Climate Litigation

Bailing on an election promise to never again allow drilling on federal lands, United States President Joe Biden has approved a US$8-billion plan to extract 600 million barrels of oil from an ecologically sensitive region in Alaska.

As the federal government consults about its upcoming legislation capping carbon emissions in the oil and gas sector, no doubt hearing often from industry lobbyists, Canadians are growing more cynical about the government’s ability to bring this powerful industry into line.

Informed nine months after the fact that its hunting territories may have been poisoned by a leaking oil sands tailings pond, the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation is accusing the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) and ExxonMobil subsidiary Imperial Oil of environmental racism, as experts urge Ottawa to close regulatory holes that fossil companies can exploit.

Bankers will have to disclose but not take action on their exposure to financial risk, and the definition of “transitional” investments leading to a net-zero economy might include new spending on carbon capture and “blue” hydrogen projects, under two new reports from federal agencies over the last several days.

Making it mandatory for Canadian companies to report their largest and most material Scope 3 emissions categories will set them up for success in the global energy transition, the Canadian Climate Institute (CCI) concludes in a blog post published last month,.

Nova Scotia has approved plans for what could be North America’s first commercial-scale green hydrogen facility, amid lingering concerns that powering the plant could cannibalize renewable energy that’s vital to meeting the province’s climate goals.

Locals remain desperate for answers almost a month after a train laden with harmful petrochemicals derailed in a small Ohio town, as government agencies refuse to test for some dangerous toxins, the railroad company shells out paltry restitution, and politicians steal the moment for publicity.

It took Munich Re almost 50 years since, but the world’s largest reinsurance company is taking steps to detach itself not just from coal, oil, and gas. The company announced in October that it will no longer insure new oil and gas projects as of April, 2023.

A week after Shell announced record-high profits, an activist group sued its board of directors, in a bid to hold the 11 members personally liable for the British colossal fossil’s failure to pursue an effective climate strategy.

A new report chalks out pathways for the United States to heavily reduce the amount of mined lithium it needs to decarbonize transportation and sidestep “irreversible harms” to water, air, and animal habitats—especially near Indigenous lands.

Recent studies clash on whether clean technologies and emission cuts can keep the world safely below 1.5°C warming, highlighting how projected climate policy outcomes are shaped by the factors that researchers choose to focus on—and raising questions about the utility of the Paris agreement target.

Mexico has become one of the first countries to ban solar engineering experiments, after a start-up released balloons of sulphur dioxide particles meant to cool the Earth by reflecting sunlight back into space.

Oil and gas production will fall faster than previously expected, renewable energy will grow more rapidly, and global carbon dioxide emissions will drop as a result, according to a new analysis released yesterday by colossal fossil BP.

An independent federal advisory panel has declared Canada “unlikely to attain its 2030 emission target” without an oil and gas emissions cap, just days after senior oil sands executives insisted they can’t invest any faster in decarbonization.

A new study says virtual power plants (VPPs) and their many benefits for electrical grids are at an “inflection point” as consumer demand and legislation propel a shift to greater electrification.

Pressure from several countries has pushed the World Bank to put the climate crisis in sharper focus and reshuffle its leadership just weeks after drafting an “evolution roadmap” to reform operations. But critics say its proposals are “mostly a disappointing mix of navel gazing and finger pointing,” with urgently due financing flowing far too slowly.

The federal government might intervene to stop some of the development the Doug Ford government has in store for the Ontario Greenbelt, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault told a news conference late last week.

Denmark’s biggest bank has declared an end to fossil fuel financing, after concluding that 99.9% of its carbon footprint comes from financed emissions.

Two legal challenges against the Woodhouse Colliery coal mine in the North West England county Cumbria may determine the country’s future reputation as a climate leader, after a new analysis suggested the mine would release 17,500 tonnes of methane per year.

The protracted culture war over environmental policy in the United States was rekindled earlier this month by a controversy over gas stoves, with Republicans declaring that their beloved cooking appliances would have to be pried from their “cold dead hands”—though nobody was coming for them.

A first-ever systematic assessment of an oil and gas company’s climate projections shows that Exxon scientists accurately predicted how fossil fuels would affect global temperatures, despite decades of PR activity meant to sow doubt and climate denial.

Ontario’s “misleading and illegitimate” system of clean energy credits is “little more than greenwashing” and “should not move forward,” a team of three researchers writes for the Canadian Climate Institute (CCI).

Innovators motivated by climate change have been shifting hydrogen technology toward low-emission solutions, boosting the potential for green hydrogen to replace fossil fuels in industries like long-haul transport, where few clean alternatives exist.

The U.S. set out to widen more highways, even though traffic planners know it never reduces congestion. Parking lots were falling out of favour, major U.S. subway systems were falling apart, Toronto’s transit plan was falling far short, Toronto’s parking authority fell for the idea of an EV charging network, and urban transit advocates wanted a federal strategy for zero-emission transit, intercity coaches, and rail.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says a new lithium mine in northern Quebec can go ahead with more than 270 conditions to protect wildlife and respect Indigenous use of the lands for traditional purposes.

A group of former oil and gas executives and academics is calling for the industry to pay tens of trillions of dollars through 2050 to take full responsibility for every tonne of carbon it produces.

With America’s first youth-led climate lawsuit scheduled to begin in a Montana court this June, a class action case against Australia by Torres Strait islanders, and numerous lawsuits against corporate climate culprits, climate change is very much on the docket for 2023.

The United States is racing towards a carbon-free grid, but with economic and regulatory hurdles blocking transmission infrastructure, the shift off fossil-fueled power may be too slow to avert the worst effects of climate change.

Just as a majority Black community in Florida’s Gulf County has begun to envision a “safe, vibrant, and healthy” comeback from the polluted shadow of heavy industry, local officials risk thwarting those ambitions by saying yes to a waterfront gas terminal.

Canada will see federal just transition legislation early this year that will become a gateway for oil and gas workers to move into green energy jobs, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson told CBC this week.

One-fifth of all passenger cars, SUVs, and light trucks sold in Canada in 2026 will need to run on electricity under new regulations published just before the holiday by Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault.

The federal government should introduce an oil and gas emissions cap that aligns with a 1.5°C limit on average global warming and creates incentives for innovation without favouring any specific technology, the Commons Natural Resources Committee concludes in a report issued last week.

State and city governments in the United States are using land use regulations—an option long overlooked in climate policy—to lower emissions and combat climate change.

Agricultural ponds emit nearly twice as much methane than is accounted for in national emissions inventories, a new study has found.

European Union governments and lawmakers reached a deal Sunday on key elements of the 27-nation bloc’s green deal, reforming the EU’s trading system for greenhouse gas emissions and creating a new hardship fund for those hardest-hit by measures to curb climate change.

Three influential Canadian climate activist-scholars died this year. They devoted their professional lives to finding solutions to the climate change crisis in the face of industry and government resistance that has dragged on for decades.

A 13-day leak from a 4.1-centimetre vent on a fossil gas storage well in rural Pennsylvania dumped more than 28.3 million cubic metres of methane into the atmosphere last month, enough to erase the emission reductions from half of the electric cars sold in the United States last year.

A peak in global oil demand before 2030, with steady declines afterwards, will make it essential for federal and provincial governments to press the fossil industry for faster decarbonization, the Pembina Institute concludes in a new analysis.

Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau is opening another round of consultation on a national sustainable agriculture strategy, aimed at working with industry partners to build a climate-resilient food system.

Europe is close to finalizing the world’s first carbon border adjustment tax, after a marathon negotiating session that ended at 5 AM Tuesday.

A ruptured pipe dumped enough oil late last week into a northeastern Kansas creek to nearly fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool, becoming the largest onshore crude pipeline spill in nine years and surpassing all the previous ones on the same pipeline system combined, according to U.S. government data.

A mining watchdog says calls for less robust assessments and quicker permitting in Canada’s new critical minerals strategy will undo protections for environmental and Indigenous rights, which are being threatened across the globe in the rush for critical minerals.

The world won’t succeed in halting biodiversity loss without Indigenous participation and leadership, according to leaders attending a major United Nations conference in Montreal.

Newcomer Davante Lewis, a Democrat backed by an environmental political action committee, easily won Saturday’s runoff for a seat on Louisiana’s Public Service Commission, an obscure regulatory body that has received national attention from media, celebrities, climate activists, and major public utility companies.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged global consensus on conserving 30% of Earth’s land and waters by 2030 as the United Nations biodiversity conference, COP 15, opened in Montreal, presenting Canada as nature’s champion—despite its sizeable oil and gas investments.

Farmers in the United States need more tools and support to be part of the climate solution, say advocates, urging lawmakers gearing up to draft the new 2023 Farm Bill to increase funding for a rural renewables and energy efficiency.

A weekend shooting attack on two electric substations in Moore County, North Carolina, is raising questions about grid security in the United States, after 40,000 people—including seniors and people in need of medical care—lost power amid freezing winter temperatures.

Opioid and oil companies alike have a history of obfuscating science as a litigation tactic. How does this harm victims, and what can climate litigants learn from opioid lawsuits?

Parking lots around the world are increasingly becoming sites for solar power generation, as governments and corporations seek out ways to accelerate their transition to renewables.

As liquefied natural gas (LNG) interests press for political support, British Columbia Premier David Eby must double down on his acknowledgement that any further fossil buildout will sink the province’s climate goals, the president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs says, in an op ed co-published with other leading climate advocates.

Norway has postponed its next round of oil and gas leases in frontier areas until 2025 under a budget deal between the minority Labour government and the opposition Socialist Left (SV) party.

Canadian officials have greenlit plans for mining at one mid-northern Ontario site but called into question the future of mineral extraction in the Ring of Fire region northeast of Thunder Bay.

If global biodiversity—the subject of the huge COP 15 summit in Montreal this week and next—is too much of a mouthful, try thinking instead about the white-throated sparrow.

After the European Union’s landmark decision last week to bring the shipping industry into its carbon market, Transport & Environment is urging decision-makers to follow suit with air travel.

As Ontario’s newly-minted More Homes Built Faster Act is decried by Indigenous leaders, municipalities, farmers, and health experts alike, elected officials are questioning the “suspicious” link between developer titans buying parcels of protected Greenbelt land and Premier Doug Ford’s push to turn them into housing subdivisions.

Two more reinsurers have joined the slew of companies refusing to provide coverage to a proposed US$5-billion crude oil pipeline in East Africa that campaigners say would be disastrous for the climate and to its host countries.

A Wisconsin judge ordered a Canadian energy giant and a U.S. Indigenous band to water down their wine Monday and come together to avert the “draconian” shutdown of the cross-border Line 5 pipeline.

The United States clean energy transition received two boosts this month from the Biden administration—a US$550 million cash infusion for community-based clean energy initiatives, and a first-ever 100% carbon-free electricity agreement with a utility.

The way to respond to political attacks on corporate ESG standards is not to drop the whole idea. It’s to make disclosure mandatory.

More than nine out of 10 coal ash impoundments in the United States are contaminating groundwater in violation of federal rules, according to environmental groups’ comprehensive analysis of the latest industry-reported data. 

Cities are at the centre of Canada’s five-year, C$1.6-billion climate adaptation and resilience strategy, with Ottawa looking to local governments to deliver supports to Canadians increasingly facing the threat of wildfires, heat waves, and catastrophic storms and flooding.

The organization representing Canada’s oil and gas drilling sector is asking the federal government to create a new tax credit it says it needs to help the industry decarbonize, with one member saying the industry is “finally fun again”..

Municipal politicians in Alberta are troubled by a proposed provincial program that would give oil and gas companies public dollars to clean up abandoned wells, saying the companies owe outstanding taxes and need to clean up after themselves anyway.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to nearly quadruple its calculation of the social cost of carbon, from US$51 to $190 per tonne.

A new screening tool that prioritizes 27,000 disadvantaged U.S. communities for billions of dollars in federal climate and energy investments is being criticized for leaving out racial makeup—one of the strongest predictors of environmental burden—as a criterion.

China has drafted a plan to reduce methane emissions and the United States has pledged to help, but climate campaigners say the country’s biggest methane culprits—coal mines and livestock—have yet to be addressed.

Provincial energy efficiency programs and national energy savings rebounded after the COVID-19 pandemic, but energy savings for low-income households still need a lot more attention, Efficiency Canada concludes in the latest edition of its annual Provincial Energy Efficiency Scorecard.

Buildings, transportation, and industry are all contributing to a rise in emissions in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area (GTHA) that is moving the region farther from meeting its emission reduction targets, The Atmospheric Fund warns in a new report.

France is upping its renewable energy capacity by requiring all large car parks to cover at least half of their area with solar panels—a move that could generate up to 11 gigawatts of power.

Canada won’t agree to add language calling for the phaseout of all fossil fuels—including oil and gas—to the final agreement at this year’s United Nations climate talks in Egypt, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said Thursday.

A dramatic new offer from the plenary floor at COP 27, in which rich countries would immediately set up a loss and damage fund in exchange for a pledge to peak greenhouse gas emissions before 2025 and phase down oil and gas as well as coal, changed the tone and may have salvaged the outcome of climate negotiations that seemed hopelessly deadlocked just hours before.

A COP 27 event marked the Glasgow Statement’s one-year anniversary by urging Germany, Italy, Canada, and the United States to live up to climate promises that could shift US$28 billion per year from fossil fuels to clean energy.

The 2015 Paris agreement legally bound the world to keep global warming “well below” 2.0°C. Now its architects say nature needs a similar treaty, arguing that without urgent action to protect ecosystems, there will be no hope of accomplishing the Paris mission.

Six weeks before taking power, Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Wednesday told cheering crowds at the UN climate conference, COP 27, that he would crack down on illegal deforestation in the Amazon, revive relationships with countries that finance forest protection efforts, and push to host an upcoming world climate summit in the rainforest.

For decades, 40,000 litres per day of toxic effluent have been knowingly released from an oil terminal on Egypt’s Red Sea coast, endangering a super-hardy coral species that may contain the key to climate-proofing the rest of the world’s coral.

Canada’s economy faces a stranded asset risk of at least C$100 billion when the fossil fuel era comes to an end, says a new report, with further losses as the global energy transition outpaces the country’s climate policy and clean energy investments.

Fifteen of the world’s top food-producing companies have a methane footprint equal to 80% of the European Union’s emissions of the super-potent greenhouse gas, says a new report by the Changing Markets Foundation and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

The COP 27 climate summit has been dominated by “false solutions” that ignore the needs of underrepresented people and shun vital principles like energy sovereignty, gender justice, and land rights, according to a panel of community experts on the front lines of the climate crisis.

Canada placed fifth from the bottom, and the top three ranks were left empty for the second year in a row, in the latest edition of the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) released at the COP 27 climate summit Monday.

A cap on greenhouse gas emissions from Canada’s oil and gas sector will be ready by the end of next year, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said Monday.

The Biden administration has unveiled proposed rules to hold government contractors accountable for greenhouse gases, and oil and gas companies for methane, as it pushes to slash federal emissions and assure other countries that the United States can deliver on its climate promises.

Mainstreaming climate action into city financial systems, applying a climate budget to all decisions, and encouraging private sector investment in climate adaptation are strategies that all municipalities, regardless of their situation, can implement to unlock green financing, says C-40 Cities.

As the federal government moves to tighten regulations on methane emissions, new assessments suggest the amount of the potent greenhouse gas escaping into the atmosphere has been significantly underestimated.

Major energy exporting and importing countries made an ostensibly worthy pledge at the COP 27 climate summit to slash emissions from fossil fuels—but it turns out to be a toothless “paper tiger,” say climate watchdogs, with no legally binding effects and nothing new added to past commitments.

With the partisan tilt of the next U.S. Congress still uncertain nearly a week after midterm elections last Tuesday, a few things are clear: there was no “red wave” propelling Trump-friendly candidates into office, a strong youth vote was a decisive factor in the election result, and climate action was a winning issue for campaigns in several key U.S. states.

An invisible work force of people in the informal economy should receive the same support as fossil energy workers during a just transition to a green economy, says a lawyer with expertise in international environmental, trade and labour law and agreements.

Responsible for 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the “hard to abate” global shipping industry is on track to receive more scrutiny than ever before at this year’s COP 27 climate summit.

With COP 27 host Egypt and 16 other natural gas-exporting governments pledging to plug the fossil energy source as “the perfect solution” to climate change and energy security, critics warned of a “dash for gas” in Africa—a prophecy taking shape this week in Sharm el-Sheikh, where some African countries said exploiting fossil reserves will help lift people out of poverty.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has been driving up global greenhouse gas emissions—to the tune of 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in seven months—but the biggest climate impact is expected from rebuilding after the war ends.

Competition Bureau Canada has opened an investigation into allegations that the Canadian Gas Association is greenwashing fossil methane as clean, following a C$10-million complaint filed in September by the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE).

At last year’s United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, 193 governments promised to strengthen their national climate targets within one year. But only about two dozen of them have delivered on that promise, leaving civil society representatives wary of more empty promises and false solutions at the onset of COP 27.

Countries across Africa could lose 14% of their per capita GDP to climate change by 2050 and 34% by 2100, even if average global warming is held to 1.5°C, according to a report released this morning at this year’s UN climate conference, COP 27, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

This year’s COP 27 climate conference may prove UN negotiations on global heating dead for some. But for others, the annual, marathon negotiating summits are a crucial forum to exert soft power, keep checks on Big Oil, and remind corporate interests that the Amazon is much more than just a business opportunity.

With 40 countries expected to unveil their methane reduction plans at COP 27, global action on the climate-busting greenhouse gas could get a boost after stalling out under industry pressure over the last year, even after more 100 countries signed on to the Global Methane Pledge at COP 26.

Climate science and the depth of the climate emergency demand that industries, financial institutions, cities, and regions commit fully to real net-zero targets, end new fossil fuel investment, stop greenwashing their activities, start lobbying for rather than against ambitious government climate policies, and shift from voluntary climate action to regulated, verified emission reductions, according to a UN expert panel chaired by former Canadian environment and climate minister Catherine McKenna.

Tuvalu has joined its fellow Pacific Island nation Vanuatu in calling on countries to develop a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty (FFNPT), becoming the second nation-state to endorse the proposal.

With the COP 27 climate summit in full swing in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Canadian climate hawks were in Ottawa yesterday delivering more than 80,000 petition signatures—82,622, to be exact—calling on the Trudeau government to make good on its promise to impose an emissions cap on the country’s oil and gas industry.

As COP 27 opens in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, developing countries and climate justice leaders are urging a notoriously reluctant developed world to get serious about financing for loss and damage, with the immediate and long-term well-being of hundreds of millions hanging in the balance.

A look at past agendas for United Nations climate conferences sheds light on what is given priority at the annual summit and what gets left out, giving some predictive insight into how vulnerable nations’ push for loss and damage negotiations will fare during this year’s meetings in Egypt.

In the Putumayo region of the Colombian Amazon, Segundo Meneses’ daily routine took him to the Chufiya river, its banks verdant and waters alive with catfish and piranha. On one morning seven years ago, he noticed a dark film lapping the shore. Where the river turned a bend, it turned to black. It was an oil slick that he says went on to sicken his young family and poison their cows and pigs.

A pitch for private investment in emission reduction projects, including tax credits for renewable energy, low-carbon heating, and clean hydrogen, is one of the highlights of the fall economic statement released Thursday by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.

Pipelines, compressor stations, and other fossil equipment in Texas and across the United States continue to gush climate-busting methane into the atmosphere, even when companies have installed equipment that’s meant to get the emissions under control.

The CEO of the pension fund that controls retirement investments for 21 million Canadians has reconfirmed his position that “engagement,” not divestment from fossil fuel companies, is the right way forward during the global energy transition.

Canadian regulators say they were unaware of a methane cloud spotted above Western Canada by a European satellite, revealing a crack in the country’s emissions reporting.

Municipal climate and energy leaders in Ontario are scrambling to protect energy-efficient building standards that may be at risk in the provincial government’s rush to push through its More Homes Built Faster Act, Bill 23.

Brazil’s newly-elected president has vowed to reverse the deforestation of the Amazon that occurred under his predecessor, but a hostile Congress is likely to block his efforts, as are the thousands of Brazilians who say the election was rigged and still others convinced that environmental protections equal lost livelihoods.

Global deforestation slowed by 6.3% in 2021, but most countries are still falling short of their 2030 targets for stopping forest loss and degradation, a new report says.

The European Union’s historic decision to ban all new fossil-fuelled cars and vans by 2035 is being hailed as a win for the climate, but equity issues and manufacturing headwinds loom.

U.S. federal judges have ordered a nine-year-old lawsuit calling on oil and gas companies to pay for damage to Louisiana’s wetlands to be returned to state court for trial, potentially clearing the way for at least 41 similar lawsuits to move forward.

The world’s seven biggest oil firms are projected to reap gargantuan profits of US$173 billion this year, leading to fresh calls for windfall taxes on a sector that has thrived after Russia’s war in Ukraine led to sky-high fuel prices.

Those who have the most to lose under the Ontario Ford government’s proposed More Homes Built Faster Act—which, if passed, will effectively gut the province’s land conservation and public consultation policies—include neighborhoods and civil society organizations determined to have a say in how development proceeds, municipalities looking to implement sustainable design initiatives, and especially Ontario’s wetlands, early analysis shows.

The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority has banned two HSBC advertisements for misleading the public about its efforts to tackle climate change, marking the first time the regulator has taken action against a bank for greenwashing.

The Green Municipal Fund (GMF) has identified a half-dozen key steps municipalities can take to tackle the biggest barriers to zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) adoption.

In the lead-up to the COP 27 climate summit, a food systems think tank is calling for more discussion of “agroecology” and warning that corporations can exploit less well-defined terms to greenwash, while maintaining business-as-usual operations.

Redirecting $570 billion per year from planned oil and gas investments could “fully finance” wind and solar expansion to meet a 1.5°C target, showing that oil and gas development must be halted to keep global warming within safe limits, a new report concludes.

Incoming British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will restore his country’s ban on oil and gas fracking, Reuters reported yesterday, after his predecessor Liz Truss reversed a moratorium originally set out in the UK Conservative Party’s 2019 election platform.

France will become the latest European Union country to leave an energy agreement which climate groups claim is being used by the fossil fuel industry to legally challenge environmental measures, President Emmanuel Macron said last Friday.

The European Parliament is calling on EU nation states to begin developing a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty (FFNPT), and to “stand ready” to do what is needed to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

The Cedar LNG project in British Columbia received some positive regulatory feedback for its plan to produce and export liquified natural gas to Asia, but campaigners and analysts maintain it will undermine Canada’s climate ambitions.

Coastal GasLink and a former prime contractor with alleged links to organized crime are being sued by four companies, working in partnership with three First Nations communities, for allegedly failing to pay an outstanding C$10 million for services rendered.

A 5% threshold for renewable energy on the power grid might not sound like much, but it’s the milestone that could tip electricity systems in 87 countries into a rapid shift off carbon, a Bloomberg news analyst says.

Solar and wind power purchase agreements (PPAs) in the United States could be signed for less than one cent per kilowatt-hour (kWh) thanks to Inflation Reduction Act funding, concludes an analysis by investment banking giant Crédit Suisse.

America’s extensive transmission permitting regulations could slow the clean energy transition facilitated by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and reform won’t come easy for a narrowly divided senate.

Analyst chatter about TC Energy considering selling off the controversial Keystone pipeline could raise the risk of a major spill or leak, but still improve the Calgary-based pipeliner’s rating for environmental responsibility, The Energy Mix has learned.

New Jersey is taking five colossal fossils and the American Petroleum Institute to court, saying they deliberately deceived the public about their contribution to global heating.

With Ontario’s municipal elections around the corner, environmental advocates are urging citizens to use their vote to push for climate action.

A fuel crisis in Haiti is inflaming security and humanitarian crises, as gangs exploit the country’s oil dependency to pressure interim Prime Minister Ariel Henry to resign after he cut fuel subsidies in September.

Nearly a million Canadian households live in energy poverty, the David Suzuki Foundation says, in a new report that urges Ottawa to address this social injustice while setting Canada’s path to net-zero electricity by 2035.

The federal government is busy consulting us now, gathering input from Canadians on policy proposals for a just transition to renewables, a carbon emissions cap for the oil and gas sector, a clean electricity grid, and more. But how well informed do Canadians think they are about these potential solutions?

Underfunded and poorly administered, Canada’s C$3.3-billion disaster resilience fund is short on cash—and has become a symptom of Ottawa’s failure to protect small communities from the climate crisis, experts say.

Indigenous involvement is critical to meeting Canada’s ‘30×30’ conservation pledge to protect 30% of its land, freshwater, and oceans by decade’s end, says a recent report by the World Wildlife Fund.

Climate denial will be a stealth candidate in several municipal elections being held in British Columbia this Saturday.

The federal Competition Bureau’s decision to investigate charges of misleading advertising against the Royal Bank of Canada is a sign that federal regulators are paying closer attention to the climate crisis and its causes, says the environmental law charity that filed the case.

As the United Kingdom pursues fracking as a solution to its energy independence, new analysis finds the country’s power sector can reduce its reliance on gas from 40% to 1% by 2030, with a rapid renewables switch bringing £93 billion (C$142 billion) in savings.

Former Toronto mayor David Miller, now managing director of the C40 Centre for City Climate Policy and Economy, talks about cities’ responsibility to take action on the climate emergency.

A group of climate heavy hitters have launched legal action to stop the European Union from including fossil gas in its sustainable finance rulebook.

Nestlé is one of the world’s top producers of plastic waste, but its CEO objects to the idea that corporations should substantially pick up the tab for this toxic pollution.

New Zealand’s government on Tuesday proposed taxing the greenhouse gases that farm animals make from burping and peeing as part of a plan to tackle climate change.

A group of 40 climate, energy, and social justice NGOs is urging the Trudeau government to sign on to the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty (FFNPT).

As water scarcity becomes a growing threat to global food security, falling groundwater levels have prompted farmers in a Nevada community to share resources despite laws that distribute water rights less equally.

The Austrian government said Monday it has filed a legal complaint with the European Union’s top court over plans by the bloc’s executive branch to label natural gas and nuclear power generation as sustainable energies.

Immediate policy reform is needed to stop the fossil industry from using anti-competition laws to thwart corporate climate action, says an Oxford University public policy expert who recently had to lawyer-proof his advisory group’s guidance on the climate risks of coal.

A deal to sell 38,000 hectares of Alberta oil and gas lands to a company controlled by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is shining a light on large fossils’ favourite path to decarbonization: rather than shutting down some of their assets, they hand them off to smaller operators that then keep them in production.

A group of Canadian public health professionals and advocates have filed a C$10-million greenwashing complaint against the Canadian Gas Association (CGA) for a recent ad campaign promoting natural gas as a clean, affordable, sustainable energy option.

The United Nations aviation agency has allowed corporate interests to influence the direction of its climate policy, say environmental groups, pointing to new research that finds nearly one-third of delegates at its environmental committee meetings come from aviation or fossil fuel industries.

Ten years of aggressive “gentrification by upgrading” has left Toronto’s Parkdale neighbourhood increasingly unaffordable, forcing lower-income tenants to compromise on basic needs like medicine and food to pay soaring rents, finds a recent study.

Ontario Power Generation’s (OPG) latest sale of clean energy credits to Microsoft Corporation raises questions about whether the credits meet the basic criteria for genuine carbon offsets—especially given Ontario’s plan to increase gas plant use and resulting emissions.

Australia has violated the rights of a group of Indigenous islanders by not protecting them from the impacts of climate change, the United Nations Human Rights Committee ruled last week.

As power slowly returns to Puerto Rico in Hurricane Fiona’s wake, pressure is building to wean the island’s grid off its 97% dependence on fossils fuels—towards a climate-resilient distributed system that relies on renewables.

As the European Union moves to develop new carbon removal legislation, campaigners are warning against offsetting schemes and corporate greenwashing.

New analysis shows that forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon could drop by 89% if incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro is voted out of office in this Sunday’s general election.

As fossil fuel costs soar, Nova Scotia Power is looking to secure a domestic supply of coal from the recently-reopened Donkin mine in Cape Breton—and pushing to pass the cost on to ratepayers.

With a new report expected to reveal a massive increase in global oil pipeline construction, an analyst says Canada is running counter to public opinion and wider international trends by adding to the problem.

Canadian fossils are steadfastly refusing to invest significantly in new decarbonization projects, even though they’re flush with record amounts of cash, the Pembina Institute reports in a scathing analysis released last week.

In an historic appeal that further affirms the South Pacific island country as a global climate leader, Vanuatu has thrown its support behind the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Cities are increasingly footing the bill for climate change as they strain to adapt their infrastructure to rising temperatures, new rainfall patterns, and extreme weather.

A U.S. rooftop solar company is facing headwinds as it seeks to build off-grid neighbourhoods that would be less dependent on established utilities.

Big Oil is spending more money now than ever before on elaborate, deceptive public relations strategies to thwart climate policy, a PR expert told a United States congressional hearing, as freshly released internal emails revealed how fossil executives watered down the language of their climate commitments, mocked activists, and derided Americans in general.

A September 30 deadline is looming for public comment on a new guideline meant to protect Canada’s finance sector from climate impacts, without addressing finance’s role in driving the climate emergency, an outside analyst warns.

The United States’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) could change the landscape of energy economics with its unprecedented support for clean energy sources, says a new report.

Ontario’s climate plan is just a “communications product” and a “glossy brochure” with no legal force, not anything for which citizens or the courts can hold the Doug Ford government accountable, a provincial lawyer told a judge last week.

Many people are focused on repairing and upgrading their homes, neighbourhoods, towns, and cities. And the key decisions about these repairs and upgrades are made at City Hall, says Ontario Greenbelt Alliance Coordinator Franz Hartmann.

Britain’s new policy of capping home energy bills and subsidizing energy giants fails to address the country’s old, inefficient housing stock, says a new report—with one critic warning such an impractical energy policy could “play into the hands” of Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Ensuring that America’s clean energy revolution leaves no one behind will require incentives for domestic production and targeted, collaborative investment in communities most likely to see job losses, two expert authors write.

A South African court sided with environmental groups and local fishing communities to strike down an oil and gas exploration permit after two UK-based companies—Royal Dutch Shell and Impact Africa—failed to consult with local Indigenous communities.

The World Health Organization and nearly 200 global health associations have endorsed the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty (FFNPT), calling for an end to new fossil infrastructure and a “fair and equitable” phaseout of existing production.

Canada has all the right components to cash in on an electric vehicle battery industry worth C$48 billion per year, but only if governments take ambitious action now to help the sector meet its potential, concludes a new report issued this week.

Outdated infrastructure is making America’s electricity grid vulnerable to blackouts in the face of climate change and an ambitious clean energy transition, experts say.

Economic, political, and ecological concerns are driving the creation of renewable energy communities in Central Eastern Europe, but more needs to be done to facilitate these local efforts to democratize energy systems.

Australian states and businesses are moving in step with the country’s new climate policy, making their own leaps to decarbonization after a new climate change law pledged to slash the nation’s carbon emissions 43% by 2030.

Chris Severson-Baker is the newly-appointed executive director of the Pembina Institute. In this feature interview, he talks about what it will take to turn climate plans and promises into real investments in faster, deeper carbon cuts.

EU parliamentarians are being urged to vote “yes” on a measure that would exclude woody biomass from counting towards renewable energy targets.

Solar saved the European Union up to €29 billion in gas imports this past summer, and is poised for “exponential growth” across five of Asia’s biggest economies, according to two separate analyses released last week by the UK-based Ember think tank.

The Line 5 pipeline has won a stay of execution in Wisconsin, where a federal judge sided with an Indigenous group’s complaint but stopped short of ordering the controversial cross-border energy link shut down entirely.

A new poll concludes that 74% of Canadians want car manufacturers pushed to increase zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) production, even if it harms their profits. But an industry representative warns that regulations targeting Canadian automakers could disrupt the North American auto market.

As wealthier communities in Massachusetts electrify, environmental justice advocates are urging policy changes so that poorer households aren’t left with the costs of the state’s dwindling, aging gas infrastructure.

When it comes to getting landlords to retrofit the buildings responsible for up to 18% of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, bad incentives are leading to bad outcomes, writes green economy lawyer Marc Z. Goldgrub.

A northern Alberta First Nation has filed what experts say is the province’s first lawsuit claiming cumulative effects from industry, agriculture, and settlements are so pervasive that they violate the band’s treaty rights.

Research and development, manufacturing, and infrastructure investment decisions over the next decade will determine how the United States achieves a 100% clean electricity system by 2035, say the authors of a new report that finds multiple pathways to hit the target.

A 90% clean power target by 2035, $54 billion in new spending on clean energy and drought resilience, quicker approvals for power grid upgrades and clean energy projects, and a long-awaited phaseout for oil and gas wells near homes and schools are highlights of a climate package adopted last week by the California state assembly.

Seven youth are in court next week with an “obviously historic” lawsuit challenging Ontario’s climate plan under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Canadian government is asking the public how best to spend $3 billion per year on transit beginning in 2026.

Upstream from one of the United States’ most biologically diverse wetlands sits a coal ash pond leaking toxic metals into the groundwater, imperiling ecosystems and threatening drinking water supplies as climate change increases flood risks.

As a Canadian deep sea mining company pushes to consummate its 15-year “courtship” of the United Nations agency responsible for overseeing the equitable, ecologically safe extraction of seabed resources, a new investigative report is raising flags about the deal and its impacts.

After emerging from brutal July heat waves, the United Kingdom is headed for a harsh winter, with an 80% jump in energy bills expected to strain millions of households and businesses.

Six months after the Alberta government admitted its efforts to make the Canadian oilpatch pay C$253 million in outstanding taxes had failed, rural communities that depend on the revenue have been forced to cut staff and suspend critical infrastructure repairs.

California plans to require all new cars, trucks, and SUVs to run on electricity or hydrogen by 2035 under a policy approved Thursday by regulators that seeks a dramatic cut in carbon emissions and an eventual end to gasoline-powered vehicles.

A new case study from Alberta shows that when regulators force the issue and producers of fossil fuels get serious, the companies can drastically reduce their methane emissions without any immediate reduction in their oil and gas extraction.

China suspended cooperative climate talks with the United States after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) recent trip to Taiwan, raising questions about what the two countries’ worsening relationship means for global climate action. But contrary to initial worries, some observers are taking hope from a “clean energy arms race” in the making.

America’s petrochemical industry is pushing hard—and with considerable success—to have states reclassify the controversial “chemical recycling” of plastics as a manufacturing process to avoid environmental protection regulations that apply to waste disposal, says a new report by the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA).

Google’s decision to change how its Google Flights search tool calculates emissions is being condemned by climate scientists and activists as cynically misleading and deeply counterproductive to the climate fight.

Decrying a decision to exempt golf greens from watering bans in drought-stricken France, Extinction Rebellion (XR) activists have filled golf course holes on several courses around Toulouse with cement.

The number of satellites that circle the globe is expected to rise dramatically over the next few years. Some of the current cohort of satellites bounce signals to our phones; others gather imagery of Earth’s surface. A growing field of satellite technology will be gathering information about greenhouse gas emissions.

Three recent reports from the United States Department of Energy (DOE) show the country’s wind industry healthy but struggling to expand, leading to hopes that President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)might change this trajectory.

For redlined communities like one in South Memphis, Tennessee, a win for grassroots advocates against environmental racism can be quickly followed by new threats and greater losses.

Environmental advocates celebrated when U.S. President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law earlier this month. But the joy is tempered by lingering caution about a murky side bargain purported to streamline oil and gas projects, Energy News Network reports.

Freeport LNG has changed its tune on the cause of an explosion and fire at the company’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility in Texas, according to three trading sources and a document shared with Reuters.

Rural Pennsylvania is facing a continuing onslaught of new natural gas and petrochemical facilities on farmland, despite health and environmental threats that trouble locals.

The international dispute over Enbridge Inc.’s Line 5 pipeline belongs in federal court, a Michigan judge declared Thursday, dealing a critical blow to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s bid to shut down the controversial cross-border oil and gas line.

A strong voice for small island states is taking the helm of United Nations climate negotiations with the appointment of Grenada’s former environment minister, Simon Stiell, as the new executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC).

Releasing treated tar sands/oil sands tailings into the environment isn’t the only solution being considered to clean up the massive toxic ponds in northern Alberta, federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says.

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) integration just got a boost in North Carolina, with utility giant Duke Energy signing a deal with Ford for a pilot that will draw energy from customers leasing their F-150 Lightning electric pickup trucks.

As the Toronto Community Housing Corporation embarks on an ambitious retrofit that will benefit its tenants and the climate, residents sweltering in a privately-owned low-income building across town are battling a landlord threatening eviction if they turn on the air-conditioning.

When U.S. President Joe Biden signed a landmark, US$369-billion climate and energy package into law earlier this week, the price of the deal was a promise to make more federal lands available for oil and gas drilling. But that doesn’t mean U.S. fossil companies are terribly keen to bid on those leases.

The United States needs a 45% drop in transportation emissions by 2030 to meet its climate pledges, and the country’s web of Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) branches is ideally positioned to help make that happen, says a new report from the Rocky Mountain Institute.

U.S. climate hawks declared victory, Congressional Democrats got credit for a newly pragmatic approach to climate action, community campaigners demanded more ambitious action, and attention shifted to implementation after the U.S. House of Representatives passed the country’s $370-billion climate and clean energy plan and sent it to President Joe Biden’s desk for signature.

A suite of recent policy and technology advancements is allowing for the growth of distributed energy resources (DERs) in the U.S., with innovative approaches like transportable microgrids and vehicle-to-grid programs gaining momentum.

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.

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.

After a marathon series of votes that began just before midnight Saturday, the United States Senate adopted a US$369-billion climate and clean energy plan Sunday afternoon, the country’s biggest-ever investment in climate action.

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.

Slamming climate action as “irrational” and “woke,” and positioning themselves as saviours of local economies, many Republican state treasurers have spent the last 18 months working to hobble and punish private and public sector efforts to wean the United States off fossil fuel dependence.

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.

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.

Fifty years in the making, the United Nations’ recent overwhelming approval of a resolution recognizing the right to a “clean, healthy, and sustainable environment” is being heralded as a “victory for people and planet,” and a potential foundation for future legal action.

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.

As brutal, extended heat waves bring record temperatures across the United States and put millions of residents at risk of heat stroke and death, the government has launched a website aiming to support heat resilience amid a climate crisis.

The global slowdown in human activity that occurred during the pandemic left some species healing and others hurting badly—a pattern offering complex and nuanced lessons about humanity’s impact on wildlife, say ecologists.

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.

A new survey reveals that less than half of U.S. utility companies are taking steps to reduce emissions, despite roughly 90% citing that activity as a high or moderate priority.

Rebuffing the still widespread narrative that natural gas is a “bridge” fuel, a team of German energy economists is warning that the massive global expansion of gas infrastructure now under way puts both climate mitigation efforts and the transition to renewable energy at risk.

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.

Britain’s High Court has declared the country’s net-zero emissions strategy “unlawful”, capping a successful court challenge by Friends of the Earth UK, environmental law charity ClientEarth, and the Good Law Project.

Rising clean energy investments and an expanding offshore wind sector are pointing toward a new renewable energy boom in India, as the falling cost of clean technologies paired with the global energy crisis siphons investment away from fossil fuels.

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).

The United States’ largest public utility has issued a request for 5,000 megawatts of carbon-free energy before 2029—weeks after it was directed to reconsider plans for converting a retiring coal plant to a natural gas facility.

The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) is urging its member states to support the Escazú Agreement following the release of its final report last month, though some say there’s a lack of political will to implement the world’s first legally binding instrument to include provisions on environmental human rights defenders.

Fossil fuel burning by the United States, China, Russia, India, and Brazil caused more than US$6 trillion in economic harm to other countries between 1990 and 2014, according to a study team that set out to lift the “veil of deniability” that has shielded big emitters from “climate liability and national accountability” for their actions.

In what CNN is calling a “rare move”, more than 200 U.S. congressional staffers have written to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer demanding fast action on climate change and clean energy.

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.

Lake Michigan’s shoreline communities face “toxic risks,” says a new report, as extreme weather threatens to damage waste storage sites, nuclear power plants, and industrial facilities in the area.

Controversy over shipping routes in the Arctic Ocean is intensifying in light of recent climate science projections of sea ice melt.

Boris Johnson’s imminent departure as British Prime Minister is raising concern that the country will soon begin backsliding on its climate and nature commitments—even if those commitments consisted primarily of grand gestures, with relatively little practical action to back them up.

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.

A slow and steady approach to community consultation is opening the door to car-free cities in Europe, turning many urban dwellers’ initial, visceral resistance to the idea into support.

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.

The European Parliament looks likely to face legal challenges after voting yesterday to temporarily include natural gas and nuclear energy in its “taxonomy” of green energy technologies, potentially triggering billions of Euros in green investment for the two technologies.

Australia’s new government is putting climate change at the top of its legislative agenda when Parliament sits later this month for the first time since the May 21 election, with bills to enshrine a cut in greenhouse gas emissions and make electric cars cheaper, a minister said last Wednesday.

(Part 2 of a series) In the wake of last week’s Supreme Court decision limiting government regulation of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, climate analysts and campaigners are now turning to other legislative options, state and city governments, market forces, and ultimately the ballot box for solutions.

Looking to avoid power blackouts, California may turn to the one energy source it’s otherwise desperate to get rid of: fossil fuels.

As utilities and municipalities rush to conserve water so that no one is left thirsty, the Chicago-based Alliance of Water Efficiency is reminding policy-makers and the public that saving water also means saving energy and reducing carbon emissions.

A deeply radical ruling Thursday by the United States Supreme Court has set back but not ended efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from the country’s fossil-fuelled power plants.

The 53 migrants who died from heat exhaustion in Texas after being abandoned in a sweltering tractor-trailer in 100°F heat were victims of vicious smugglers, inhumane laws, dire conditions at home, and a climate crisis that continues to pick off the world’s most vulnerable first.

The European Court of Human Rights said Thursday that a complaint against 33 countries filed by six young Portuguese climate activists will be examined by the tribunal’s top panel of judges, a move reflecting the case’s legal significance.

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.

Marine stewardship, better methane management, and increased recycling figure prominently in Project Drawdown’s latest update on its already vast array of available, scalable, and financially viable climate solutions.

London has become the biggest city so far to endorse the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty—a signal that experts say must be matched by action in the United Kingdom capital, where the London Stock Exchange (LSE) holds gigatonnes of embedded carbon emissions in listed companies.

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.

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.

With the United States Supreme Court widely expected to turn its ideological wrecking ball on the country’s greenhouse gas emission controls, a group of climate scientists is pitching a new approach to regulating carbon as a toxic substance.

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.

Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first elected leftist president, will take office in August with ambitious proposals to halt the record-high rates of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

As spiking inflation converges with an unequal post-pandemic recovery and an ever-escalating climate crisis, economists warn of widespread public pessimism about the future that is rapidly curdling into violent despair, especially among young men in many of the world’s poorer countries.

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.

In a shifting landscape of climate policies in Vietnam—as indicated by the recent arrest of anti-coal activist Nguy Thi Khanh—Japanese and Korean lobbyists are seizing the moment to push gas infrastructure into the country’s energy planning.

There’s a categorical difference between the raw materials of the clean energy economy and those from fossil fuels, writes Canary Media. But to be considered truly sustainable, renewable industries need to restructure to allow their products to be recycled at the end of their lives.

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.

China’s wind and solar potential is a whopping nine times what it would need to become carbon-neutral, according to new research conducted to help policy-makers figure out whether they can expand the two technologies from combined capacity of 630 gigawatts to a target of 1,200 GW by the end of the decade.

The decision by mammoth California utility Pacific Gas & Electric to report avoided emissions due to its operations could be a progressive step towards climate accountability, but unofficially framing them as “Scope 4 emissions” could open the door to corporate greenwashing, experts warn.

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.”

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.

Delivering “a message of hope and action,” a 93-member coalition of environmental groups, aquariums, and outdoor recreation companies is urging the Biden administration in the United States to recognize that restoring and protecting the world’s oceans can help limit global heating to 1.5°C.

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 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.

Two committees of the European Parliament voted earlier this week to exclude natural gas and nuclear power from the continent’s new green “taxonomy” for sustainable finance, in what one legal charity calls the “final nail in the coffin” for efforts to define gas—and its corresponding methane emissions—as a green energy option.

New legislation in Florida gives local governments added support to build resilience against rising sea levels, but stops short of taking direct action to slash state emissions.

Three major oil companies have cancelled plans to drill in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a sign that fossil fuel exploration is losing ground against United States environmental policy priorities.

Two Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have written letters to five public relations and advertising firms, seeking details on their efforts to boost the environmental image of fossil fuel companies.

Deploying different energy storage technologies can optimize the use of increasing but intermittent renewable energy sources and enable the United States to fully shift off fossil-fuelled generation systems by mid-century, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology Energy Initiative (MITEI) study concludes.

An “unlikely” alliance of rural conservatives, environmentalists, and Indigenous groups is resisting the potential use of the eminent domain doctrine—a legal tool that allows private land to be seized for perceived public good—to build America’s largest carbon dioxide pipeline.

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.

Regulators around the globe are using monitoring tools, from infrared cameras to satellites, to call out oil and gas companies for methane leaks that are often underreported by fossil producers, with one group of U.S. legislators concluding that fossils are not concerned that the technology could fail—but rather that it might succeed.

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.

With pressure continuing to mount on the aviation industry to get serious about its sizable carbon footprint, self-interested greenwashing remains the order of the day for many of the world’s major carriers, particularly European ones.

Europe’s decades-old renewable energy communities (RECs)—where a group of residents produce their own energy instead of buying it from a third-party—can offer policy-makers valuable lessons on how to match renewable energy targets with the goal of energy equity.

Despite the conventional wisdom that Russia stands to benefit from the climate crisis as warming temperatures open frozen lands for agriculture and natural resources, a new book paints a grimmer picture of the country’s future.

As a devastating drought threatens to dry up Utah’s Great Salt Lake, scientists warn of environmental apocalypses to ensue: millions of migratory birds will go hungry after losing their feeding grounds, and nearby residents will be exposed to dust clouds filled with arsenic.

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).

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.

A new study maps out several pathways for the United States to fulfill its pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% by 2030, but authors say success depends on making big commitments—now.

The European Parliament on Wednesday threw its weight behind a proposed ban on selling new cars with combustion engines in 2035, seeking to step up the fight against climate change by speeding up development of electric vehicles.

Years after receiving multiple credible warnings about climate risk, Southern Company paid over US$62 million to organizations with a long record of spreading climate disinformation, a report released Wednesday by the U.S. Energy and Policy Institute has found.

The European Union’s plan to build new natural gas infrastructure is illegal under its own climate laws and won’t solve the fossil energy crunch triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine, climate lawyers with London, UK-based Client Earth are arguing.

Environmental groups are warning that the 1,200-kilometre Nord Stream 2 pipeline under the Baltic Sea could become an environmental hazard and a source of atmospheric methane if it is left to decay after stopping routine service and maintenance.

U.S. President Joe Biden has announced a two-year pause on a controversial tariff that was hobbling his country’s solar panel installation industry and imperiling his administration’s 2035 clean energy goal.

The increasing, intentional use of microplastics in pesticides and fertilizers has driven up their concentrations in soil to between four and 23 times the levels in marine environment, a group of U.S. environmental law experts warns.

While the Boris Johnson government congratulates itself for orchestrating the world’s first climate-neutral COP 26 climate summit, a sustainability report produced for Whitehall shows the Glasgow event was also the most polluting COP ever. And an accompanying report points to serious holes in that climate boast.

As the world invests billions in hydrogen fuel systems, scientists are urging vigilance against leakage, since its release into open air can trigger chemical reactions that significantly warm the atmosphere.

U.S. Republicans are being accused of “greenhouse gaslighting” after releasing a highly-touted climate plan that positions oil and gas extracted within the country’s borders as a climate solution.

Tesla has launched a demonstration project in Texas to show that its Powerwall battery owners can create a virtual power plant that would be able to feed energy back to the state grid.

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.

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 […]

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.

As the European Union rushes to wean itself off fossil fuels from Russia, it is exploring a “you collect/we buy” scheme to import more liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Algeria, while simultaneously addressing massive methane leaks in the North African nation’s facilities.

The recently-proposed HEATR Act could accelerate heat pump adoption in the United States, deliver cost savings for consumers, and attract support from both sides of the aisle, say two commentators from opposite sides of the country’s fraught political spectrum.

With long-term care workers and nursing assistants increasingly taking on the role of first responders during climate-driven disasters like wildfires and heat waves, California has launched a pilot project to train them for the new responsibility, while their union pushes for better wages and benefits to match the added work load.

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.

A groundbreaking climate lawsuit—filed by a Peruvian farmer who alleges high-emitting German utility RWE knowingly contributed to climate change and the flood threat he faces—entered a decisive phase last week as German court officials travelled to Huarez, Peru, to examine melting glaciers.

The tiny south Pacific nation Vanuatu has declared a climate emergency, hoping to garner global support for its bid to have the International Court of Justice (ICJ) affirm that vulnerable nations must be protected from climate change.

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).

California is gaining pace on its clean energy targets, with five leases for a combined 380,000 acres of floating offshore wind development a step closer to being auctioned. The most populous state in the United States could serve as a “guiding light” in the energy transition, with research estimating that California could achieve 85% clean electricity by the end of the decade.

The U.S. Supreme Court is allowing the Biden administration to use a higher estimate for calculating damages to people and the environment from greenhouse gas emissions, despite a challenge by Republican-led states.

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.

Shouts of “about time” and “what took you so long?” met British Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak’s announcement in Parliament of a 25% windfall tax on oil and gas profits, even as critics slammed simultaneous tax relief for oil extraction as a “bone-headedly stupid” move during a climate emergency.

Business-as-usual inaction on climate change could cost the world’s economy US$178 trillion by 2070, while a concerted and collaborative global push for net-zero could see $43 trillion in economic growth over the same period, says a new report from the Deloitte Center for Sustainable Progress.

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.

To keep global heating below 2°C, the world must cut short-lived climate pollutants like methane, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), black carbon (soot), and low-level ozone in tandem with carbon dioxide emissions, says a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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.

Colossal fossil ExxonMobil faced three financial and legal setbacks in 48 hours earlier this week, with shareholders demanding a formal audit of the company’s climate-related risk and a Massachusetts court rejecting its bid to dismiss a legal challenge to its climate transparency.

Environmental degradation and rising insecurity are twin crises that, together, threaten to turn back decades of economic and social progress while governments look away instead of taking action, a new report warns.