Canada’s Contradiction

Canada’s four biggest fossil companies took home more than C$12.3 billion in profit between April and June of this year, thanks to an oil price surge driven largely by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

As the global push for a hydrogen economy accelerates, researchers are urging policy-makers to address new knowledge and fill in some profound data gaps, with recent studies revealing the considerable global warming potential of a fuel that many fossils see as their industry’s best hope for a second life.

Campaigners and local residents are using photos, video, and drone footage to document a Trans Mountain pipeline work site they say is impeding an early salmon run and leaving dead fish along the Coquihalla River in British Columbia.

This month’s EcoA Tip highlights some useful data showing who Canadians tend to blame for climate change. The research comes from a national survey conducted by EcoAnalytics, a non-profit initiative that provides data, analysis, and guidance to strengthen Canada’s environmental movement.

As the burning of fossil fuels presents us with yet another summer of catastrophic impacts, the pressure is growing for pension funds to either phase out their oil, gas, coal, and pipeline assets or explain how they’re aligned with a safe retirement future for their beneficiaries. And Canada’s seventh-largest fund, the C$121-billion Ontario Municipal Employees’ Retirement System (OMERS), may be getting the memo, three of its members write for Corporate Knights.

The reopening of a Newfoundland highway that had been closed for days because of raging wildfires provided hope Tuesday that much-needed supplies would finally arrive in stranded communities along the island’s south coast.

Tesla Inc. may be considering Ontario as the site of a new Canadian manufacturing plant, Electric Autonomy writes in an exclusive report.

Plans to expand the proposed U.S tax credit on electric vehicle purchases to cover North American-made cars are a boon for the auto sector, says Ontario’s economic development minister, but the province still isn’t planning any buyer incentives for local drivers.

Two years after it closed, and as it contemplates reopening, the Donkin coal mine in Cape Breton is still exceeding Nova Scotia’s greenhouse gas emissions cap without incurring any penalty, as it has since it began operations five years ago.

Canada’s biggest fossil companies are lining up to dismiss the federal government’s new emissions cap for their sector as “very aggressive” and “almost unrealistic”, even as Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault hastens to offer them flexibility and an extended deadline to hit the long-awaited target.

British Columbia and Alberta residents who endured last summer’s lethal heat dome say they feel fear, anger, and guilt in its aftermath, testifying to the urgent need for Canadians to take personal and political responsibility for climate change as extreme weather threatens the vulnerable.

Following a spate of revelations about the climate-wrecking private jet habits of many celebrities, observers are warning of the larger climate consequences of the “influencer economy.”

The projected cost of the contentious Coastal GasLink pipeline spanning northern British Columbia has skyrocketed 70% to C$11.2 billion in the wake of a freshly-inked deal between operator TC Energy Corporation and the group building a liquified natural gas (LNG) terminal on the West Coast.

The Trudeau government has released a proposed frame for new Clean Electricity Regulations (CER) aimed at bringing the grid’s greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2035. Comments on the plan close August 17.

A proposed carbon capture and storage (CCS) plant in the United States will capture far less than the 95% of carbon dioxide emissions its backers claim, concludes a new analysis released this week by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

Alberta-based PCL Construction’s 2021 solar construction revenue increased 60% over the previous year, totalling more than half a billion dollars. By the end of 2022, the company expects solar revenue to hit just under $800 million.

Offshore oil and gas activities in Atlantic Canada are a genuine threat to the ocean ecosystem and exacerbate climate change, but the federal government is falling short in its plans to regulate that activity, writes Mark Brooks, senior specialist, oil and gas at WWF-Canada, in a recent post on the WWF blog.

A campaign of misinformation is working to undermine a 30% fertilizer emissions reduction target in Canada’s next Agriculture Policy Framework (APF), says a national farmers’ coalition, contending that recently announced emissions policies actually don’t go far enough.

The outsized presence of American libertarian groups—pushing fossil interests in Canada at the expense of Indigenous energy rights and a free press—has been revealed in two recent reports by one intrepid journalist.

Forecaster Warren Dean recalls feeling helpless as a deadly heat dome hovered over British Columbia last summer.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in Nova Scotia last Thursday to promise green energy funds for the province, but he also said the idea of upgraded facilities to help ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe in the “very short term” is back on the table.

With Canada lagging far behind Europe and the United Kingdom in tackling carbon pollution from aviation, the country’s upcoming 10-year climate plan for the sector must be developed with public input and enforce a 30% emissions reduction target by 2030, climate advocates say.

With the Canada Energy Regulator still months away from completing its next projection of the country’s future oil and gas production, climate policy watchers are cautiously optimistic that the analysis will chart a real course for a low-carbon future—and rooting for the CER to get its modelling right.

When Dutch lawmakers proposed measures to reduce climate-busting nitrogen emissions in agriculture, nearly 40,000 livestock farmers took to the streets. But multiple news reports got the story wrong in ways that amplify myths and delay climate action, and the same problem has been playing out in Canada.

Vancouver City Council voted 6-5 late Wednesday afternoon to help fund a class action lawsuit to hold the world’s biggest fossil companies responsible for their local climate impacts, in what West Coast Environmental Law (WCEL) is hailing as a “historic win”.

An initial proposal for an oil and gas emissions cap that is a cornerstone of Canada’s 2030 climate strategy is generating glimmers of hope but early skepticism on all sides, after Environment and Climate Minister Steven Guilbeault opened public consultations on the plan earlier this week.

A Canadian Red Cross official in Manitoba estimates close to 2,000 people have been evacuated from a First Nation threatened by a wildfire over the last several days using planes, helicopters, and trains.

Canada’s export development bank is taking fire for what a watchdog group calls a “disappointing” set of 2030 emission reduction targets for its lending activities.

Global reserves of oil available for extraction showed a “sizable drop” of 9% last year, in what an analyst at Rystad Energy is calling “good news for the environment” that could still “deal a major blow to energy security”.

Firefighting crews lost ground Sunday after successfully holding back a blaze threatening the village of Lytton in southern British Columbia—barely one year after it was burned to the ground by a raging wildfire that took two lives and displaced hundreds of residents.

A detailed carbon reduction roadmap for agriculture will have to compete with a menu of other farm sector priorities at a high-level meeting in Saskatoon this week, as federal, provincial, and territorial ministers hash out the details of Canada’s next Agriculture Policy Framework (APF).

Ottawa has signed a memorandum of understanding with global metals refining giant Umicore to build a C$1.5-billion electric vehicle battery plant in eastern Ontario.

An environmental assessment for a one-gigawatt, 164-turbine wind farm/green hydrogen and ammonia park in rural Newfoundland is generating local concern about potential habitat impacts, while picking up some high-powered support for the community benefits the project would bring.

The European Union’s need for natural gas will peak in about three years and begin declining before any new, fixed liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals can be brought online, and EU countries are deliberately trying to avoid the kind of long-term supply contracts that Canadian gas producers are looking for, a UK-based fossil fuel specialist says.

Changes in global oil prices and markets will continue to destabilize jobs in Alberta, and declining oil demand due to the shift off carbon will have job impacts far beyond the province’s fossil sector without the right mix of just transition policies, an Oxford University research team concludes in a paper published this morning in the journal Climate Policy.

An organization representing eight Mi’kmaq groups in New Brunswick is joining a court challenge to the federal government’s approval of a new offshore oil project in Newfoundland.

A plan for a massive battery storage system near Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, is moving ahead after receiving city council support.

Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canadian-made solar products will be scrapped, after Canada, the United States and Mexico reached a deal at trade talks in Vancouver last week.

A Michigan regulatory panel said Thursday it needs more information about safety risks before it can rule on Calgary-based Enbridge Energy’s plan to extend the Line 5 pipeline through a tunnel beneath the Straits of Mackinac. The state Public Service Commission voted 3-0 to seek further details about the potential for explosions and fires involving […]

With extreme heat continuing to feed an increasing number of wildfires in northern Canada, Yukon authorities say some residents must prepare to evacuate within two hours of notification, while in the Northwest Territories a government with stretched resources has asked locals to do their part to prevent unnecessary fires.

With a disabled oil supertanker in the Red Sea likely just weeks or months away from breaking up or exploding, triggering a $20-billion ecological and humanitarian disaster, countries that could help pay for an emergency salvage plan are saying they can’t find the right budget codes to free up the funds.

Two of Canada’s most influential cities stepped up this week with serious action on the climate emergency, with Calgary adopting a new emissions reduction strategy that includes a 2050 net-zero target and Ottawa endorsing the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.

There will be no federal financing for two companies vying to export Canadian liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe from terminals on the East Coast, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said in a recent interview with the Globe and Mail.

The first of our EcoA Tips, a new monthly series in The Energy Mix,highlights a surprising bit of data from a major survey by EcoAnalytics, a non-profit market research initiative that uses data and analysis to strengthen Canada’s environmental movement.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has confirmed Montreal as the headquarters for its new Climate Change and Security Centre of Excellence, just weeks after a retired Australian military officer published an analysis of the “hyperthreat” humanity faces due to the global climate emergency.

Indoor farming could be a powerful solution for producing food in a volatile climate, but the benefits for the food system will come at the cost of a large carbon footprint as long as those new systems depend on natural gas for heat and power.

As early spring heat, increasingly dry summers, and high demand for water drain rivers and aquifers, municipalities across southern Quebec are sounding the alarm on what they know will be a long-term problem they currently have neither the data nor the tax base to resolve.

A group of 15 trainees will be heading out into the field to begin converting two Alberta oilfield sites into solar farms, after graduating from a rapid upskilling program for fossil industry and Indigenous workers hosted by Iron & Earth and Medicine Hat College.

G7 leaders meeting in Bavaria this week affirmed their rhetorical commitment to climate action but walked back a month-old promise to swiftly end public investment in overseas fossil fuel projects as they sought to grapple with the energy crisis brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The federal government is delaying new greenhouse gas emissions standards on gasoline and diesel by another year but will demand the oil and gas sector make bigger cuts to fuel emissions by 2030 given how much more money the companies are now making.

Less than a year after Petaluma, California, became the first city in the world to ban new gas stations, four others have passed similar policies, and at least six more are working on it, including the infamously car-centric Los Angeles—and the British Columbia town of Comox.

Citing the Ontario government’s poor track record on endangered species protection, as well as the need to address First Nations’ concerns and respond to the imperatives of the climate crisis, Environmental Defence Canada is urging Ottawa to conduct a full environmental impact assessment of Highway 413.

While global spending on agriculture has increased, critical support to help the sector build resilience and reduce emissions has decreased, an international agency concludes, even though effective policies are vital to avert a global disaster as food supplies are threatened by climate disasters and the war in Ukraine.

Public vigilance will be vital to preserving the well-being of the world’s greenbelts, which are needed more than ever but increasingly under threat, says a new report produced by the Ontario-based Greenbelt Foundation.

Hydroponic farms in shipping containers and software poised to turn electric vehicle (EV) owners into well-paid electricity providers are among the ingenious innovations that are signs of a better world to come—despite all the evidence to the contrary, the Toronto Star reports.

Canada has inched closer to passing its first-ever on environmental racism, after a private member’s bill passed second reading in the House of Commons last week.

The sudden rise in fertilizer prices since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could have implications for global emissions by reducing how much of it farmers use in their fields. But experts say there’s more to the picture, with non-monetary variables like human capital making a big impact on farming decisions.

Imperial Oil Ltd. has signed a deal to help advance a lithium recovery project in Alberta’s historic Leduc oilfield.

Ottawa is poised to release a new 10-year action plan to reduce aviation emissions—but the document has been crafted in close consultation with the industry, with zero public input planned, according to a recent op-ed.

A scathing budget analysis and a new lawsuit alleging police harassment produced a day of bad news Wednesday for the Trans Mountain and Coastal GasLink pipelines in British Columbia.

The federal government is banning companies from importing or making plastic bags and takeout containers by the end of this year, from selling them by the end of next year, and from exporting them by the end of 2025.

Canadian steel giant Dofasco and United States aluminium titan Alcoa are trying to “green” their notoriously polluting industries, as climate and public health concerns escalate. But with technology and energy gaps are complicating the effort.

With ministers meeting in one month to negotiate Canada’s next Agricultural Policy Framework (APF)—an agreement that will govern agriculture spending for the next five years—a farmer-led coalition has released a roadmap to boost adoption of climate-friendly farming practices from coast to coast.

Nearly 750,000 people around the world are facing a food security “catastrophe,” and a further 49 million risk famine conditions in the coming months, as Russia’s war on Ukraine disrupts grain exports, compounding extreme food shortages caused by the climate-driven devastation of harvests in India.

A late winter vote by Toronto’s city council permitting homeowners to build a small secondary residence in their backyards is being received as a positive step to loosen a very tight rental market and reduce the city’s carbon-intensive, resource-gobbling tendency towards “tall and sprawl.”

Montreal will host a long-delayed United Nations nature summit December 5-17 that has been described as the Paris Conference for biodiversity, after Canada and China agreed to relocate the high-stakes negotiating session that was originally meant to take place in Kunming, China in October 2020.

When it comes to sustainable cities, Scandinavia is knocking it out of the park, according to the world’s first-ever crowdsourced urban sustainability index, with Stockholm scoring highest and Oslo, Copenhagen, and Lahti, Finland close behind on a list of 50 high- and middle-income cities.

Countries accounting for about 80% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and economic output made new promises on methane controls, clean energy technology demonstrations, zero-emission vehicles, food security and agriculture emissions, and green shipping at a Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate convened by U.S. President Joe Biden June 17.

Wet’suwet’en land defenders are facing the threat of criminal records for their idealistic fight to save precious sacred resources for all of us, writes guest author Susan Tanner.

With the Ford government situated firmly in office for a second term after an election that saw the lowest voter turnout in Ontario’s history, it’s likely that any future climate action will need to be led by the federal government, says Mark Winfield, a professor of environmental and urban change at York University, in a recent op ed.

Determined to provide residents and visitors with “an experience of summer comfort in the city,” Montreal has closed two and a half kilometers of a major urban street to vehicle traffic for the summer, opening it up to pedestrians and filling it with art, entertainment, food, and lots of plant-filled spaces to sit.

Ottawa has launched the first phase of its plan to offer interest-free loans to Canadians planning upgrades that will have a significant impact in reducing their homes’ environmental footprint.

An environmental law non-profit in Vancouver is inviting British Columbia municipalities to join a class action lawsuit to hold some of the world’s biggest fossil companies responsible for their share of the climate damages local communities are experiencing.

The first major assessment of the costs of climate change to infrastructure across Northern Canada calls for action from all levels of government to bring about “transformative adaptation” and address the dual crises of climate hazards and infrastructure gaps.

The British Columbia coroner’s report on last year’s 619 extreme-heat-related deaths in the province recommends building codes be updated to require cooling systems, but experts call that measure a “necessary but insufficient action” as Canadian summers grow dangerously hotter.

As Canada’s oilpatch scrambles to fill 2,000+ job openings created by shifting geopolitical and economic winds, new analysis is calling on governments to ensure workers aren’t unduly disrupted by the country’s climate pledges, and that clean energy jobs are available to groups that have been shut out in the past.

Internal analysis by federal officials raises tough questions about whether the Canadian fossil industry can achieve the 81 megatonnes of emissions cuts the Trudeau government has promised by 2030 without cutting production, according to confidential documents obtained by the Globe and Mail.

British colossal fossil BP is exiting the Alberta tar sands/oil sands to focus on offshore oil development instead.

Ukrainian state oil and gas company Naftogaz has announced a deal to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) and green hydrogen from Quebec, beginning in just five years.

Unprecedented growth in Alberta’s renewable energy sector signifies a vital shift in the province’s energy economy, says the Pembina Institute, but another expert notes that Alberta’s power market also needs to be fixed—so that consumers aren’t overcharged for new grid infrastructure in the renewables boom.

British Columbians should expect their governments to hold fossil fuel companies accountable rather than passing the costs of climate change on to citizens, said Andrew Gage, Staff Lawyer at West Coast Environmental Law, in a feature interview just days before WCEL’s unveiling of the new Sue Big Oil campaign this Wednesday.

Public health doctor, pipeline protester, and renowned tree-sitter Tim Takaro doesn’t deserve four weeks in prison for violating a court injunction against blocking construction of the controversial Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, climate communicator James Boothroyd writes in an op ed for the Toronto Star.

Flower power of a different kind—a flower-shaped solar-powered microgrid, to be precise—stands ready to power a Saskatoon high school, and inspire its students.

With air pollution from fossil fuels responsible for up to 34,000 premature deaths in Canada, but the fossil industry still allowed to market its products as a boon to all, Ottawa must put an end to the spin-doctoring, says the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE).

A consulting report for Enbridge Inc. estimates the closure of the Line 5 pipeline would lead to an increase of one to two cents per litre in gasoline prices for Ontarians and Quebecers, a revelation that has reignited debate on the true economic impacts of shuttering an aging pipeline with very clear environmental risks.

Alberta’s energy minister is warning that anything resembling the United Kingdom’s windfall profits tax on oil and gas companies must not be implemented in Canada, adding that any federal action in that direction would be an “extreme act of aggression”.

Canada’s first federal carbon offset market kicked off Wednesday as the final piece of the puzzle in the carbon price for big industry takes shape. Climate activists say it simply makes it cheaper for big industry to keep polluting.

Canada and California are kindred progressive spirits on climate change, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday, as he and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unveiled a new blueprint for working together to stave off the worst consequences of a warming planet.

British Columbia has more ground to cover to protect people and communities from heat emergencies, even though the province would be better prepared now to withstand the heat dome that resulted in more than 600 deaths last summer, says the chief medical officer at BC’s Coroners Service.

Canada’s shift to local renewables is in full swing from coast to coast, with Indigenous-owned hydroelectric and heat pump projects afoot in British Columbia, a 21-megawatt solar and storage project under way in Prince Edward Island, and new wind turbines coming to New Brunswick.

The 2,000-pound gorilla on Ottawa’s lobbying circuit is a little bit lighter today, after the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) laid off three of its senior executives.

A lithium-ion battery recycler, a deep geothermal developer, an electric bus manufacturer, and start-ups working on energy storage, fuel cell, electrolyzer, carbon capture, and desalination technologies are among the fastest-growing green companies in Canada, according to the Future 50 list release last week by Corporate Knights.

The economic case for climate action might be the line of argument the climate community needs if it hopes to push Ontario toward faster, deeper carbon cuts during the four years of Premier Doug Ford’s second term, Globe and Mail columnist Adam Radwanski suggests in a post-election column.

A recent study showing that levels of lung-damaging black carbon pollution at the Trudeau International Airport are 400% higher than in downtown Montreal has left those who live nearby anxious about their health, and at least one academic urging a rethink on the airport’s planned expansion.

Climate policy analysts and campaigners were looking to next steps last night as they absorbed the results of a provincial election that delivered a second legislative majority for Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government, after the climate emergency barely scratched the surface of the campaign agenda.

With the Trudeau government continuing to tout liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports to help Europe free itself from dependence on Russian supplies, a new report says the continent is poised to boost renewable energy and reduce fossil fuels to just 18% of its electricity production by 2030, with the biggest importers of Russian oil and gas leading the way.

The British Columbia Prosecution Service said 15 people are being charged with criminal contempt of court following protests last fall over a natural gas pipeline being built near Houston in northern B.C. Those charged are alleged to have breached a B.C. Supreme Court injunction granted to the controversial Coastal GasLink pipeline in 2019 that prohibited […]

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says a new agreement signed Thursday to cooperate with India on climate action is an opportunity for Canada to export its renewable energy technology, particularly related to making renewable energy a reliable source of electricity.

Calgary city staff have unveiled an $87-billion climate plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, deliver $80 billion in energy savings, and generate $60 billion in gross domestic product (GDP) by mid-century.

With subsidies to make them cost-competitive, electrified medium- and heavy-duty (MHD) trucks are viable and could replace a large number of fossil-fueled freighters on the road today, says the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), contrary to the misconception that electric vehicle technology can’t match truckers’ needs. 

Small modular reactors, (SMRs), seen by the beleaguered nuclear industry as a shining hope for a global revival, may have hit a serious snag. A new study finds that mini-nuclear power stations produce higher volumes of radioactive waste per unit of generation than larger-scale traditional ones.

The decision by Canada’s six biggest banks to sink another $10 billion into the troubled Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is no surprise after a federal loan guarantee made it a straightforward business decision to back the project, says the financial analyst who accurately predicted the decision 2½ months ago.

The officially disclosed carbon footprints of Canada’s largest oil companies could balloon in size if tough new climate rules proposed earlier this year by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission come into effect.

With Ontario voters going to the polls tomorrow, the battle is still on to protect the province’s rural communities from urban sprawl, amped up by Ministerial Zoning Orders (MZOs) that have enabled the Ford government to rezone land without a municipal council’s permission.

While British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta, and Quebec all have clear momentum in their preparations for the global transition off carbon, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and especially Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland & Labrador need to put pedal to the metal, says a new report from the Canadian Climate Institute (CCI).

The Ontario Energy Board sent minor shock waves through the province’s energy regulatory and municipal energy communities earlier this month with its refusal to approve the final phases of a $123.7-million pipeline replacement project in Ottawa proposed by Enbridge Gas.

With the provincial election just days away, a business group in Windsor is blaming the Ford government’s hostility to renewable energy for the loss of a C$2.5-billion investment from South Korean chemical giant LG Chem.

The Group of Seven western industrialized countries set a 2035 deadline to decarbonize electricity generation, promised to end international public financing of fossil fuels this year, cited Russia’s war in Ukraine as a catalyst for a faster fossil phaseout, but left themselves a long list of agenda items on climate finance as they tied up a marathon series of ministerial meetings in Germany last week.

A lethal combination of energy shortages and searing heat is poised to generate enormous suffering in many parts of the world this summer, especially for the poor, the elderly, and those living in Asia, southern Africa, eastern Europe, and the American Midwest.

The Biden administration has become the latest target of the Alberta government’s enduring sense of grievance, after Ambassador David Cohen declared a “return to civility” following the Trump years but expressed skepticism about increasing his country’s imports of Canadian oil and gas.

Though most Canadians welcome the shift to a clean energy future, they don’t always support the individual renewable energy projects that are urgently needed to achieve that transition. A study has found that in order to engage successfully, climate advocates should use narratives that emphasize the shared public interest rather than individual or private gain.

Forty years of largely unregulated growth have left 1.4 trillion litres of toxic tar sands/oil sands tailings sloshing around in “ponds” on the shores of the Athabasca River, devastating ecosystems and First Nations communities with neither plan nor budget for reclamation, says a new report from Environmental Defence.

Canada can achieve 100% zero-emission electricity by 2035 with an electricity system that prioritizes renewable energy, storage, energy efficiency, and interprovincial transmission and avoids the pitfalls of nuclear generation, fossil gas, carbon capture and storage, and carbon offsets, the David Suzuki Foundation (DSF) concludes in a modelling study released this week.

Ontario opposition politicians sharpened their focus on climate policy in the dying days of the provincial election campaign after Conservative leader Doug Ford mistakenly called the massive storm that hit Ottawa and parts of Ontario and Quebec on Saturday a “once in a lifetime” event.

Vancouver’s core-area neighbourhoods are closing in on 15-minute city status, says a new study conducted by Simon Fraser University, largely because a decisive majority of residents can get to their nearest grocery store on foot, and at a relaxed pace.

High River, Alberta says it has become the first municipality to endorse a community-developed policy that calls for a ban on new coal exploration and development in the Rocky Mountains.

An extensive study of thousands of COVID-19 patients in Ontario hospitals found links between the severity of their infections and the levels of common air pollutants they experience.

Hundreds of thousands of people remain without power after Saturday’s powerful storm that left at least nine dead and caused extensive damage throughout southern Ontario and Quebec.

The current linchpin in Canadian Big Oil’s plan to be carbon neutral by 2050 is its apparent success at reducing the emissions intensity of each barrel of oil produced, a claim that relies on a form of creative accounting that treats a tonne of emissions exported to another country as a tonne removed from the atmosphere.

British Columbia is changing its decades-old royalty system, the fees it charges companies to extract publicly owned oil and gas, in an effort to align with provincial climate goals, but still maintaining subsidy support for fracking wells.

Across the globe, peatlands are under threat and their destruction is contributing to climate change. In Canada, Europe, and the tropics, peatlands are being drained for urban, suburban, and infrastructure expansion, converted to dryland agriculture, and mined for fuel and the horticulture industry, researchers Rafael Ziegler, Magali Simard, Rahma Eldeeb write for The Conversation.

Though residents remain traumatized six years after the wildfire known as “The Beast” tore through Fort McMurray, Alberta, their fierce loyalty to Alberta’s fossil energy industry leaves many unwilling to connect the dots between greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels and the increasing ferocity of wildfires.

Conservative leader Doug Ford’s promise to build Highway 413, a proposed suburban superhighway ring road to the west and north of Toronto, would lock in a massive increase in climate-changing emissions and other damaging impacts for decades to come, critics say.

Researchers are developing mental health resources for farmers facing more unpredictable farming seasons, as climate change increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events.

A business owned by TD Bank’s asset management division is tripling its investment in lithium-ion batteries for the Alberta power grid and bringing its total capacity up to 180 megawatt-hours.

Nearly 40% of the oil, gas, and coal now under development around the world will have to stay in the ground to give humanity a 50-50 chance of holding global warming to 1.5°C, a study team led by Oil Change International concludes in a paper published yesterday in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

The glaciers of the Canadian Rockies are “past their tipping point” for meltdown, says a climate and water expert, describing a reality that bodes ill for Prairie freshwater supplies.

By pushing forward Ring of Fire mining and smelting development projects in northern Ontario, experts say federal and provincial governments are failing to recognize the right to free, informed, and prior consent enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), ratified by the Canadian government.

Ontario voters concerned about global heating and other environmental problems will find no champion in Doug Ford, given his track record of catering to developers and heavy industry at the expense of the public good, warns a recent op ed in the Toronto Star.

A floating tidal energy project in the Bay of Fundy has been successfully connected to Nova Scotia’s grid, an undertaking that marks a milestone for Canada’s marine energy ambitions, say proponents, as the bay’s tidal resources could be harnessed for thousands of megawatts of clean energy in the future.

The Trudeau government is talking up prospects for a new gas export deal to Germany involving a project that has already been proposed and withdrawn, a gas field in the Alberta foothills that has drawn scrutiny from provincial regulators, a financing scheme that will likely need federal backing to succeed, a route that may need U.S. regulatory approval, and a timeline that will likely be cut short by Europe’s rapid decarbonization plans, The Energy Mix has learned.

As they struggle with the immediate impacts of the flooding that has inundated HayRiver, Northwest Territories, anxious locals are questioning their municipality’s ability to respond in a climate-changed world where such disasters are growing more common and severe.

Ontario Conservative leader Doug Ford is promising to install new charging stations for electric vehicles (EVs) if his government is returned to office in provincial elections June 2, but has no plans to reinstate the EV rebates it cancelled when he took office in 2018.

With Ontario on the cusp of locking in its reliance on natural gas infrastructure, The Atmospheric Fund says emissions of climate-busting methane due to the province’s existing gas consumption are nearly double the amounts reported in Canada’s latest emissions inventory report.

As distributed solar that put the technology closer to consumers, rather than at a centralized generating station, gains serious ground in the United States, distributed energy resources (DERs) are running into barriers in Canada, especially in Ontario.

Fossil fuel companies have access to an obscure legal tool that could jeopardize worldwide efforts to protect the climate, and they’re starting to use it. The result could cost countries that press ahead with those efforts billions of dollars.

Canadian Solar Inc. has announced an investigation to determine whether any workers at its photovoltaic plant in China’s Xinjiang region were hired against their will, though the company claimed in the past it would be impossible to determine if its supply chain used forced labour.

Canada’s collective failure to protect endangered boreal caribou herds and the forests on which they depend owes to a longstanding determination to put jobs and profits above the health and well-being of wildlife—a determination on particularly short-sighted display in Quebec, a new analysis concludes.

The Guardian is out with an exclusive, explosive report based on months of research that documents the scores of new projects fossil fuel companies are proposing, enough to wipe out the world’s remaining carbon budget and shatter any effort to hold global warming to 1.5°C.

The federal government has approved a new, approximately C$10-billion loan guarantee for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, a move it says is common practice and does not reflect any additional public funding for the high-profile, over-budget oil pipeline.

Environmental law charity Ecojustice launched a suit in federal court and local opponents staged a rally outside the St. John’s office of Norwegian state fossil Equinor as opposition to the controversial Bay du Nord offshore oil and gas megaproject entered a new stage.

Greenhouse gas emissions from Ontario’s electricity system are set to increase more than 400% over the next two decades after the Doug Ford government cancelled a major wind farm and 758 smaller renewable energy projects, according to a forecast published by the province’s Independent Electricity System Operator and reported by the Toronto Star.

As global heating brings dire ecological challenges and new resource opportunities to the Arctic, international security experts agree that stakeholder nations must work together to navigate the changing security dynamics—with the exclusion of Russia, whose war in Ukraine is threatening international order.

Alberta’s top court said Tuesday the federal government’s environmental impact law is unconstitutional, and Ottawa almost immediately announced its plan to appeal.

The Doug Ford government in Ontario is relying on a “known climate change denier” to defend against a youth-led constitutional challenge to its climate change policies, Toronto-based Environmental Defence Canada contends, citing one of two affidavits filed as part of the province’s response to the case.

A heavy industry town in British Columbia with an ingrained suspicion of government has decided to say yes to a 100% renewable energy transition by 2050, after a local climate group spent time meeting people where they’re at with curiosity and compassion—a hallmark of the “deep canvassing” technique.

Canada’s territorial premiers are calling on the federal government to increase funding for clean energy projects and climate change adaptation.

The changing agricultural landscape of Canada’s Northwest Territories is showing how rising global temperatures could affect food production, as growing conditions in the North become increasingly favourable, while heat waves and drought desiccate farmland in other regions.

Lack of corporate transparency about climate-related exposure will allow the Canadian economy to continue growing in a “climate bubble”—until the bubble suddenly bursts, wreaking economic destabilization and damage.

Ontario’s first net-zero emissions community centre will include a space for aquatics, a particular point of pride for the firm that designed it since pools are notoriously difficult to heat, dehumidify, and decarbonize.

Canada’s big oil companies are making record profits this year and should be investing some of that extra cash to curb their greenhouse gas emissions, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said Thursday.

Even with gasoline prices hitting record levels, and the high cost of living taking centre stage in Ontario’s provincial election, the Doug Ford government was still moving in the wrong direction last month when it opted to roll back gas taxes last month, analysts say.

Thirteen years ago, Canada began promising to scrub out all inefficient fossil fuel subsidies from the government’s books. But first, Ottawa has to decide what it means by “inefficient”.

Steel and mining multinational ArcelorMittal SA conducted a first, successful test of green hydrogen for the direct reduced iron (DRI) process at its plant in Contrecoeur, Quebec, the company announced last week.

The “deep entanglement” between Canada’s 10 biggest pension funds and a roster of 76 fossil fuel companies raises serious questions about whether fund managers and trustees are looking out for the best interest of the beneficiaries who depend on them, according to a scathing, 40-page report released yesterday by Toronto-based Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Climate Health.

Montreal will mandate a zero-emission standard for all new construction beginning in 2025, Mayor Valérie Plante announced Tuesday.

The murderous heat and wildfires that claimed lives and destroyed property in British Columbia and other parts of North America in June, 2021 has hit the global record books. According to a new statistical study, only five other heat waves worldwide since 1960 have been more extreme.

Canada’s electricity system will have to get bigger, cleaner, and smarter to help power the country’s net-zero transition, the Canadian Climate Institute concludes in a collection of three reports issued Wednesday.

With the Ontario election under way and party platforms rolling out, there aren’t very many dramatic differences among the climate and environment commitments from the three provincial opposition parties, a compendium released by 13 environmental organizations shows.

More than 85 investment firms, academic organizations, and environmental groups from across Canada and around the world are lending their support to a climate-aligned finance bill introduced by Sen. Rosa Galvez (ISG-Quebec) in late March.

Determined to protect their residents from the increasing reality of extreme weather events like wildfire, two towns in Western Canada are starting to build permanent evacuation centres, but need government help to make that happen.

An Ontario seniors’ climate group is channelling two of Canada’s most beloved comedy characters, Mrs. Enid and Mrs. Eulalia of This Hour Has 22 Minutes, in a two-minute YouTube video that takes aim at Ontario Conservative leader Doug Ford’s climate policies.

With a four-week election period in Ontario kicking off today, organizations across the province are hitting high gear in their efforts to push the climate emergency to the top of voters’ list of campaign concerns, while connecting climate solutions with the affordability, housing, and health crises the province is simultaneously facing.

Four new studies—each quite separate—appear to confirm that heat, drought, and hunger on massive scales can only get worse with rising global temperatures. One of the most ominous is a prediction that ferocious summer temperatures and extended droughts are increasingly likely to happen simultaneously.

It has been an electric spring for Canada’s automakers, with more than $13 billion promised in just eight weeks to build the needed battery supply chains and shift production from combustion engine to plug-in vehicles.

The head of Canadian pipeline giant TC Energy says the company sees a future opportunity in providing what’s described as “small-scale” nuclear power for Alberta’s tar sands/oil sands.

The City of Hamilton’s decision to freeze its urban boundary has become an issue in Ontario’s provincial election, with the incumbent Progressive Conservatives denouncing it as municipal overreach and the opposing New Democrats defending it as local democracy in action.

When several of Canada’s top hockey players came to play at a pond hockey tournament in Hay River, Northwest Territories earlier this spring, they also came to talk climate, and locals were ready for the conversation.

The Toronto Transit Commission has ordered 202 hybrid-electric buses from Winnipeg-based New Flyer Industries, to be delivered by the end of 2023.

Etobicoke-based Mitrex Integrated Solar Technology has signed on to install North America’s biggest building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) system, at a student residence at St. Mary’s University in Halifax.

BC Hydro is falling short of its obligations to fund habitat conservation under the Fish & Wildlife Compensation Program, according to a brief from the B.C. Wildlife Federation and the University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre that asks the provincial auditor general to look into the matter.

Canada’s economy will lose C$2.8 trillion in climate costs by 2100 if global temperatures rise by 2°C, a figure that doubles to $5.5 trillion should warming increase by the 5°C forecast in “business as usual” scenarios, says a new report.

The world’s fifth-largest insurance company, Munich-based Allianz, is withdrawing coverage and investment dollars from a wide swath of fossil fuel projects as of next year, and will stop insuring its existing fossil clients when their policies come up for renewal.

Most Canadian politicians still don’t understand the most important thing about fossil fuel subsidies, writes UNB’s Jason MacLean: Eliminating all financial support for the fossil fuel industry is a necessary first step in completely phasing out fossil production and consumption in Canada.

Divest from the Coastal GasLink pipeline or Hollywood will divest from you was the message for the Royal Bank of Canada, delivered last week by Office of the Wet’suwet’en spokesperson Sleydo’ Molly Wickham and climate activist and actor Mark Ruffalo.

A growing body of research published over the past two decades has found that most reservoirs, including those used for hydropower, aren’t emissions-free. Despite the green reputation of hydropower among policy-makers, some reservoirs emit significant amounts of methane, along with much smaller amounts of nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide.

Germany is “very, very close” to declaring independence from Russian oil, vice-chancellor and economy and climate minister Robert Habeck declared last week, after Russian state fossil Gazprom cut off gas deliveries to Poland and Bulgaria over their “failure” to pay for the product in rubles.

Coal power plants face “existential” financial risk as early as 2030 and gas facilities will see their profits disrupted by “major changes to markets, regulation, and business mode” through 2050, according to the latest climate vulnerability assessment published by Fitch Ratings.

Done in by e-commerce, the pandemic, and changing consumer values, the traditional cookie-cutter shopping mall is (mostly) dead in Canada. But from the ashes of “de-malling” may come something more vibrant—and environmentally sustainable.

After persuading his colleagues to support free transit for under-19s and low-income seniors, Victoria city councillor Ben Isitt is working hard to push his city to join the 100 or so municipalities around the world that already make public transit free for all riders.

The pilot stage of Edmonton’s Clean Energy Improvement Program was fully subscribed within 48 hours of its launch at the end of March, as homeowners raced to benefit from the promise of low-cost financing for climate-friendly improvements like solar panels and insulation upgrades.

Researchers are citing health risks as a reason to switch to electric stoves, after their measurements of indoor air pollutants linked to gas cooking motivated them to change their own appliance choices.

The intensely controversial investment tax credit unveiled by the federal government earlier this month isn’t enough to convince Canada’s major tar sands/oil sands producers to begin construction on a proposed massive carbon capture and storage transportation line, the chief executive of Cenovus Energy Inc. said Wednesday.

A private email shows a Conservative MP from Alberta calling an NDP-initiated study into the relationship between resource development and increased violence against Indigenous women and girls “disgraceful.”

South Melbourne, Australia-based Montem Resources has announced plans to pursue a renewable energy project at its Tent Mountain site in Alberta’s Crowsnest Pass instead of its planned coal mine, but some environmental advocates remain suspicious of the company’s plans.

Humans weren’t the only ones affected by last summer’s record heat wave in Western Canada. The high temperatures also put honeybees and other pollinators at risk, Dr. Alison McAfee of the University of British Columbia writes for The Conversation.

The city of Saskatoon is investing in two battery electric buses (BEBs) instead of four new diesel vehicles, after a pilot program showed the battery-powered units performing well in cold winters.

Canadian professionals, trades, and labourers will urgently need education and retraining to successfully navigate the transition to a net-zero economy, Royal Bank of Canada economists warned in a report issued last month.

Disheartened Winnipeg residents wringing out their homes in the wake of last week’s deluge of rain are turning to neighbours and community groups for support as the municipality’s response fall short.

Canada’s latest climate plan makes “overly optimistic” about the role of hydrogen, fails to map out a just transition for fossil fuel workers and communities, relies on “aspirational numbers” for carbon capture and storage technology, and may ultimately fall short of the country’s 2030 emission reduction target, Environment and Sustainable Development Commissioner Jerry DeMarco warned Tuesday.

Binding, science-based climate targets, respect for Indigenous sovereignty, and investment in a “thriving, regenerative, zero-emissions economy” are the top demands from more than 125 organizations that were scheduled to launch the Ontario Climate Emergency Campaign at the provincial legislature later today.

Scientific evidence “unequivocally” indicates a need for decisive action to protect Canadians from the adverse health effects of traffic-related air pollution, says a new report prepared by doctors calling for a shift to electric vehicles and greener, more walkable cities.

Alanna Cowan has watched the Nicola River in British Columbia’s Interior turn the colour of chocolate milk and rise every spring, as warm weather melts snow from the surrounding mountains. It is part of an annual cycle that can cause minor flooding, but Cowan said this year feels more uncertain.

“You’re going to die of old age. We’re going to die of climate change,” chanted a group of Whitehorse, Yukon, high school students who gathered on Earth Day to protest the failure of way too many adults to take the climate crisis seriously.

Canada is on track to add 5.5 gigawatts of new solar and wind capacity this year, most of it in Alberta, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

A decision just a decade ago to invest heavily in the Alberta tar sands/oil sands has turned out to be a big liability for the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC)—and now the company is looking to sell off its Long Lake and Hangingstone operations before being hit by sanctions related to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Quebec will issue two new requests for proposals for 2,300 megawatts of new wind and other renewable energy capacity, Premier François Legault announced last week during a visit to the province’s Gaspé region.

Economic security through a basic income must be at the centre of the just transition off fossil fuels, and Canadians need the wherewithal to build resilience in their own communities, the Green Resilience Project concluded earlier this month, based on a series of 33 local conversations involving more than 900 participants across the country.

Electric vehicle sales grew almost 60% last year but they need to pick up the pace even more to hit the new federal sales mandates expected by the end of this year.

The federal and Newfoundland and Labrador governments are in a squabble over who will pay hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties on the Bay du Nord offshore oil development, even as Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault declares the controversial megaproject may be the last ever approved in the province.

With pre-election announcements in full swing ahead of a June 2 vote, Ontario has shifted its net metering regulations to make it easier for homeowners, farms, and businesses to generate income from rooftop solar or other renewable energy systems by selling surplus electricity back to the grid.

The largest private land conservation project in Canadian history is unfolding in northern Ontario.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is investing US$25 million in Hydrostor Inc., just as the Toronto-based developer closes in on the first major commercial development for its long-storage air compression energy storage technology.

G20 countries are falling behind on the all-important “say-do gap” between their 2030 emission reduction pledges and the climate action they’re actually taking, and Canada shows up dead last among the 10 wealthiest nations in the group, according to the first annual Earth Index released this week by Corporate Knights.

Export Development Canada shows up as the world’s biggest provider of trade and development finance for fossil fuels, averaging US$11 billion per year between 2018 and 2020, and Russia emerges as the second-biggest recipient of international public finance for fossil projects, in the latest update of the Public Finance for Energy Database released this week by Oil Change International.

A survivor of British Columbia’s catastrophic floods last year is warning others to check their insurance policies after she said she was offered a payout of only $30,000 when her home, assessed at $414,000, was destroyed.

A new liquified natural gas (LNG) project advertised as the “lowest-emission LNG export facility in the world” is set to proceed in British Columbia, but environmental groups say the facility will increase fracking in the northeastern part of the province, with adverse effects on water, climate, wildlife, and human health.

Thousands of Canada’s most vulnerable citizens risk suffering and death by extreme heat in the next few decades without collectively action to protect them and combat heat, says a new report from the University of Waterloo’s Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation.

Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions fell by 66 million tonnes during the first year of the pandemic. But not all of those gains likely survived the economic recovery in 2021, and only a small share of the emission cuts came from the Alberta tar sands/oil sands, according to the government’s latest National Inventory Report released late last week.

Less than two months shy of the next provincial election, the Doug Ford government has quietly watered down the climate plan it announced with great fanfare in 2018, while claiming it’s still on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 30% from 2005 levels by 2030.

As Canadian cities have sprawled, with Ottawa-Gatineau leading the way, density has dropped 6% over the last two decades, driving up tailpipe emissions from residents who rely on cars for transportation, a new study finds.

The Seigneurie de Beaupré region northeast of Quebec City is in line to add three new wind farms totalling 1.2 gigawatts of capacity under a deal announced yesterday by renewable energy developer Boralex, Hydro-Québec, and Énergir, the gas distribution company formerly known as Gaz Métro.

Canada’s new Emissions Reduction Plan is “reckless”, doesn’t meet the criteria of credible net-zero emissions plans, and lacks any vision of a future capable of inspiring Canadians to change their lives, says Jason MacLean, assistant professor of law at the University of New Brunswick.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said the Conservatives are lying with allegations of a secret government plan to add a green tax to pickup trucks.

A summary of public opinion research on what Canadians really think about climate change concludes that climate communicators urgently need to provide different audiences with tangible, specific examples of climate solutions, to counter a growing sense that humanity is helpless in the face of the climate crisis.

In what campaigners are calling a world first, Quebec’s National Assembly voted Tuesday afternoon to ban new oil and gas exploration and shut down existing drill sites within three years, even as the promoters behind the failed Énergie Saguenay liquefied natural gas (LNG) project try to revive it as a response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A veteran political journalist is taking aim at last week’s federal budget, combined with Environment and Climate Minister Steven Guilbeault’s approval of the Bay du Nord offshore oil project, as a “flimsy smokescreen for climate capitulation”.

The Ontario government’s new hydrogen strategy reflects a “lobbyist feeding frenzy” and lacks “evidence, analysis, and critical thought,” says a climate policy expert.

British Columbia mayors whose communities were devastated by last year’s flooding and wildfires want the federal government to deliver billions of dollars in promised funding as soon as possible.

Canadians strongly believe that new buildings should be accessible, beautiful, sustainable, and reflective of the culture and heritage of the communities in which they stand, according to a new study by the Angus Reid Institute. 

In the hours and days after Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland unveiled a budget that promised $7.1 billion in subsidies for carbon capture and storage (CCUS) technology, one of the most intriguing questions was whether the government was finally calling the fossil industry’s bluff on emission reductions—whether or not it meant to.

One of the biggest gaps in the federal government’s long-awaited Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) is a reality the Trudeau government has no ability to control: its ability to deliver as promised depends on a provincial government in Ontario that has no intention of playing its part.

Canada’s new 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) is a comprehensive, ambitious, and transparent policy roadmap for achieving Canada’s climate goals. It uses credible modelling to demonstrate a path to 2030 targets. It’s a big step forward. It’s also not enough, write Dave Sawyer, principal economist, and Dale Beugin, VP of research, at the Canadian Climate Institute.

Keeping the community onboard and elected councillors informed and involved were two of the most important steps in making Halton Hills, Ontario the first Canadian community to adopt a 2030 net-zero strategy, according to two of the program’s lead developers.

A company hoping to develop coal in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains says it will decide by the end of June whether to convert its open-pit mine proposal into a renewable energy project.

The Alberta government has released recovery plans for two herds of threatened caribou in the province’s north that it says will bring the amount of usable habitat on their ranges up to the level required by a deal signed with Ottawa, The Canadian Press reports.

Major new dollars for affordable and energy-efficient housing, a C$15-billion fund to accelerate clean investment, and a controversial tax credit for carbon capture and storage (CCUS) technology are among the big-ticket items in the federal budget tabled in the House of Commons yesterday by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.

The federal cabinet administered what one critic called a “slap in the face” to climate science with a decision today to approve the massive Bay du Nord oil and gas megaproject off the Newfoundland coast.

The federal government should not be relying on a carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) tax credit to help it win a “race against time” in the effort to get climate change under control, a former Shell Canada engineer argues this week in an opinion piece for The Hill Times.

As oil and gas prices continue to skyrocket in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Canadian fossil companies’ hopes for a lucrative 2022 are being undercut by labour shortages.

On the very same day that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its “now or never” plea to slam the brakes on carbon, Calgary-based Suncor Energy ditched its solar and wind assets—aiming instead to keep the combustion engine alive with hydrogen, biofuels, and carbon capture and storage (CCS) tech.

A price tag in the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars, and a project scope akin to that of the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1800s. That’s the scale of the massive investment in Canada’s electricity grid that experts say will be required in the near future, as the phaseout of fossil-fired power generation combined with a rapid increase in demand for electricity puts never-before-seen demands on this country’s electrical grid.

A University of Calgary study says there may be a link between the density of shale oil and gas operations and increased health risks for nearby pregnant women and their babies.

Calgary-based electricity company TransAlta Corporation says it has signed a deal with Meta, under which the tech behemoth formerly known as Facebook will buy power generated at its new 200-megawatt wind farm in Oklahoma.

Provincial and territorial energy efficiency programs are failing to reach the 20% of Canadians who are struggling to cover their home energy costs, but federal investment can stop those households from being left behind in the push for net-zero emissions, Efficiency Canada says in a new report.

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) has “solidified its position as a climate leader among Canadian pension funds,” but still isn’t fully heeding its members’ calls to invest in a climate-safe future, according to an independent analysis of its annual report released late last month.

Deepening its efforts to become an “ark for seeds,” Canada’s National Tree Seed Centre is asking First Nations to identify tree species of concern, so that the species may be conserved and nurtured to make a comeback.

Fossil investment from the world’s 60 biggest banks hit US$4.6 trillion in the six years since the Paris climate agreement was signed, while the Royal Bank of Canada and TD Bank led a 51% increase in tar sands/oil sands investment last year, according to the latest edition of the annual Banking on Climate Chaos report released Wednesday.

Canada’s oil and gas industry says it’s been left in the dark about exactly how much it will be required to reduce its emissions in the coming decade, after the federal government’s new Emissions Reduction Plan made it clear that fossils must bring their carbon pollution down 42% from 2019 levels by 2030.

While projections show that the transition to a green economy could affect nearly a quarter of all jobs in Canada, experts say supportive policies and retraining can help workers develop new skills and adapt to new sectors.

The inclusion of “anthropogenic removals” in the legislation establishing Canada’s climate goals leaves ministers with “considerable latitude” to develop plans that lean on negative emissions technologies (NETs) instead of prioritizing emissions reductions, legal experts warn.

When lifetime ownership costs are factored in, electric vehicles (EVs) are often significantly cheaper than their fossil counterparts, according to a new report by Clean Energy Canada.

The federal government’s new emissions reduction plan continues to undercount emissions from forestry, an environmental group says, throwing doubt on Canada’s ability to reach its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050.

U.S. President Joe Biden brandished one of the biggest weapons in his economic arsenal Thursday in hopes of turning the United States into a leading producer of electric-vehicle batteries and the minerals used to make them.

As it seeks to decarbonize the grid, Canada’s “balkanized” power sector has much to learn from longstanding Nordic co-operation, policy advisor Shawn McCarthy writes in a recent case study for the Canadian Climate Institute.

The fossil and transportation sectors get a relatively free ride and electricity producers do the most to decarbonize in the much-anticipated 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan released yesterday by Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault.

The proposed Bay du Nord offshore oil project in Newfoundland is economically and environmentally “impossible to justify,” writes an environmental advocate, calling the venture’s emissions damaging and unnecessary as Canada lags on climate goals.

Canadians of all political stripes and from all regions support greater protection for the country’s forests but are concerned about what that could mean for the economy, according to a new survey.

Canada’s National Research Council has quietly released a new set of national building codes that show how provincial and territorial governments—which actually hold authority for codes and standards—can make new buildings net-zero ready by 2030.

A bankruptcy hearing that could determine whether more than C$200 million in oilpatch environmental liabilities wind up on the public dime will have to go back to court.

The death of an Ottawa cyclist struck by a snow grader turning right at a busy and dangerous four-way intersection has renewed calls for the city to invest in infrastructure that keeps pedestrians and cyclists safe.

A wind-powered re-icing machine may be on location in Nunavut next winter, pending the success of a $1.2-million crowdfunding campaign that kicks off next month.

With the federal government’s new Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) due for release any day, news commentary is focusing on the central role of oil and gas in hitting the 2030 target—and what it’ll cost taxpayers to secure the industry’s cooperation.

Weeks away from Canada’s first federal budget announcement following a natural disaster-ridden year, governments and private investors will need to collaborate to fund climate adaptation and prevention at the municipal level, a Globe and Mail op ed asserts.

Toronto-based Element Fleet Management has created a roadmap to help clients switch to battery-electric vehicles in response to growing investor pressure to cut carbon emissions.

A local resilience project in Tuktoyaktuk that has spent the past four years helping to prepare the NWT hamlet to cope with the climate crisis has won $500,000 as a recipient of the Arctic Inspiration Prize.

Climate science has done more than just warn humankind about the future: it has also systematically enriched our understanding of the planet we call home.

Federal financial institutions and federal-regulated entities would have to line up their investment activities with Canada’s climate commitments under Bill S-243, the Climate-Aligned Finance Act introduced in Senate yesterday by Sen. Rosa Galvez (ISG-Quebec).

Although many of the world’s biggest financial institutions have been vocal about their climate commitments, fewer than half of them have introduced policies to restrict new oil and gas investments or phase out existing ones, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis released earlier this week by Reclaim Finance and more than a dozen advocacy groups.

Canada’s long-awaited 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) must set legally-binding limits for the oil and gas industry that are “coherent with national targets”, since “other sectors would be required to do even more for Canada to achieve its target” if fossils failed to pull their weight, the country’s Net-Zero Advisory Body said in its official advice to the government earlier this week.

The controversial Bay du Nord exploration project off the coast of Newfoundland is running into new headwinds in Ottawa, with Environment and Climate Minister Steven Guilbeault busting the myth that new oil and gas wells can help Europe free itself from Russian supplies and the NDP questioning how any new fossil project can align with the government’s climate promises.

Canada’s oil and gas producers can hike output by the equivalent of 300,000 barrels a day by the end of the year to help displace Russian fossil fuels, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said Thursday.

Canada’s first-ever green bond raised $5 billion for environmentally focused projects this Tuesday, after a week-long issuance period that showed investors willing to buy more than twice the value of assets on offer.

Canada’s first electric vehicle battery plant is coming to Windsor, Ontario, prompting the beleaguered auto sector to herald the news as a sign of better days ahead.

Iron & Earth has launched a new online tool to help Canadian fossil fuel workers move into careers in the net-zero economy, matching their skills to trades and administration positions in wind, solar, energy efficiency, electric vehicle charging, and more.

Many Alberta youth view their home province as backward-looking and intolerant of diversity, and are leaving in droves in search of more progressive communities, says a new report by the Canada West Foundation.

The federal Liberals and New Democrats must make good use of the next three-plus years of political stability by embracing more decisive climate action than they promised in the supply and confidence agreement (CSA) unveiled yesterday, leading climate policy analysts have told The Energy Mix.

Canada is one of 19 oil and gas-producing countries that must reduce production by three-quarters this decade and phase it out completely by 2034 to keep a 1.5°C climate future within sight, while allowing less wealthy, more fossil-dependent economies more time to catch up, according to a new analysis released this week by the United Kingdom’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

A group of civil organizations has called on Ottawa to reject the Bay du Nord offshore oil venture in Newfoundland and Labrador, recalling the province’s gutted cod fishing business as a lesson on the long-term impacts of environmental devastation.

Canadian cities already have the authority to take bold action on climate solutions, and the world’s best municipal climate leaders have shown how other communities can cut their emissions and embrace climate and environmental justice, former Toronto mayor David Miller told an online community meeting in Ottawa Monday evening.

A Halifax professor is disappointed with a report that recommends more and higher dikes to prevent rising seas from flooding the low-lying strip of land that connects Nova Scotia to mainland Canada, as it leaves out the cheaper, more sustainable “soft” option of indigenous saltwater marshes. 

Lower-emitting farm techniques can be part of the solution to the threat of food shortages and rising prices brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a Quebec agronomist says

The contentious Trans Mountain pipeline project could be the “modern-day economic version of a smallpox blanket,” the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs warned last week, in an open letter to the several Indigenous consortia that are lining up for a possible financial stake in the project.

A closer look at last week’s hybrid vehicle funding announcement by the federal and Ontario governments is revealing an unexpected twist: the more than C$260 million headed to a Honda manufacturing plant in Alliston, Ontario over six years includes no immediate commitment to shift the company toward zero-emission vehicles.

The federal government is delaying climate action by subsidizing small, modular nuclear reactor (SMR) development, over the objections of the remote, Indigenous communities the technology is supposed to serve as an alternative to diesel generators, opponents warned last week.

Business leaders from the United States and Canada are again wading into the fray over Line 5, citing the energy crisis brought on by Russia’s war in Ukraine to accuse the state of Michigan of dragging its heels to keep the controversial cross-border pipeline in a state of legal limbo.

Saint-Jérôme, Quebec-based Lion Electric was on the scene at one of North America’s biggest commercial trucking events in Indiana last week, giving potential customers a chance to test drive three of its new electric truck models.

With oil prices soaring, Canada’s fossil industry is reaping record profits that ought to be invested in a low-carbon transition, not spent as returns for shareholders, says a Montreal-based finance professor who’s urging the feds to force the sector’s hand—to address the climate crisis, and for the workers who will inevitably suffer when fossil fortunes tank.

A Conservative member of Parliament from New Brunswick is raising eyebrows on both sides of the aisle by calling on the province to abandon its own carbon tax system and adopt the federal floor price on carbon.

Vancouver and North Vancouver each took top honours in three categories of a citizen-driven sustainability competition where volunteers across Canada tracked municipalities on 31 indicators of a better life for residents—from affordable housing to air quality, from gender equity to bike lanes.

Canada’s prime minister and Ontario’s premier announced millions in funding support for domestic hybrid car production this week, but both leaders dodged questions on the possibility of incentives to help Canadians buy them.

Royal Bank of Canada, Shopify, and Bullfrog Power Inc. have signed a deal to buy a combined 90,000 megawatt-hours per year from a Berkshire Hathaway wind power project in southeast Alberta.

The horrific news from Vladimir Putin’s invasion, coupled with a history of family experience with war, escape, and loss, has a Montreal clean energy executive on a mission to raise $100,000 for emergency relief in Ukraine.

An activist investor group in Montreal is calling on Canada’s seven biggest banks to conduct annual “say-on-climate” votes to let shareholders pass judgement on their climate risk strategies. The Globe and Mail says the banks aren’t keen on the idea.

The Climate Atlas of Canada is out with a new Indigenous Knowledges component that captures the climate impacts facing First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities across the country and the solutions they’ve been putting in place, from land conservation to renewable energy development.

More new electric vehicles hit the road in Canada last year than ever before but the growth is nowhere near what is happening in Europe.

Experts are suggesting nature-based solutions for coastal erosion while Newfoundlanders look to save homes and cemeteries from rising sea levels, but Canada’s coastal risk management policy is not keeping pace with the impacts from climate change.

Canada’s mining industry is pushing back against proposed tougher federal coal effluent rules, saying the draft regulations aren’t practical or backed by science.

Steelworkers in Regina and politicians at all levels were scrambling to assess the local implications Friday after the federal government extended its Ukraine sanctions list to include Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, a close associate of Vladimir Putin and part owner of the steel mill that produced pipe for the Trans Mountain and Coastal GasLink pipelines.

An April 30 deadline for the federal government’s just transition consultation, announced as part of a virtual roundtable last Thursday, is being taken as a sign that Ottawa will be getting started on legislation to help fossil fuel workers and communities navigate the shift off carbon, more than two years after then-environment minister Jonathan Wilkinson’s pre-pandemic promise to make it happen.

Oil and gas companies and lobby groups in Canada are heavily investing in campaigns to present themselves as defenders of Indigenous interests in the face of high-profile protests against a controversial natural gas pipeline on First Nation land, a new investigation by Eco-Bot.Net and the Guardian has found.

A group of 16 community renewable energy co-ops from seven provinces is fighting an uphill battle for recognition, nearly a month after urging the federal government to make it easier for Canadians to invest in locally-owned and -generated electricity.

The federal government is just a couple of months away from an initial funding round program to help farmers lower their emissions and improve climate resiliency under the C$182.7-million Agricultural Climate Solutions program.

A disaster expert who led recovery teams after the earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed more than 230,000 people in 2004 says British Columbia’s climate response strategy must protect the province from future environmental events.

The Trudeau government may be left with big gaps in its 2030 climate strategy if it delays its oil and gas emissions cap until 2023, or holds off on setting tough carbon reduction targets for the industry, according to news reports this week.

About four dozen communities across Canada are planning events tomorrow to get action on the Trudeau government’s long-standing promise to introduce a Just Transition Act, aimed at priming fossil fuel communities and workers for the transition off fossil fuels.

Advocates are urging Ottawa to fully and rapidly phase out all financial support for fossil fuel development—at home and abroad, abated and unabated—to correct Canada’s abysmal record of being the worst climate performer of all G7 nations since the landmark Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015.

Deadbeat fossils’ unpaid tax bills to rural municipalities in Alberta now total $253 million, prompting Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver to admit that legislation to get the problem under control didn’t go far enough.

Just two weeks after Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland declared that no more federal tax dollars will go into the financially troubled Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, analysts are warning that investors won’t touch the C$21.4-billion megaproject without government backing.

Sixteen Indigenous communities along the Coastal GasLink pipeline route have signed option agreements for an equity stake in the project, a move that one Indigenous leader hopes will set a precedent for future energy infrastructure projects in Canada.

Bécancour, Quebec is set to become a hotspot in Canada’s growing supply chain for electric vehicle components, after two company announcements over a two-day span.

A group of eight charitable foundations and private trusts is launching a $75-million Great Canadian ESG Championship modelled on the Dragon’s Den reality TV show, motivated by the growing push for reliable data and labelling for environmental, social, and governance investments.

Over the past two decades, energy efficiency measures in Canada have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 55 megatonnes (Mt) and saved C$26 billion in energy costs for consumers, according to a report from Natural Resources Canada.

As a Canadian expert urges governments to address the climate impacts of their trade and investment policies in light of a grim report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a small shift is already under way in the United States, with Republicans extolling the benefits of carbon border adjustments to thwart Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Alberta government is renewing and expanding its restrictions on coal mining in the province’s Rocky Mountains in response to a strong public outcry and two reports written following extensive consultations on the issue.

The prospect of a new tax credit for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) technology in this year’s federal budget has battle lines drawn across the Canadian climate community, with sharp disagreements on whether fossil companies should qualify for taxpayer support and a former federal environment minister maintaining it’s time for them to pay their own way.