The Energy Mix team scans about 1,200 incoming headlines each week to build our story lineup. Here’s a rundown of some of the stories that were fit to print but didn’t fit the page.
The Trudeau cabinet handed the Trans Mountain pipeline another $3-billion loan guarantee, Calgary-based pipeliner TC Energy announced layoffs, oil sands leader Suncor Energy cut 1,500 jobs, and Youth Climate Corps advocates were “banging down the government’s door asking for climate jobs”. Gulf of Mexico oil workers found jobs in offshore wind, a design competition inspired a Virginia student to do the same, half of U.S. oil and gas workers found their jobs exhausting, and workers in India were trapped in a vicious climate cycle of coal and heat.
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Shift Action wanted Imperial Oil off the board of the Public Sector Pension Investment Board. Former Wildrose Party leader and Fort McMurray MLA Brian Jean is Alberta’s new energy and minerals minister. Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator won an award for a distributed energy resources (DER) demonstration project, Quebec moved to ban planned obsolescence in consumer goods, Atlantic Canada was at risk of being locked into fossil fuels for too long, a Chinese mining company planned a lithium refinery in Manitoba, and the clean energy mining boom was producing human rights issues.
The Ember climate consultancy said wind and solar overtook fossil-powered generation in the European Union, but half of EU countries had no mandatory energy conservation plans for next winter. Cost of living concerns were leading to tough climate debates in the EU and driving far-right sentiment in Germany, and German iron and steel plants topped the list of the EU’s most polluting industrial facilities. UK Labour Leader Keir Starmer promised a proper green industrial strategy, and climate leader John Gummer, also known as Lord Deben, gave thumbs up to Labour’s plan to halt new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea, where cleaning up from past fossil fuel extraction will cost billions that nobody wants to pay. Analysis showed UK households paying £9 billion more for foreign gas if the country fails to install enough heat pumps, British soldiers fainted in a heat wave at an event for Prince William, the UK advertising watchdog banned some of Shell’s renewable energy ads that it found misleading, and France turned its TV weather reports into a nightly climate explainer.
Climate change was making air travel more turbulent, France banned short-haul flights, and Delta Airlines faced legal action for pledging $1 billion to make itself carbon-neutral and then relying too heavily on carbon offsets. A Carnival Sunshine cruise navigated into a major storm, and the Panama Canal risked being shut down by declining rain in Central America. U.S. farmers were catching the rain from atmospheric rivers to recharge groundwater supplies, climate models severely underestimated extreme atmospheric rivers, and an attribution study found climate change had no significant impacts in last month’s floods in northern Italy. Drought in Spain drove olive oil prices to record highs, Arizona looked to Mexico for water to desalinate, scientists said an Antarctic landslide could trigger a massive tsunami, and fish were relocating to colder waters to escape ocean warming. A study last month raised the alarm over rapid global wildlife loss, mixed forests were better at fighting climate change, and air pollution monitors held a wealth of unnoticed biodiversity data. Rock powder from retreating ice sheets in Greenland was a possible climate solution when spread on farm fields, a new portable solar system produced drinking water from air moisture, and Indigenous clam gardens emerged as a modern climate solution.
India paused coal plant construction for five years. The United States sought a deal with Turkmenistan over a colossal source of methane emissions, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pledged a “correction” of his country’s Paris commitments and a resumption of its 2015 target, and the Australian coal state of Queensland set an 80% renewable energy target for 2035. A Spanish offshore wind developer planned 75 gigawatts in the Philippines, and Danish renewables giant Ørsted earmarked US$68 billion for renewable energy investments by 2030.
U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-DE) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND) pitched for bipartisan support for a carbon border tax, and a U.S. regulator looked at methane leaks from pipelines. Cities stood to win big from the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, renewables were on track to cut U.S. coal consumption this summer, but it all depended on imaginative financing. A Virginia utility said it would close nearly 2 GW of coal and oil capacity and New Bedford, Massachusetts, once the epicentre of the global whale oil trade, sought to carve out the same role in offshore wind. New technologies promised a possible solution to wind’s massive waste and recycling problem, Ørsted pledged to recycle all its end-of-life solar panels, and a Dutch research group made a first attempt to repair damaged panels so they can go back into use.
Climate change fuelled an insurance crisis in California and was permanently changing the state’s coastlines and cliffs. Clean energy dodged a bullet in the Texas legislature, and a New Mexico cultural site dodged the risk of oil and gas leasing. Exxon looked to double its output from fracked oil wells, Shell wooed investors with a promise to maintain or increase oil production, and Greenpeace said recycled petro-plastics were more toxic than the original material.
“Green” finance was bankrolling forest destruction in Indonesia, the Forest Stewardship Council came in for renewed scrutiny, Norway was accused of hypocrisy for financing a new gas field in Turkey, and the Reuters news agency published a database of questionable international climate finance. Quebec issued a green bond amid epic wildfires, Al Gore’s Just Climate fund raised $1.5 billion for net-zero solutions, Soros Fund Management wrestled with Scope 3 emissions, and companies objected to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s focus on supply chain emissions. The U.S. backlash against Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards drove some investors away while anti-ESG funds ran out of steam.
The UN considered steps to limit fossil fuel influence over global climate negotiations while this year’s conference host, the United Arab Emirates, allowed oil company employees to view emails to and from the COP 28 secretariat, engaged in Wikipedia greenwashing, drew support from an “army” of fake social media accounts, and offered multi-million-dollar sponsorship packages in exchange for “access and unrivalled networking opportunities with governments and global business leaders”. One of those leaders retorted that the COP is meant to “save the planet”, not “milk sponsorship opportunities”. Brazil announced that the Amazon gateway city of Belem will host COP 30 negotiations, bitter conflicts prevented East European countries from choosing between Azerbaijan and Armenia as COP 29 host, and incoming World Bank President Ajay Banga instructed staff to “double down” on their response to climate change and international development challenges.
