As "NAFTA 2.0" negotiations open, a provision that essentially locks in Canada's current levels of oil exports to the US is drawing opposition from unlikely allies across the Canadian political spectrum but winning staunch support in the country's petroleum industry.
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled unanimously in favor of the Inuit community of Clyde River, Nunavut, which has for the past three years fought to stop seismic testing in their Arctic waters. The Court found that the Inuit were not properly consulted on the oil exploration project off Baffin Island. The decision nullified a seismic testing permit issued by the National Energy Board.
Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement comes just as an unprecedentedly huge piece of Antarctica’s ice shelf is on the verge of breaking off from the continent. (Map: Geology.com)
Under diplomatic pressure, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signed the Fairbanks Declaration on Arctic climate—but with caveats about how the US will not "rush" to change policy.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the minute hand of its symbolic Doomsday Clock from three minutes to two-and-a-half minutes to midnight.
As the Paris Agreement took effect, hailed as the first binding climate change treaty, activists charge that it is actually "binding" in name only, with no enforcement mechanisms.
The UN adopted a resolution—hailed by disarmament campaigners as an important landmark—to launch negotiations in 2017 on a treaty outlawing nuclear weapons.
More than 140 were arrested as over 300 riot police backed up with armored vehicles and helicopters cleared the camp erected to block construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Amid unprecedented protests, a federal appeals court ruled against Native American tribes, allowing construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline to move forward.
The Mohawk band council of Akwesasne introduced its own legal system independent of Canada's federal system, marking the first such indigenous judiciary in the country.
The International Criminal Court released a policy document calling for prosecution of individuals for atrocities committed by destroying the environment.
Native Americans, ranchers and farmers launched a blockade of a highway in North Dakota to bar crews from reaching the construction site of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
