Canada

"[A House subcommittee] took a first step on Wednesday to fast-track a controversial Alberta tar sands pipeline, ordering Barack Obama to reach a decision on the project by 1 November."

"On Monday in Geneva, representatives of the 143 countries belonging to United Nations-sponsored Rotterdam Convention, regulating hazardous chemicals, are to begin a meeting where chrysotile, the type of asbestos fibre mined in Quebec, will be on the top of the list of new products to be regulated."

"Canada confirmed on Wednesday that it would not support an extended Kyoto Protocol after 2012, joining Japan and Russia in rejecting a new round of the climate emissions pact."

"First came lumber certified as environmentally friendly, then seafood. Now a move is afoot to give gravel -- blasted out of open-pit mines, then hauled out using diesel-belching trucks -- the green seal of approval."

"The federal government has explored hiring a professional public relations firm and organizing trips for international leaders to promote Canada's oilsands industry, while fighting back against foreign climate change policies requiring it to reduce its pollution, a newly released federal document has revealed."

"The federal government has acknowledged it deliberately excluded data indicating a 20 per cent increase in annual pollution from Canada’s oilsands industry in 2009 from a recent 567-page report on climate change that it was required to submit to the United Nations."

"Canada’s fabled Northwest Passage will not open up to shipping anytime soon, according to a study that warns global warming is a double-edged sword for northern transportation."

"The rare Canada lynx, whose range has shrunk considerably in recent decades, faces a grave threat from rising temperatures in Maine, federal wildlife experts said on Tuesday."

"Sockeye salmon are exposed to a soup of chemicals in the Fraser River, and some of the ingredients are accumulating to potentially lethal levels in eggs, while others may be disrupting the sexual function of fish, according to a scientific review conducted for the Cohen Commission."