lagnorge (Latin American groups in Norway): “The fights against extractivism are connected, that’s why LAG’s Solidarity Brigade members have participated in the protest fight against Nussirgruva this week [August 28, 2025]. We have had important conversations about how we can strengthen solidarity between movements that fight against different forms of oppression and environmental destruction.” Photo: Isak Gregers Eriksen and Eri Melhus.

The Toronto Star reports on the Nussir copper mine in the Repparfjord near Hammerfest, Norway. The mine was acquired in November 2024 by Toronto-based Blue Moon Metals Inc. A first blast and initial underground construction on the mine began in June 2025.

The article highlights opposition to the mine given “plans to dump the Nussir mine’s waste in the sea, and potentially huge disruptions to reindeer herds and the livelihoods of traditional herders…”

It also notes: “In September, Blue Moon Metals announced it had negotiated financing of up to $140 million (U.S.) from Oaktree Capital Management and Hartree. The two global investment firms are subsidiaries of Brookfield Asset Management, the company chaired by [Prime Minister Mark] Carney until last January, when he launched his campaign for the Liberal party’s leadership.”

This past August, France 24 also explained: “Environmentalists and Sami reindeer herders are protesting the development of the Nussir copper mine in the Repparfjord, in the country’s far north, well above the Arctic Circle. The Sami people, who live in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, are the only recognised Indigenous people in Europe.”

Environmental destruction

The Toronto Star article further notes: “A 2012 report into the mining project by the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research concluded that the mine’s operation would result in two million tonnes of waste rock, including high contents of heavy metals, being dumped into the fjord. The other issue with the Nussir mine is the threat it poses to reindeer, for whom the mine site serves as an annual calving ground, and to the livelihoods of Sami reindeer herders.”

Resistance to the mine

France 24 has reported: “A new wave of opposition emerged after Blue Moon Metals – the Canadian company that acquired the mine in 2024 – began initial construction on June 12, 2025. In response, Nature and Youth established a protest camp near the site, calling on the public to join them. Protesters chained themselves to the construction site again, leading Nussir to call for police intervention. Footage posted on social media shows officers removing the individuals from the site.”

The Toronto Star notes: “This summer, the Norwegian environmental group Nature and Youth set up a permanent camp about two kilometres from the mine site to protest the project.”

And this past September, NRK reported: “Right now, there are about eight people in the protest camp at Repparfjorden, according to [Helene Sofie] Smit [a central board member of Nature and Youth], who expects more.”

For more on this on Instagram, go to reddrepparfjord (Save Repparfjord – updates from the protests against the Nussir mine in Norway), naturogungdom (Nature and Youth – “Working to preserve nature and stop climate change! Norway’s largest environmental organization for youth”) and  lagnorge (“Latin American groups in Norway”).

We continue to follow this.

Photo: October 5, 2025.

Video still: September 20, 2025.

Photo: September 17, 2025.

Photo: August 28, 2025.

Photo: July 30, 2025.

Video still: The Mesoamerican Caravan for Climate and Life action outside COP30 on November 6, 2025. They mention the name of Indigenous Lenca defender Berta Caceres who was murdered in March 2016, weeks after COP21. More than 1,729 land and environmental defenders have been killed since then.

The United Nations COP30 “conference of parties” climate summit starts tomorrow, Monday November 10, in Belém, Brazil.

An estimated 50,000 people, including the leaders of 100 countries and more than 5,350 fossil fuel lobbyists, will gather in this “city that lies at the mouth of the Amazon River and at the edge of the rainforest considered the lungs of the planet.”

The first COP took place 30 years ago in Berlin. At that time, global carbon emissions from fossil fuels were approximately 22 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. That figure now stands at about 37.8 billion tonnes.

Canada’s reduction targets

Canada will be represented at COP30 by Julie Debrusin, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

Several days ago, the Canadian Press reported: “Canada is not backing down ‘in any way’ on its 2030 and 2035 greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets, Ottawa insists… [but] …officials noted that Canada faces ‘challenges’ in meeting its GHG reduction targets, such as the 2030 target, which calls for a reduction of at least 40 per cent from 2005 levels, and the 2035 target, which calls for a reduction of at least 45 per cent.”

That article further notes: “A report released last year by the federal commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development indicated that Canada was not on track to meet its 2030 target. Jerry DeMarco estimated that Canadian emissions had fallen by only seven per cent from 2005 levels.”

In September 2025, the Canadian Climate Institute documented: “Canada’s emissions progress flatlined in 2024, according to the latest Early Estimate of National Emissions (EENE) from 440 Megatonnes, a project of the Canadian Climate Institute. With emissions essentially unchanged from 2023, at 694 megatonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent (Mt), the new data shows that previous years’ improvements have stalled.”

Land defenders can stop GHG pollution

In August 2021, the Indigenous Environmental Network and Oil Change International produced a report that highlighted Indigenous water protectors and land defenders have “stopped or delayed greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to at least one-quarter of annual U.S. and Canadian emissions.”

That report attributed 125 Million Metric Tons Annual CO2e Pollution to the Coastal GasLink pipeline, 130 megatons to the Trans Mountain Extension Oil Pipeline, and 175 megatons to the Line 3 Oil Pipeline Expansion.

The completion of these three pipelines since this report involved violence against Indigenous land and water protectors.

Two new pipelines in Canada?

Now, news reports suggest construction on the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline on Gitanyow territory in northern British Columbia could “start as early as the New Year”, while just two days ago the Canadian Press reported on the probability of a new oil pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia with an article headlined Carney tells business crowd a new pipeline project is ‘going to happen’.

What would be the impact in megatonnes of the PRGT pipeline and associated Ksi Lisims LNG export facility? How would this impact the Canadian government’s 2030 and 2035 greenhouse gas reduction targets? What risks do Indigenous land and environmental defenders prepared to blockade the construction of this pipeline face? Does COP30 (or any future COP) offer any hope for both the actual reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the safety of land and environmental defenders?

In short, what can COP30 achieve?

COP30

On November 11, Global Witness notes “coalitions of defenders, allied NGOs, and government representatives” will officially launch the Leaders Network for Environmental Activists and Defenders (LEAD) at COP30.

Indigenous Climate Action (ICA), an Indigenous-led climate justice organization from Turtle Island (Canada), will also be sending a delegation to COP30 and will be “following and acting on key moments that could threaten the rights and self-determination of Indigenous peoples globally”. Among the events the ICA will be participating in include Women for Climate Justice Leading Solutions on the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis, that will in part discuss “support for women land defenders”.

COP30 is scheduled to conclude on November 21. Texas-based Western LNG, one of the companies behind the PRGT pipeline, says the consortium is aiming to make a final investment decision on the pipeline by the end of this year.

We continue to follow this.

Additional reading: How climate activists and environmental defenders can stay safe at COP30 (Open Briefing, November 3, 2025).

On November 7, PBI-Canada observed a protest march in Ottawa that called for “peace, freedom, justice” in Sudan, expressed concerns about external powers seeking control of Sudan given it is Africa’s third largest producer of gold, and noted news reports about Canadian-made weapons used in the context of war crimes.

Specific concern was expressed about the city of el-Fasher in Darfur, where, as the BBC reports, more than 150,000 people are estimated to have been killed over the past two years in the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a Darfur-based paramilitary that emerged from the Janjaweed militia.

Human rights defenders

Both the SAF and RSF have been implicated in human rights violations that could include the targeting of human rights defenders.

Earlier this year, a report on the Situation of human rights in the Sudan by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights detailed “widespread disappearances and a generalised crackdown on civic space, including killings of journalists and attacks on human rights defenders.”

That UN report specifically called “upon the parties to the conflict … to refrain from restricting civic space and the work of civil society representatives, human rights defenders, inclusive of women human rights defenders, and journalists, including on the basis of states of emergency and emergency orders.”

Front Line Defenders has also noted: “The ongoing violence by government forces, pro-government militia groups and anti-government armed group forms the backdrop to continued harassment, arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detentions and alleged torture of human rights defenders (HRDs) by Sudanese military and security forces.”

UNSC and Canada sanction Sudan

The Government of Canada says: “On July 30, 2004, acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1556 imposing sanctions against Sudan in response to the humanitarian crisis and widespread human rights violations resulting from the conflict in Darfur region.”

UNSC Resolution 1556 states: “All states shall take the necessary measures to prevent the sale or supply, to all non-governmental entities and individuals, including the Janjaweed, operating in the states of North Darfur, South Darfur and West Darfur, by their nationals or from their territories or using their flag vessels or aircraft, of arms and related materiel of all types, including weapons and ammunition, military vehicles and equipment, paramilitary equipment, and spare parts for the aforementioned, whether or not originating in their territories…”

Weapons exports to the UAE

Amnesty International has documented: “Despite the mandatory UNSC embargo which has been in place for two decades, recently manufactured weapons and military equipment from countries such as Russia, China, Türkiye, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are being imported in large quantities into Sudan, and then diverted into Darfur.”

Over the past five years, Canada has exported more than $62 million of military goods to the United Arab Emirates: $7,071,997.75 in 2024, $13,371,252.28 in 2023, $25,624,998.56 in 2022, $3,070,851.22 in 2021, and $24,818,351.43 in 2020.

Rifles and armoured vehicles in Sudan

Now, CBC News reports:

“Weapons bearing the logo of a Canadian arms manufacturer have been identified in the hands of a paramilitary group in Sudan responsible for massacres of civilians, analysis by CBC’s visual investigations unit has found.

The city of El Fasher — considered the last stronghold of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) in Darfur — has become the epicentre of Sudan’s spiralling war. For more than 500 days, the city had been under siege, encircled entirely by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which experts have accused of ethnic cleansing. On Oct. 26, the city finally fell to the RSF. Reports of civilian massacres followed.

Multiple photos posted online and verified by CBC show rifles with the logo of Sterling Cross Defense Systems, an Abbotsford, B.C.-based company that produces firearms and ammunition, in the hands of RSF fighters.

When reached for comment, Sterling Cross would not answer specific questions about CBC’s findings in Sudan, its current international arms sale business — which would fall under the purview of Global Affairs Canada — and whether it has sold weapons to countries that are alleged to supply factions in Sudan, including the United Arab Emirates.

Global Affairs Canada did not respond to CBC’s request for comment in time for publication.

It’s unclear how the Sterling Cross-branded weapons made their way into Sudan. But experts told CBC countries such as the United Arab Emirates have rerouted Canadian equipment in the past.

Armoured vehicles produced by Canadian firm Streit Group and outfitted with machine guns have been pictured carrying RSF fighters in Sudan for more than a decade. In 2016, a UN report accused Streit Group and the U.A.E. of brokering sales.

However, Streit opened a factory in the U.A.E. in 2012, and there were no rules regulating the flow of weapons if they were not produced in Canada. In 2019, Canada joined the international Arms Trade Treaty and implemented legislation that requires Canadian citizens to obtain a permit to export arms from one country to another and take action against international brokers.”

The full CBC News article can be read at Sudanese fighters accused of massacres use Canadian-made rifles (CBC News, November 7, 2025).

We continue to follow this situation.