place in global automotive value chains.

Yet, Canada can’t just now sit back and assume its place in the global EV industry is secure. Just the opposite. In order to justify a public outlay on subsidies to offset IRA incentives, Canada now must strategically build value chains from mining to cathode active battery materials and transition parts manufacturers to ensure they are making the equipment needed for next generation vehicles.

The planning required to achieve these ends begins with a clear vision of what Canada brings to the table: transparent government, abundant clean electricity, a skilled and educated labour force, extensive mineral resources and expertise in mining finance.

But we also need to define what success looks like for the future Canadian EV sector. This includes an assessment of the investments needed to incentivize global mining companies to commit to Canada; a plan to ensure that this emerging industry creates clear pathways for Indigenous participation; and incentives to foster R&D into next generation batteries and manufacturing. All of this must be co-ordinated in a transparent manner so stakeholders can align their work with public production targets and investment timelines.

Perhaps most importantly, we need to pay close attention to international best practices for developing cohesive and effective industrial strategies. Transparent communications — between governments, stakeholders and industry — is paramount.

Canadian policymakers can look for inspiration to independent public-private partnership models, such as the EU’s InnoEnergy, which fosters the development of European battery and hydrogen value chains.

For Canada, an independent public-private model would mean systematic co-ordination between the private sector, governments and civil society to define ambitious but achievable targets and specific, timebound actions for achieving those targets.

It would also mean identifying challenges holding back investment into the Canadian minerals and battery materials ecosystem and prioritizing solutions; and it would mean developing institutional relationships with counterparts in allied jurisdictions, such as InnoEnergy, the European Battery Alliance, Li-Bridge in the U.S. and the Korean Battery Alliance.

This is how Canada can achieve a broad consensus on strategy — an answer, in short, to the question of what we’re going to be good at — and enable the public sector to design policy and align resources to deliver on the goals we’ve collectively identified.

Driven by technology and a global imperative to dramatically reduce emissions, the world of mobility is reinventing itself. After almost 60 years of cross-border free trade that transformed Canada into the world’s 11th largest vehicle manufacturer, we know how the development of an integrated and globally competitive industrial ecosystem becomes a sort of magnet, capable of attracting investment, talent, and innovation, and ultimately building an inclusive form of prosperity.

Repeating this formidable achievement is a national project for Canada’s 21st century.

This opinion was written by Shawn Micallef and was published in the Toronto Star on March 27, 2023.

Transportation politics in Toronto is like the movie “Groundhog Day”: things keep repeating. Just when you think something is either forgotten or set in stone, it’s back up for debate. In Toronto’s mayoral byelection, another kind of “Groundhog Day” — rebuilding the Gardiner Expressway — has become a campaign issue.

Though the race officially begins April 3, candidates are staking out positions. Coun. Josh Matlow has said he would revisit the decision to rebuild the elevated expressway. Other candidates, like Ana Bailão and Brad Bradford, have doubled down on the rebuild, saying variations of “it’s too late to change course.”

Rebuilding was always contentious as Toronto is one of the few cities choosing to rebuild an antiquated elevated expressway, especially one on a waterfront, instead of going with cheaper and more urbane options as many other places have. You know, hick backwaters like Manhattan and San Francisco.

The rebuild is a John Tory legacy, one that is eating up an incredible amount of Toronto’s capital budget for 10 years, at a time when the city’s finances are precarious. That was the case even before the pandemic, when the decision was made. Is it too late to turn around, though?

To review, around $500 million has already been spent, but there’s still $770 million to spend. Also, keep in mind that this is a short, one-kilometre stretch east of downtown, used by a relatively low number of drivers, and the elevated highway would be replaced by a substantial surface road too, not disappear altogether. Studies estimated an increase of 10 minutes’ travel time.

Apart from following the lead of world-class cities everywhere, apart from not plaguing the city’s finances with an albatross of a project, apart from the esthetic and climate concerns, the surface roadway would also unleash a tremendous amount of development potential. Not only would this put tax money in city coffers rather than drain it, it could create more housing on the edge of the “East Bayfront” and Port Lands, both soon to be new neighbourhoods themselves.

Even if you do think the matter is settled, Toronto has a long history of revisiting, revising and reversing transportation plans, but it’s usually focused on public transit rather than roads, so why shouldn’t we revisit this? It’s tradition here, so much so that Heritage Toronto should put up a plaque memorializing it all.

With the Eglinton Crosstown nearing completion (maybe, hopefully), it’s worth remembering Toronto could have had an already completed Eglinton Subway. Tunnels were even dug for it but were later filled in when Mike Harris was elected premier of Ontario in 1995 and cancelled the project. Ah, the money we’d have saved if we built it then when it was cheaper, but never mind, that’s the mystery of Conservative politics and math.

Much earlier, when the Yonge subway first opened in 1954, eastwest platforms were roughed in at Queen Street as a Queen Subway was planned. The platforms are still there, waiting, perhaps for the Ontario Line to arrive almost threequarters of a century later.

More recently there’s Transit City and the Scarborough Subway. Transit City was former mayor David Miller’s fully funded light-rail plan that would by now have built a network of rapid transit deep into the suburbs, but it was cancelled by Rob Ford and company, replaced, in part, by the Scarborough Subway. That plan, finally getting underway, will force Scarborough residents to take the bus for years when the SRT closes this year and, when completed, won’t reach nearly as far as the Transit City plan would have.

The Scarborough Subway itself went through multiple versions, with much brinkmanship. Bradford, who says it’s too late to change course on the Gardiner, should consult with his election advisory committee. Among multiple highly connected lobbyists, he has former councillor Karen Stintz in his corner, a key engineer of Scarborough transit flip-flops.

Another sour Tory legacy is his 2014 promise of SmartTrack, a surface subway network that shouldn’t have cost the city much. Magical thinking perhaps, but the muchshrunk plan that is much more expensive than anticipated and council’s executive committee just voted unanimously to ask the province to pay the extra $234 million it’s going to cost for just five stations. Good luck!

Similarly, Bailão has floated a plan to upload the Gardiner to the province, asking them to pay for its upkeep. While that may be popular with Torontonians, it likely won’t fly at Queen’s Park as a large number of people who use it are commuters from outside the city. Over at TVO, John Michael McGrath convincingly argues uploading the Gardiner would trigger municipalities across the province to demand other roads be uploaded, so it’s a “no go” politically.

Then there’s the 1971 cancellation of the Spadina Expressway, a road project already well underway, not unlike the Gardiner rebuild, a landmark decision by Conservative premier Bill Davis that, in fact, has three plaques dedicated to it on the southeast corner of Spadina and Bloor.

History tells us there’s still time to change our minds, and sometimes that’s quite wise.

Biden declares emergency after storms kill at least 25, injures dozens

This article was written by Leah Willingham and was published in the Toronto Star on March 27, 2023.

Help began pouring into one of the poorest regions of the U.S. after a deadly tornado tore a path of destruction for more than an hour across a long swath of Mississippi, even as furious new storms Sunday struck across the Deep South.

At least 25 people were killed and dozens of others were injured in Mississippi as the massive storm ripped through more than a halfdozen towns late Friday. A man was also killed in Alabama after his trailer home flipped over several times.

“Everything I can see is in some state of destruction,” said Jarrod Kunze, who drove to the hard-hit Mississippi town of Rolling Fork from his home in Alabama, ready to help “in whatever capacity I’m needed.”

Kunze was among volunteers working Sunday at a staging area, where bottled water and other supplies were being readied for distribution.

Search and recovery crews resumed the daunting task of digging through flattened and battered homes, commercial buildings and municipal offices after hundreds of people were displaced.

The storm hit so quickly that the sheriff’s department in Rolling Fork barely had time to set off sirens to warn the community of 2,000 residents, said Mayor Eldridge Walker.

“And by the time they initiated the siren, the storm had hit and it tore down the siren that’s located right over here,” Walker said, referring to an area just blocks from downtown.

The mayor said his town was devastated.

“Sharkey County, Miss., is one of the poorest counties in the state of Mississippi, but we’re still resilient,” he said. “We’ve got a long way to go, and we certainly thank everybody for their prayers and for anything they will do or can do for this community.”

U.S. President Joe Biden issued an emergency declaration for Mississippi early Sunday, making federal funding available to hardest hit areas.

“Help is on the way,” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said.

Recovery efforts in Mississippi were underway even as the National Weather Service warned of a new risk of more severe weather Sunday — including high winds, large hail and possible tornadoes in Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

A tornado touched down early Sunday in Troup County, Georgia, near the Alabama border, according to the Georgia Mutual Aid Group. Affected areas included the county seat of LaGrange, about 108 kilometres southwest of Atlanta

About 100 buildings were damaged, with at least 30 uninhabitable, and five people suffered minor injuries, officials said.

Two tigers briefly escaped from their enclosures at Wild Animal Safari in Pine Mountain, Ga., after the park sustained extensive tornado damage. “Both have now been found, tranquilized, and safely returned to a secure enclosure,” the park said on Facebook.

Following Biden’s declaration, federal funding will be available for recovery efforts in Mississippi’s Carroll, Humphreys, Monroe and Sharkey counties, including temporary housing, home repairs, loans covering uninsured property losses and other individual and business programs, the White House said in a statement.

Everything I can see is in some state of destruction.

JARROD KUNZE VOLUNTEER

This article was written by Oliver Moore and was published in the Globe & Mail on March 27, 2023.

There’s only so much space in a sewage pipe, and the Ontario government’s plan to turn over some of the Greenbelt for housing has the mayor of Newmarket warning that this new demand on the region’s wastewater system could use up capacity that might otherwise go to denser neighbourhoods.

A sewer upgrade planned for the city north of Toronto is years away, even as the provincial government pushes for rapid development of formerly protected farm fields right next door.

“Are they going to take the very little allocation we currently have and say it should go there over multistorey buildings on rapidways?” Mayor John Taylor asks, referring to roads with dedicated bus lanes. “Cause that literally is promoting a form of sprawl over the best form of intensification, which is transit-oriented development on a major corridor at a transit stop.”

The tension goes to the heart of a major complaint about Premier Doug Ford’s Greenbelt plans, which critics say ignore local concerns and perpetuate an unsustainable pattern of sprawl.

An increasing body of research shows that building low-density communities creates a permanent financial headache for municipalities. Fewer people pay taxes for civic services that cost more per capita to provide. There is a higher price for everything from roads to absorb new vehicles, and schools to educate additional students, to wastewater pipes to handle the result of a lot more flushing toilets. And because sprawl communities encourage driving, they are at odds with sustainability goals.

In Newmarket, the $861-million cost of expanding the sewage system to send effluent south to a plant in Pickering must be borne by York Region, according to the province. Nearly half of it is not funded. However, the province also promises that the system will be online by the end of 2026, an aggressive timeline that includes environmental impact assessments, general public and Indigenous consultation and construction.

Mr. Ford said he was responding to a housing affordability crisis when his government proposed in early November allowing development of about 3,000 hectares of the Greenbelt, land that has been protected since 2005. In late December the government formally enacted the changes.

The Greenbelt changes are one part of broader government housing plans that aim to generate 1.5 million homes over a decade.

“We recognize the need to build all types of homes for all types of Ontarians,” Victoria Podbielski, press secretary to Ontario Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark, said in an e-mail. “Our proposals will help cities, towns and rural communities grow with a mix of ownership and rental housing types, from singlefamily homes to townhomes and mid-rise apartments.”

Under the housing plan, about 3 per cent of these new homes are projected to come in the form of added density in existing neighbourhoods, and there are incentives for developers willing to build affordable housing.

But the plan places an emphasis on urban expansion. The vast majority of new homes would be built in the suburbs, including by extending these outward. In Hamilton, the province overruled council plans to densify and instead facilitated sprawl by forcing an expansion of the municipal boundaries, leading to concerns about how much this could cost the city.

“Growth cannot proceed without servicing. I see no reason Council would approve funding servicing for any of this land,” Councillor John-paul Danko wrote in a series of tweets last November. “Water, stormwater, roads, planning, design, contract management, construction inspection, utilities, fire, police, paramedics, recreation – we have priorities – and it’s not sprawl.”

Also in December, Durham Region chief administrative officer Elaine Baxter-trahair warned in a report that “no plans have been developed, and downstream infrastructure has not been sized to accommodate extensive development” within the approximately 1,800 hectares of Greenbelt land being made available for home construction in Durham. She added that it was “unclear” whether developers would be required to fund the necessary infrastructure.

The advocacy group Environmental Defence noted last month that the areas being opened to development around the Greenbelt “lack roads, sewers, water lines and other infrastructure.”

Once built up, the government says that the Greenbelt land could become the site of at least 50,000 homes. Such a level of development – the equivalent of approximately 17 homes per hectare – would resemble existing sprawl communities such as Pickering.

That carries financial implications that could last decades.

“Ordinary infill is just way more profitable than [sprawl], from a property tax perspective,” said David Gordon, a professor in the school of urban and regional planning at Queen’s University.

“That’s not well understood by the public, and it seems to be deliberately being misunderstood by our policy-makers at Queen’s Park at the moment.”

Looking at both revenues and costs, consultants working for the City of Ottawa found that homes added within built-up areas paid for themselves while suburban homes were a net liability. Updating a 2013 report in 2021, Hemson Consulting Ltd. concluded that denser homes generated an average of $606 each annually to the city, in 2020 dollars, while suburban homes cost the municipality $465 a year on average.

It’s an unsustainable combination that becomes very expensive for sprawl cities, with fewer residents to foot the bill, when civic infrastructure comes due for replacement.

In Newmarket, Mr. Taylor, who was first elected mayor in 2018 and ran unopposed in October, is worried about long-term liabilities but also has a more immediate problem. Even before Bill 23, the community was projected to run out of sewage capacity in five years at the current rate of development.

The region had been pushing for more than a decade to get a new sewage treatment facility. Instead, the provincial government announced in October that the regional governments of York and Durham must “do everything in their powers” to expand local infrastructure and pipe effluent to a facility in Durham – without Queen’s Park picking up the cost.

With government pressure on developers of Greenbelt land to start building by 2025, including the parcel immediately beside Newmarket, Mr. Taylor is concerned low-density homes in this area will get first access to the limited sewage capacity.

“I don’t support opening the Greenbelt, but if you’re going to do that how are there not intensification targets and employment targets and complete-community philosophies built into it?” he said.

“I would have gotten on stage and cut a ribbon and with my arms around the Premier if this had’ve been focused on rental housing, on transit-oriented development and intensification.”

This article was written by Michael Goldberg and Emily Wagster Pettus, and was published in the Globe & Mail on March 27, 2023.

Aid begins pouring into one of the poorest regions of the U.S. after more than two dozen people die in massive storm

U.S. President Joe Biden made federal funding available to hardest-hit areas of Mississippi

Help began pouring into one of the poorest regions of the United States after a deadly tornado tore a path of destruction for more than an hour across a long swath of mississippi, even as furious new storms struck across the Deep South on Sunday.

At least 25 people were killed and dozens of others were injured in Mississippi as the massive storm ripped through more than a half-dozen towns late Friday. A man was also killed in Alabama after his trailer home flipped over several times.

“Everything I can see is in some state of destruction,” said Jarrod Kunze, who drove to the hard-hit Mississippi town of Rolling Fork from his home in Alabama, ready to help “in whatever capacity I’m needed.”

Mr. Kunze was among volunteers working Sunday at a staging area, where supplies were being readied for distribution.

Search and recovery crews resumed the daunting task of digging through flattened and battered homes, commercial buildings and municipal offices after hundreds of people were displaced.

The storm hit so quickly that the sheriff’s department in Rolling Fork barely had time to set off sirens to warn the community of 2,000 residents, Mayor Eldridge Walker said.

“And by the time they initiated the siren, the storm had hit and it tore down the siren that’s located right over here,” Mr. Walker said, referring to an area just blocks from downtown.

The mayor said his town was devastated. “We’ve got a long way to go, and we certainly thank everybody for their prayers and for anything they will do or can do for this community.”

U.S. President Joe Biden issued an emergency declaration for mississippi early Sunday, making federal funding available to hardesthit areas.

“Help is on the way,” Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves told a news conference with local, state and federal leaders.

Recovery efforts in Mississippi were under way as the National Weather Service warned of a new risk of more severe weather Sunday – including high winds, large hail and possible tornadoes in Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

A tornado touched down early Sunday in Troup County, Ga., near the alabama boundary, according to the Georgia Mutual Aid Group. Affected areas included the county seat of Lagrange, about 108 kilometres southwest of Atlanta.

About 100 buildings were damaged, with at least 30 uninhabitable, and five people suffered minor injuries, officials said. Many roads, including Interstate Highway 85, were blocked by debris.

Outside of Rolling Fork, a tornado ripped apart the home where Kimberly Berry lived in the Delta Flatlands. The twister left a foundation and a few belongings.

Ms. Berry said she and her 12year-old daughter huddled and prayed inside a nearby church as the storm roared outside.

“I didn’t hear nothing but my own self praying and God answering my prayer. I mean, I can get another house, another furniture. But literally saving my life – I’m thankful,” she said.

Like many people in this area, she face san uncertain future. Mississippi is one of the poor est states in the country, and the Delta has long been one of the poorest parts of Mississippi.

After Mr. Biden’s declaration, federal funding will be available for recovery efforts in Mississippi’s Carroll, Humphreys, Monroe and Sharkey counties, including temporary housing, home repairs, loans covering uninsured property losses and other individual and business programs, the White House said in a statement.

Based on early data, the tornado received apr eli min ar yef -4 rating, the National Weather Service office in Jackson said in a tweet. An EF-4 tornado has wind gusts between 265 kilometres an hour and 320 km/h.

In Rolling Fork, the tornado reduced homes to piles of rubble and flipped cars on their sides. Other parts of the Deep South were digging out from damage caused by other suspected twisters. One man died in Morgan County, Ala., the sheriff’s department said in a tweet.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said 25 people were confirmed killed in Mississippi, 55 were injured and 2,000 homes were damaged or destroyed. High winds, hail and strong storms were expected for parts of Alabama and Georgia on Sunday, the national weather service said.

The tornado that slam medin to Rolling Fork, estimated at 1.2 kilometres wide at points, tore across Mississippi for about 95 kilometres for more than an hour, the weather service said Sunday. The supercell that produced the deadly twister also appeared to produce tornadoes causing damage in northwest and north-central Alabama, said Brian Squitieri, a forecaster with the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.

© UNICEF/Frank Dejongh

A girl drinks water at school in Goré, Chad.

The UN 2023 Water Conference closed on Friday with the adoption of the Water Action Agenda, a “milestone” action plan containing almost 700 commitments to protect “humanity’s most precious global common good”.

This article was written and published by the United Nations on March 24, 2023.

This article was written by Cassie Barker, Jennifer Beeman, and Sabaa Khan, and was published in the Toronto Star on March 26, 2023.

Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced stringent drinking water standards for six PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances).

Meanwhile, Canada announced draft PFAS “objectives” — which are weaker and do nothing to address the sources of this contamination, despite the discovery of these persistent chemicals in Quebec’s groundwater in 2021.

Finding PFAS in our drinking water is the result of a long history of weak industry oversight, regulator neglect and delays that place corporate profits above human and ecosystem health. It’s time for change.

There is something deeply concerning about PFAS “forever chemicals” — they will persist for hundreds of years beyond their initial, momentary uses. Their longest life occurs as they go on and on harming people, animals and our planet.

PFAS join a long list of pollutants, from pesticides to plastic, that have exceeded our planet’s ability to absorb any more harm. The chemical industry wants to increase production, although they already produce nearly 14 tons of chemicals per person, per year, in the U.S. alone. This cannot continue.

PFAS have been linked to a range of adverse health outcomes, including asthma, liver damage, immune suppression, thyroid disease and cancers. Environmental injustice is embedded in these exposures, as impacts are disproportionately placed on racialized communities and the working poor, who are at the heart of all commodity chains and to whom products made with more toxic chemicals are often marketed.

Toxic substances regulation is shaped to allow as much pollution as is “safely” possible, rather than protect human, animal and ecosystem health to the fullest extent possible.

There are thousands of PFAS chemicals on the market that have not been tested for safety by the federal government. At a time when we need precautionary, holistic decisions from the federal government, its attempts at protecting human and environmental health from PFAS and other toxics have been piecemeal, inadequate, and woefully delayed.

Instead of a strong regulatory approach to PFAS, similar to the EU, our government appears to be watching quietly from the sidelines, monitoring the growing concentrations of these chemicals in our bodies and drinking water systems.

The federal government is currently considering toxics law reforms in Bill S-5, which amends the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) for the first time in over two decades. A modernized CEPA could give us more timely, protective decisions on these harmful substances to prioritize accountability and transparency.

If we want to stop PFAS contamination and the ill health and injustices that accompany it, we need action and stronger rules to cut these hazards off at the source. It will take all of us contacting our MPs to ask them to push for strengthened toxics regulations in CEPA to protect water, air, land, and our health.

CASSIE BARKER IS TOXICS SENIOR PROGRAM MANAGER AT ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE. JENNIFER BEEMAN IS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AT BREAST CANCER ACTION QUEBEC. SABAA KHAN IS DIRECTOR-GENERAL FOR QUÉBEC AND ATLANTIC CANADA, DAVID SUZUKI FOUNDATION.