Jobs and Just Transition

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.

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.

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.

Heat waves and drought in France are adding to Europe’s energy crisis which began when Russian invaded Ukraine—but the decline in the French electricity production is not just a temporary blip. France’s nuclear industry is in serious trouble.

Homeowners considering rooftop solar to slash their energy bills can turn to a new Forbes guide to solar shingles, listing the biggest names in the market and detailing the pros and cons of solar shingles versus panels.

Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity turned up the heat on swing-vote senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, a wider network of business groups stepped up to defend the deal, and environmental justice campaigners decried concessions to oil and gas as advocates absorbed the details of the $369.75-billion climate and clean energy package announced last week by Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer.

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.

Solar power is keeping the Texas grid from crashing—despite a sharp increase in energy demand due to record-breaking high temperatures, says an energy expert.

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.

The United States is back on the cusp of the biggest climate investment in its history after Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) and coal state Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) agreed to a US$370-billion climate and clean energy package, ending months of negotiations on what one elated advocate called the “best-kept secret in Washington”.

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.

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.

A heat emergency earlier this week in the U.S. Great Plains region forced the operator of the Keystone pipeline, Calgary-based TC Energy, to cut back its flow of what Bloomberg Markets calls a “crucial grade of oil” to refineries.

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.

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”.

Millionaire coal baron Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) played his final card and the White House conceded defeat on ambitious U.S. climate legislation, after the renegade senator declared he wouldn’t support any climate or energy provisions in President Joe Biden’s signature clean energy package.

New wind and solar projects saved countries US$82 billion in fossil fuel costs and will continue to provide badly-needed relief from rising electricity bills, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) concludes in a report issued last Thursday.

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.

A leading advocate for Africa’s renewable energy transition is condemning Germany and Italy for pushing to “saddle” African countries with new fossil fuel infrastructure that will drag down their economies.

Most of the world can switch to renewable energy without destabilizing power grids, at low cost, and relying almost entirely on existing technologies, according to a new Stanford University study.

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.

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.

The electricity system regulator in the United States could help slash inflation and double the country’s renewable energy supply by encouraging technologies to reduce the “absurd” 3.5-year wait times delaying interconnections between regional power systems, the Rocky Mountain Institute argues in a new analysis.

From food production to local bike couriers, degrowth strategies are saving land, work time, and money while meeting basic needs and re-localizing economies, 360info reports.

Substantially strengthening emissions regulations for marine shipping will have a “negligible” impact on freight costs, says a new study from Transport & Environment.

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.

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 latest emissions trajectory released by state colossal fossil Saudi Aramco—the world’s largest oil producer—shows a boost in production and no drop in emissions before 2035, casting doubt on the company’s words about net-zero commitments.

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.

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.

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.

The United Kingdom’s shift towards a green economy will alter the nature of existing jobs, not destroy them, but policy-makers will have to ensure that low- and mid-skilled workers are not left behind in a transition that will privilege the higher-skilled and better paid, says a new report.

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.

As wealthy jurisdictions, companies, and people increasingly buy into the private weather forecasting market and its derivatives, questions are being asked about where this leaves less well-heeled, and often more climate-vulnerable, households and communities.

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.

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.

The countries of the world missed an “historic chance for a clean energy recovery” from the COVID-19 pandemic and saw renewable energy stagnate due to a surge of fossil fuel subsidies last year, the REN 21 Secretariat reports this morning in its Renewables 2022 Global Status Report.

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.

Extreme heat and humidity is inhibiting learning and leaving teachers in the United States anxious for the well-being of their students, as researchers estimate that by 2025, one in four public schools in the country will need to install air conditioning or upgrade their existing ventilation systems.

BlocPower’s Civilian Climate Corps provides paid, on-the-job training to New Yorkers who live in neighbourhoods with high rates of gun violence, aiming to start them on their way to a career in the city’s fast-growing green construction and clean energy trades.

As gasoline prices skyrocket in the Sunshine State, so does reluctance to obey hurricane evacuation orders, with a survey finding more than 40% of Florida respondents likely to put their pocketbooks ahead of their personal safety.

Ford’s chief executive says he expects the cost of building electric vehicles to fall to the point that automakers will be battling each other in coming years for sales of EVs priced around US$25,000.

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.

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.

An explosion Wednesday at the Freeport gas liquefaction plant south of Houston, Texas has shut down the facility for at least three weeks, bringing new uncertainties and higher costs to global gas markets while plant operators search for the cause of the blast.

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.

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.

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.

A new study dispels concerns that new wind farms will harm communities by lowering property values, showing that the facilities actually raise incomes and home prices in the rural United States.

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.

Private investors in rich countries stand to lose more than a trillion dollars on stranded fossil fuel assets as climate policies slash their value, giving them a powerful interest in the transition off carbon, according to new research published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

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.

Communities near fracking operations and liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities in the United States are worried that industrial expansion prompted by Russia’s war in Ukraine will bring them increasing and longer-term exposure to health-threatening pollutants. 

Worried about food security and determined to boost resilience while cutting energy costs, traditionally oil-dependent Alaska is looking to develop new microgrids and upgrade existing fossil-fueled ones—with renewables and storage.

The current energy crisis is making “blue” hydrogen derived from natural gas with carbon capture even more impractical than it already was, raising broader questions about the use of gas to produce electricity, a new analysis concludes.

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 transit agency in California is drastically reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, saving money, and creating hundreds of jobs after shifting its entire 87-bus fleet from diesel to electric, 18 years ahead of the state mandate that would have required the new vehicles.

California’s unrelenting drought is straining the state’s resources and inflaming tensions in the legislature, as crucial drought relief policies and action are delayed by competing priorities like the pandemic, homelessness, and wildfires.

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.

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 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.

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.

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 South Korean solar panel maker announced last Thursday that it will expand its presence in Georgia, building a new US$171-million plant next to an existing factory in Dalton.

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.

The senior safety consultant whose high-profile resignation from Shell spotlighted the company’s “extreme harms” to the environment is drawing a sharp contrast between the colossal fossil’s enduring interest in safer work processes and its failure to deliver on its highly-touted emissions reduction plan.

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.

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.

The war in Ukraine is increasing gasoline prices in America despite the country’s status as the world’s largest oil producer, demonstrating why the United States “cannot drill its way to energy security” and should instead invest in renewables, writes Princeton University energy specialist Jesse Jenkins.

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.

No longer the sole province of tool- and computer-wielding technicians and scientists, climate careers will be increasingly found across all sectors, according to a new generation of young entrepreneurs who are determined to leave the world far better than they found it.

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.

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 international community is gearing for global market shocks after India, the world’s second-largest wheat producer, halted most wheat exports to protect its national food security, while advocates call for greater attention to the entire Southeast Asian region gripped by the same deadly heat wave.

The current narrative linking international human migration with increased security risks should not be accepted at face value, say experts, and policy-makers must focus on building cohesive strategies and support systems for migration within borders in anticipation of large influxes of climate refugees, a conference audience heard last week.

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.

Campaigners in Australia’s federal election are caught in a balancing act between appeasing the majority of citizens who want the government to prioritize climate goals—and seducing voters in a handful of constituencies where a major source of livelihood is the world’s dirtiest fuel.

New renewable energy capacity will exceed 300 gigawatts this year for the first time, with mounting concerns about climate change and energy security driving an 8% increase over 2021 despite rising costs and supply chain bottlenecks, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reports this week in its annual renewables market update.

Climate change and social equity were both on the curriculum for the designers and builders of two new purpose-built schools in Washington, DC.

Utilities across several states are warning of rolling blackouts caused by electricity shortages, as the United States braces itself for a summer of record-breaking heat waves that will drive up energy demand.

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.

Major geopolitical tensions could be resolved by electrifying transportation, a change that would dilute the concentration of power held by oil producers and redistribute it across producers of solar, wind, and other clean energies, analysts say.

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.

The clean energy transition stands to suffer a major blow as wind turbine manufacturers struggle to maintain profitability due to vanishing subsidies, high materials costs, and supply chain issues worsened by the war in Ukraine.

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.

As an example of what some see as a key piece of the transition to clean energy, a community battery in a Perth, Australia, suburb won over some of the community’s residents by storing electricity from rooftop solar panels to distribute back to the grid.

India enjoyed a record year for new renewable energy capacity in 2020-21, at 13.5 gigawatts, but is still far off the momentum it needs to hit national targets.

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.

The world’s biggest solar+storage project is expected to include 20 gigawatts of solar capacity and 42 gigawatt-hours of battery capacity, enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 480 million tonnes per year, according to environmental impact documents filed last week with an Australian regulator.

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.

Russia’s dominant position in the global fuel economy is paying off, after soaring prices doubled the country’s fossil fuel revenues in the last two months—even though volumes are reduced.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has unexpectedly vetoed a bill that would have slashed the rates that utilities have to pay rooftop solar owners who sell their surplus power back to the grid, a move that would have devastated the solar industry in the U.S. jurisdiction known as the Sunshine State.

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.

In a U.S. state where coal is still king, solar energy is beginning to come on strong, as West Virginia gradually begins to prepare itself for the transition off fossil fuels.

The southeastern United States is seeing a surge in electric vehicle sales, with an increase of 48% last year despite only a modest 3% rise in the overall auto trade.

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.

For the younger inhabitants of America’s oil boom towns, “future-proofing” their communities by investing in green energy is a necessary adventure, even if it’s “like staring into the abyss” for older residents.

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.

“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.

The vacant strips of land along major highways could unlock a cleaner power grid and promote the uptake of electric vehicles, according to an 81-page feasibility study done for the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

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 fertilizer price crunch now plaguing farmers is reminiscent of the 1970s oil shock that led to greater energy efficiency in several industries, and could produce a similar shift in today’s agriculture sector—but that transition will have to be managed carefully to avoid further disrupting the global food supply.

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.

Natural gas-fired power generation in the United States peaked in 2020, and it will continue to fall as it competes with increasingly affordable wind and solar capacity, according to analysts who say renewables’ growth is being “supercharged” by rising fossil fuel costs and disruptions in energy security.

Michigan’s biggest energy supplier will phase out coal in 2025, 15 years ahead of its original schedule, embrace low-carbon electricity options, and donate to a fund for low-income utility customers under a proposed settlement with Attorney General Dana Nessel.

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.

Limiting leaks from fossil fuel facilities is “low-hanging fruit” for stabilizing atmospheric methane levels, which showed the largest increase on record last year and hit the highest level since scientists began collecting data 39 years ago.

The European Union’s fuel supply options carry different implications for the climate, according to a life cycle assessment released while the continent is rethinking energy policy from between the rock of Russia’s war on Ukraine and the hard place of a looming energy supply crisis.

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.

A new study reconsiders energy efficiency as distinct from its carbon reduction potential and finds that it will still play a critical role in a successful transition to a zero-carbon economy.

Already the largest carbon removal plant in the world, Climeworks can now also claim to have raised the largest sum of any carbon dioxide removal company after investors put up US$650 million to fund the start-ups’s effort to capture more than a million tonnes of CO2 a year by 2030.

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.

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.

Fossil fuel companies are using stock buybacks to profit from Russia’s war on Ukraine—at the expense of consumers, workers, and just about everyone else, says a new report released by advocacy groups just as the United States holds hearings to scrutinize oil and gas profits.

For the first time in the UN agency’s 34-year history, yesterday’s massive report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) introduces the language of “demand-side” action to the field of climate mitigation, with potential to reduce emissions by 40 to 70% in the places where people live, work, learn, and play.

International cooperation on climate action has grown since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to yield modest progress, says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), but stronger collaborations are needed to overcome barriers in countries with limited capacity.

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.

A spat between the International Energy Agency and a global cartel of fossil producers is breaking out into the open, with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies accusing the IEA of giving too much credence to the climate emergency and purveying biased data.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 new study points to geothermal energy as an untapped resource that could stabilize energy grids and support decarbonization of the world’s megacities, which are seeing increasing energy needs as urban populations rise.

Experts say renewables will be a critical component of India’s climate plan—which rightfully sets its net-zero deadline two decades later than wealthier high-emitters like the United States and Europe—as the country balances urgent climate adaptation alongside pressing support for food security.

An agreement by a Michigan public utility to expand its low-income efficiency programs and study how the energy burden of vulnerable households can be reduced is being hailed by environmental justice advocates as a crucial move towards fighting energy inequality.

The United States Department of Energy has chosen 14 host communities for technical assistance, in a bid to discover how energy storage can increase resilience and reduce costs in underserved communities.

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.

Bitcoin miners claim they can help stabilize Texas’s vulnerable electricity grid, but they can also be a drain on utilities as they cash in on the state’s cheap energy.

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.

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.

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.

The Biden administration’s climate plans have one less constraint after a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling stayed a Louisiana District Court’s order preventing agencies from considering the social cost of carbon.

An announcement that Germany’s emissions increased last year has put pressure on the country to expand its renewable energy infrastructure or risk delaying its climate goals.

Flying less is currently the only path to rapid reduction in aviation emissions, and will remain so for longer than necessary if the aviation industry fails to grasp that its survival depends on embracing climate-friendly technological innovation, a veteran climate and aviation analyst warns.

The United Kingdom could eliminate all need for imported Russian gas this year and cut average home heating costs by £150 by embracing insulation and heat pumps, encouraging consumers to change their energy habits, and relying more on renewable energy, the E3G climate consultancy concludes in an analysis released 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.

The hybrid work week—with employees commuting to the office only occasionally—is not enough to limit corporate carbon footprints in a post-pandemic reality. Experts say progress to cut emissions could be held back if larger questions of evolving employee behaviours, efficient use of indoor space, and impacts on cities are not addressed.

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.

Economy ministers across the European Union have adopted the world’s first carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), bringing the continent one step closer to a levy on imports in emissions-intensive industries like electricity, steel, cement, aluminum, and fertilizer.

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.

Two recent reports have raised questions about California’s carbon cap-and-trade program, concluding that the system worsens environmental justice disparities and could undermine progress towards the state’s emissions reduction targets without effective policy reforms.

Virginia’s Republican governor is going all out to withdraw from a multi-state carbon reduction initiative, even after the program netted the state US$74.2 million for flood protection and low-income energy efficiency programs.

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.

With the war in Ukraine triggering a secondary crisis in gas heating costs across Europe, “tackling poor quality homes in marginal constituencies could swing election success,” the United Kingdom’s Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) concludes in a report released last week.

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.

With extreme weather wreaking havoc on power lines, experts are turning their attention to emerging transmission technologies, and have named four companies to watch as the United States ramps up renewables-based electrification.

A recent solar technology breakthrough from UK scientists brings “wearable solar” one step closer to commercial production and could greatly expand the amount of solar power generated by weaving the microscopic technology into daily living.

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.

China’s dual status as both the world’s top coal consumer and renewable energy developer raises questions about whether the country is meeting its climate pledges, but some analysts say focusing on these two domestic factors misses the larger picture of China’s role in the international energy transition.

Following a dramatic pledge yesterday to reduce its dependence on Russian gas by 65% this year and phase out all Russian fossil fuels “well before 2030”, the European Union is under pressure to replace gas from all sources through a rapid transition to energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Global carbon dioxide emissions from energy hit a record high of 36.3 billion tonnes (gigatonnes) in 2021, the International Energy Agency reported yesterday, with an “extremely rapid economic recovery” translating into higher emissions from fuel burning and industrial processes and China accounting for the largest share of the increase.

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.

Hawaiian households with rooftop solar will soon be rewarded for sharing electricity with the grid at peak hours, while in California, three utilities are pushing to make solar-equipped homes pay extra fees as their monthly power bills go down.

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.

Electric vehicles, methane controls, and carbon capture storage are among the cornerstones of the 2030 climate plan that Environment and Climate Minister Steven Guilbeault is getting set to release at the end of this month, Bloomberg Green reports.

With Vladimir Putin’s devastating war in Ukraine now well into its second week, news coverage and commentary are turning to the steps other European countries can take to break their dependence on Russian oil and gas, once and for all.

In light of the Canadian federal government’s decision to not provide additional funding for the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project, the Tsleil-Waututh Nation Sacred Trust is calling the viability of the pipeline a “delusion,” and reaffirming its position that the project needs to be halted.

Investor-owned utilities in the United States have underestimated the financial risks of stranded assets, future carbon costs, and penalties for inaction, which will cost them more than the expenses of rapidly decarbonizing now, according to a Deloitte report.

New Brunswick’s provincial utility and its government must work together to ensure that low- and middle-income households can afford energy retrofits, a new report says, in a critique of the province’s failure to make energy efficiency accessible to all.

A wind turbine should be up and running in Inuvik, NWT by early 2023, reducing the territory’s annual emissions by 6,000 tonnes and saving the NWT Power Corporation (NTPC) C$3 million in diesel costs—though how much of these savings will be passed down to households remains uncertain.

With a decision by Environment and Climate Minister Steven Guilbeault expected next week, nearly 200 environmental and citizens’ groups from Canada and beyond are urging the federal government to reject the mammoth Bay du Nord oil and gas development off the coast of Newfoundland.

Renewable energy supplied 21.02% of the United States’ total electrical generation in 2021, coming in 5% ahead of forecasts made by the nation’s energy information agency.

Canada’s push to require energy efficiency audits for houses before they’re listed for sale is drawing flak from the real estate sector, even if it’s a basic building block for the amped-up energy efficiency effort the country needs to pursue.

With climate dangers coming on faster, ranging wider, and hitting harder than scientists previously expected, and major impacts unavoidable in the immediate future, a United Nations agency report described by observers as “grim”, “harrowing”, and “unflinching” is looking at how humanity can adapt to climate risk, how much climate adaptation can achieve—and how climate justice has moved to the centre of the conversation.

Ecosystem-based adaptation strategies are essential to address climate disruptions to agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and aquaculture, but with the caveat that incautious strategies can have “maladaptive outcomes” that further harm the most vulnerable groups, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says in its report this week on climate impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability.

Nature-based solutions (NbS) provide a glimmer of hope in an otherwise alarming IPCC climate report assessing the globe’s land and water ecosystems, which concludes that at least 30% of Earth’s surface must be protected so that ecosystem services can help curb warming.

Ocean and coastal species and habitats are struggling with a rapid shift to conditions that haven’t been seen in thousands of years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports in this week’s assessment of climate adaptation, impacts, and vulnerability.

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its fifth day, with colossal fossil BP pulling its US$14-billion investment in state oil company Rosneft, analysts are pointing to fossil fuels as both a cause and a beneficiary of an intense and brutal war, while others urge a faster transition to renewable energy as an antidote to Vladimir Putin’s aggression.

The climate emergency was pushed to the back burner in international relations and oil prices hit US$105 per barrel this week after Russian President Vladimir Putin capped weeks of escalating tensions by launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

A recent appearance by Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray at an industry annual meeting has set off a sea squall of controversy, with harvesters and unions warning of the “dire social and economic effects” of federal catch limits and Murray stressing her interest in keeping fish stocks sustainable in an era of climate disruption.

Blackouts like the ones that have hit Texas and California in recent years can be avoided at low cost with clean, interconnected, renewable power sources, say Stanford University researchers who studied grid stability under several scenarios in which wind, water, and solar—coupled with storage—would meet 100% of America’s electricity needs.

United Kingdom fracking firm Cuadrilla will seal its two shale gas wells in Lancashire forever, six months after the country’s oil and gas authority called for the wells to be shut down.

Emissions of climate-busting methane from fossil fuel operations are 70% higher than national governments are reporting, according to the 2022 edition of the Global Methane Tracker released this morning by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The Biden administration is delaying decisions on new oil and gas drilling on federal land and other energy-related actions after a federal court blocked the way officials were calculating the real-world costs of climate change.

Pressure is beginning to build against Newfoundland and Labrador’s latest offshore oil venture, the 200,000-barrel-per-day Bay du Nord offshore oil development, with provincial NDP leader Jim Dinn speaking out about the climate costs of the proposal and demanding a just transition for the province’s oil and gas work force.

There’s virtually no chance private financiers will put up billions of dollars to complete the Trans Mountain pipeline without a federal loan guarantee, analysts say, despite Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s assurance Friday that “no additional public money” will be invested in a project whose cost has now ballooned from $5.4 to $21.4 billion.

With the last vestiges of a three-week occupation gradually clearing out of downtown Ottawa, and at least one key convoy organizer showing up in court wearing an “I ❤️ Oil and Gas” hoodie, a former federal environment minister is pointing to parallels between two of the urgent, science-based issues the country faces—the pandemic and the climate emergency.

Canadian government policies should be geared toward preparing industries and citizens to thrive in a low-carbon economy, concludes a new assessment of the country’s current approach to phasing out fossil fuel subsidies.

Lifting hundreds of millions people out of “extreme poverty” would increase global emissions by less than 1%, says a study just published in Nature Sustainability.

Alberta will toughen its emissions standards and close a loophole that would have allowed tar sands/oil sands companies to gain financially from their emissions.

Officials in the office of Ontario Premier Doug Ford pushed U.S.-based Koch Industries to seek compensation in international courts for the cancellation of the province’s carbon cap-and-trade program, thereby pushing the costs onto all Canadians, according to an investigation published this week by The Narwhal.

Australia’s biggest coal-fired power plant is set to close in 2025, seven years ahead of schedule, and the energy minister in New South Wales says the state will have enough reliable, affordable electricity to keep the lights on—thanks in part to a new “super battery” the government plans to build.

Describing a “hostile” workplace rife with racial slurs and pervasive discrimination, California’s civil rights regulator is suing Tesla for “severe” racism against Black workers at its Fremont factory near San Francisco.

With Bloomberg News declaring that governments’ “Great Climate Backslide” has begun, recent reports show major banks pouring more than a trillion dollars into oil, gas, and coal, even as they scramble to burnish their green credentials.

Nearly four years after Premier Doug Ford’s government abruptly cancelled Ontario’s cap-and-trade program, furious investors have filed two lawsuits against the province for money lost on emissions credits.

Georgia Power plans to shut down nearly all its oil and coal plants in favour of natural gas and solar over the next three years, but critics say the utility needs to put greater emphasis on energy efficiency projects.

Anyone seeking to improve the uptake of microgrids will have to raise the public profile of the technology, nail down financing, and make sure the grids are actually green, not fossil fueled, according to an ongoing study of community concerns around the technology.

Academics and activists are pressing the International Energy Agency (IEA) to make its data available to everyone for free, warning that the organization’s prohibitive subscription fees impede non-profits and independent researchers from contributing to climate science.

The federal Conservative Party under interim leader Candice Bergen is dropping its commitment to a consumer price on carbon, just as a small band of conservative opinion-makers set out to convince their peers that climate policy matters.

Anxiety is running high in Newfoundland and Labrador as the province waits on a federal decision about a proposed offshore oil project about 500 kilometres east of St. John’s.

The high-powered shift to electric vehicles mustn’t leave public transit behind or prevent policy-makers from addressing the big problems with car dependency, like using scarce land for roads and parking instead of housing, Ohio social justice groups are warning.

With the illegal insurrection in Canada’s capital now entering its third week, close observers are linking the occupation to past protests supporting pipelines and fossil fuels, digging into the white supremacist funding and logistics behind the convoy, and spotlighting the increasingly serious health impacts for downtown Ottawa residents exposed to round-the-clock noxious diesel fumes, deafening truck horns, and random harassment and intimidation in their neighbourhoods.

Nearly three-quarters of Canadians believe fossil fuel companies should definitely or probably be held accountable for their environmental impacts, according to a Politico-Morning Consult survey of 1,000 people in each of 13 countries.

The practical pathways to align power utility planning with future climate goals—from market transformation in regions that still depend heavily on fossil fuels, to a just transition for workers and communities—were the focus of a late January webinar hosted by Energy Central and the Utility 2030 Collaborative.

The CEO of one of Canada’s leading tar sands/oil sands companies is admitting that this year’s surge in global oil prices won’t last, projecting future prices that set the broader industry on a course for financial failure.

A company in Toronto is installing North America’s biggest solar wall to date, a 7,000-square-foot system located in an industrial area of Rexdale Blvd. in west-end Etobicoke.

The fossil era is ending, zero-carbon electrification is imperative, and Africa stands rich in all that will be necessary to secure safer, more sustainable, and much wealthier lives for its peoples, says the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI) in a recent working paper.

The United Kingdom should focus on installing electric heat pumps and improving energy efficiency in homes rather than shifting to hydrogen-powered heating, says a recent report on decarbonizing the country’s natural gas networks.

A new analysis co-authored by a former BP geologist identifies five big oil and gas projects—run by ExxonMobil, Shell, Equinor, Petrobras, and the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation—that will only succeed if efforts to control global greenhouse gas emissions fail.

A winter storm left more than 50,000 Texans without electricity last week, despite Governor Greg Abbott’s reassurance that “the lights will stay on” this time, a year after a severe winter cold snap left millions in darkness and caused hundreds of deaths.

With the federal government on a mission to eliminate carbon-intensive, expensive diesel generators in remote Indigenous communities by 2030, an Indigenous financial agency is proposing a new investment mechanism to deliver faster results for the nearly 300 communities that still depend on the fuel.

Ontario has announced a new voluntary registry for businesses that want credit for using non-emitting electricity, both renewable and nuclear.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday extended tariffs imposed by Donald Trump on most solar panels imported from China and other countries. But in a nod to his efforts to combat climate change and boost clean energy, Biden loosened restrictions on some panels used in large-scale utility projects.

Higher prices for coking coal, driven by declining investment in new coal mines, may push steelmakers into a faster shift to low-carbon production methods, according to new analysis by McKinsey & Company.

Catastrophic flooding in five Canadian cities has driven down the selling price of homes by 8.2%, reduced the number of houses listed for sale by nearly half, and increased the average time it takes to sell a house by nearly 20%, according to new research obtained by The Energy Mix.

In the first major study of its kind, researchers have found that elderly people living nearby fracking operations, and especially downwind from the sites, are at a greater risk of premature death.

The United Kingdom has approved a new oil and gas field, while French colossal fossil TotalÉnergies has invested US$10 billion to fund a pipeline in Uganda, both moves showing that leaders are willing to set aside their climate pledges in order to expand fossil development.

Nova Scotia Power has announced a one-year delay for a controversial proposal to charge fees to customers who sell renewable power back to the grid, after a wave of industry and community concern that the plan could wipe out the province’s emerging solar industry.

General Motors has announced a US$7-billion deal to build electric vehicle infrastructure in Michigan, signalling that the auto giant and state leaders are adapting to the changing industry to retain jobs and strengthen the region’s economy.

Green go-betweens—or companies that connect corporations and governments with reforestation programs to get them to net-zero—are touting carbon credit projects as a “critical intervention” to meet climate goals. But some experts warn that helping heavy polluters greenwash their image could obscure bigger problems, including their unchecked greenhouse gas emissions.

An online workshop in New Brunswick’s Tantramar region earlier this month focused in on the connections between climate resilience and poverty—and how a basic income can make all the difference for a community trying to cope with a wide array of climate impacts.

Increased investment, technological advances, and improved communication are essential for electricity grids trying to embrace the energy transition against the backdrop of more frequent extreme weather events, according to a webinar panel hosted by Publicis Sapient and the Utility 2030 Collaborative earlier this month.

America’s poor pay the most to light their homes—both at the till and on their electricity bills—as lower-end retailers continue to sell the inefficient incandescent bulbs that have been replaced by energy-saving LEDs in stores serving more affluent neighbourhoods.

Food insecurity brought on by the climate crisis is putting more girls in Nepal at risk of child marriage, even as the government pushes to eliminate the practice by 2030.

It’s time for Canada to seize the “democratic imperative” for a fast, comprehensive just transition off fossil fuels, while taking advantage of new job creation in rising clean energy industries, according to two new reports issued this week.

No Canadian household should have to choose between heating, eating, and other essentials, say a groundswell of energy and anti-poverty advocates who back Efficiency Canada’s push for Ottawa to fund energy efficiency programs for low-income households in the upcoming budget.

The United Kingdom’s Greener Homes Grant helped fewer than 8% of its targeted 600,000 homes before ending abruptly, while similar initiatives in France and Germany achieved wider success, partly by running more competently and making government support more easily accessible.

Energy storage could become a big enough factor in the United States power grid to help drive fossil fuels out of the system, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and balance electricity loads at every hour of every day year-round by 2050, according to analysis released earlier this month by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

Global hydrogen markets are in for a “violent shakedown” this decade, as electrolyzer costs fall more than 85% and renewably-produced green hydrogen becomes more affordable than the fossil-derived variety within two years, according to new analysis by Rethink Energy.

More than two-thirds of America’s public school students live in counties that experienced major climate disasters between 2017 and 2019, and a new report shows that socially vulnerable students were hit especially hard, struggled to recover, and in some cases lost ground.

Inadequate resources, data, and infrastructure in half of the world’s most vulnerable countries are restricting their access to urgently-needed climate adaptation dollars from the UN Green Climate Fund (GCF), a new study shows.

The federal government’s Canada Greener Home Grant is having trouble keeping up with its own popularity, with applicants waiting months or even years for home energy audits they’ve requested under the program.

Limiting climate change will require an unprecedented global movement to make low-carbon technologies the norm. Yet in many places, transitions to clean energy technologies have succeeded far beyond expectations, writes Michael Grubb, professor of energy and climate change at University College London, in a post for The Conversation.

Private financiers in the United States are turning their investment focus to a menu of sometimes questionable carbon storage technologies, while government funding for more immediate carbon reduction options—like the climate components of the Biden administration’s Build Back Better bill—languishes in legislatures.

More than two-thirds of the finance professionals in a recent survey say their industry needs more skills development in sustainable finance to meet the expected growth in demand from regulators and stakeholders.

“We’re fighting the carbon tax because it hurts seniors, workers, families, and small businesses,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford tweeted in 2019. Which makes it all the more interesting that Ford’s government instituted a new Ontario “carbon tax” this year, and it looks a lot like what he campaigned against, writes green economy lawyer Marc Goldgrub.

Some 44% of global urban GDP is at risk thanks to environmental degradation caused by the exponential growth of cities since 2000, says a new report. But “nature-positive” investment could be profoundly regenerative, creating nearly 60 million jobs and generating more than US$1.5 trillion in revenues by 2030. 

Cedar, fir, and hemlock trees as old as 800 years have temporary protection after an agreement was reached between four Vancouver Island First Nations and a forestry company.

Canada is heralded as having one of the most ambitious prices on carbon in the world, rising from its current C$40 per tonne to $170 by 2030. But large industrial emitters pay only a tiny fraction of it, Corporate Knights reports.

Microgrids, community resilience zones, and “hyper-local planning” are cornerstones of the three-year Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) issued last month by Vermont’s Green Mountain Power.

Former Canadian environment and climate minister Catherine McKenna has signed on as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP).

Seventy years after the United Kingdom first began extracting plutonium from spent uranium fuel to make nuclear weapons, the industry is finally calling a halt to reprocessing, leaving the country with 120 tons of the metal, the biggest stockpile in the world. However, the government has no idea what to do with it.

Canada’s financial sector could be exposed to significant economic shocks from the transition to lower emissions, but faster climate action can smooth out those impacts, according to early scenario modelling from the Bank of Canada and the banking regulator.

The city of Montpellier, France has cancelled a €29-million order for 51 hydrogen buses after concluding that an electric fleet would be six times less expensive to own and operate.

Germany’s term in the G7 presidency could be the beginning of a “grand bargain” on climate and international health among the world’s richest nations if the new government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz follows through on plans to push for a global “climate club” over the next year.

All the pieces are in place for China to step forward as a global climate leader, but the country’s next steps could determine whether its ambitious targets bring about substantive change or fade away into greenwashing.

The day of the sun-powered house may soon be at hand, with two recent papers introducing new technologies to allow the building itself—rather than the solar panels attached to it—to produce heating and cooling.

The International Energy Agency praised yesterday Canada for a set of “bold” climate policies that point toward “an ambitious transformation of its energy system,” despite its finding that increased fossil fuel production drove up the sector’s greenhouse gas emissions 26% between 2000 and 2019.

As the International Energy Agency points out in its report this week, how provinces respond to the climate emergency has a huge bearing on whether Canada as a whole will achieve its 2030 climate targets. And by any accounting, Ontario is a climate laggard, more a climate hooligan. The reason is Premier Doug Ford’s Conservative government.

Four hundred people killed and over half a million displaced, 830,000 houses damaged, and millions of dollars’ worth of crops, farmland and infrastructure wrecked—that’s the price the Philippines paid for greenhouse gas emissions from the developed world, when a climate-aggravated Typhoon Rai hit its coast last December.

California-based GAF Energy has developed a mass-market shingle that could revolutionize rooftop solar generation.

A devastating weekend apartment fire in the Bronx proves that energy efficiency upgrades are as much about redressing longstanding, frequently brutal injustices as they are about cutting emissions.

Lower-income Canadians shouldn’t have to choose between heating, eating, and other daily essentials, say two policy experts who are pushing for a national strategy to combat the energy poverty that currently affects 20% of Canadian households.

Countries like Canada with self-declared climate ambitions face a serious challenge: how to ensure their emission reduction plans don’t drive industries and investment to countries with weaker carbon standards and lower costs. The federal government is currently consulting on how to prevent this “leakage” and keep Canadian industry competitive with a tool known as border carbon adjustments (BCA).

It’s 6:00 PM and the pink-tinged skies turn black above Agolan, a village on the outskirts of Erbil in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. Thick plumes of smoke have begun to billow out of dozens of flaring towers, part of an oil refinery owned by an Iraqi energy company called the KAR Group. The towers are just about 150 feet from where 60-year-old Kamila Rashid stands on the front porch of her house. She looks squarely at the oil plant, which sits on what she says used to be her family’s land.

A major piece of unfinished business left behind at the end of last year looks certain to haunt British Columbia in 2022, as the province’s NDP government faces determined Indigenous opposition to the Coastal GasLink pipeline and the project itself runs into serious financial headwinds.

Ontario is on track for a 375% increase in power sector emissions between 2017 and 2030 if it carries through with a plan to increase its reliance on natural gas power plants, concludes an analysis of the Annual Planning Outlook published last month by the province’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO).

Across East Africa, communities are struggling against the dual realities of flooding and drought as climate change intensifies an Indian Ocean weather pattern, with some of them forced to push back against conservation project priorities they say are more concerned for the well-being of wildlife than for the people struggling to adapt.

Environmental justice advocates are praising Massachusetts for a new energy efficiency plan which prioritizes outreach to improve health and comfort in underserved communities, especially the poor and communities of colour.

India’s vast expanses of farmland are fertile ground for a novel type of fruit—namely solar power—according to a recent report that offers agrivoltaics (solar panels installed on agricultural land) as a solution for a nation reckoning with significant energy demands in the coming decades. 

More than 80% of young Albertans surveyed last spring said they wanted more environmental education in their schools, with 73% saying they are at least somewhat worried about their future due to climate change.

A series of grassroot conversations in communities across Canada is building a picture of how a universal basic income can lay the groundwork for faster, deeper carbon cuts, by boosting local resilience and helping to ease uncertainties around the shift to a low-carbon economy.

Global climate targets could be set back if this year’s economic rebound leads to record high coal demand, warns the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Quebec is close to completing what will likely be the last big hydroelectric dam it ever builds, bringing an end to a decades-long era when hydro development was often seen as synonymous with the province’s growing economic power and cultural pride.

Deep energy retrofits and tougher building code standards emerged as winners, while fossil fuel pipelines received no attention at all, as policy analysts dug more deeply into the ministerial mandate letters released in mid-December by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Alberta’s quiet transition to renewable energy from coal is moving faster than planned—fast enough that the province could hit its target of generating 30% of its electricity from renewables seven years ahead of its 2030 target.

October 7, 2021: The coal, oil, and gas industries received US$5.9 trillion in worldwide subsidies in 2020—a mind-bending $11.2 million per minute, every minute of every hour of every day in the year—the International Monetary Fund (IMF) revealed.

December 6, 2021: An oil and gas emissions cap, reduced methane emissions, zero-emission vehicles, and a net-zero power grid were all on the table for public consultation, after Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault announced a three-month delay in publishing the Trudeau government’s carbon reduction plan under the new climate accountability law.

March 24, 2021: A new federal incentive, modelled on a U.S. tax credit for carbon capture, utilization and storage, would be tailor-made to drive higher greenhouse gas emissions and could produce unexpected surprises for private investors, a veteran U.S. energy consultant and attorney told The Energy Mix.

November 25, 2021: British Columbia’s only confirmed liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal may be on its way to becoming a “financial albatross”, even as a developer continues to tout a second LNG project in Howe Sound, just north of Vancouver.

October 31, 2021: After years of blaming limited pipeline access for the low price they’ve had to charge for their product, Alberta fossil producers were running into another problem by mid-fall: U.S. refineries don’t particularly like the product.

April 21, 2021: The federal government hoped a budget provision for C$40,000 interest-free loans would be sufficient incentive to encourage 200,000 Canadian households to undertake deep retrofits on their homes.

February 12, 2021: Canadian governments stand to lose more than half of their revenue from oil and gas activities through 2040, and nearly nine-tenths of the taxes and royalties the industry says they will collect, as the global economy decarbonizes and shifts away from fossil fuel production, the UK-based Carbon Tracker Initiative concluded in an analysis released exclusively to The Energy Mix.

October 13, 2021: While the world’s fossil fuel use could peak in the next few years, countries’ climate pledges as of mid-October covered “less than 20% of the gap in emissions reductions that needs to be closed by 2030 to keep a 1.5°C path within reach,” the International Energy Agency declared, in a breakthrough edition of its annual World Energy Outlook.

February 19, 2021: Some 700 people died, hundreds of thousands of homes were still without power, half of the state was under a boil water order, racialized communities were bearing the brunt, and the electricity system operator admitted it had only narrowly averted months-long blackouts as Texas began taking stock of a rolling disaster brought on by climate-driven severe weather and ideologically-driven grid deregulation.

September 9, 2021: Canada must leave 83% of its fossil fuel reserves and 84% of its tar sands/oil sands in the ground if the world is to have even a 50% chance of holding average global warming to 1.5°C, according to a paper published in the prestigious journal Nature.

January 31, 2021: A Canadian solar company claimed no Uyghurs were employed at its 30-MW solar farm in China’s Xinjiang region, nor were any members of the persecuted Muslim community being forced into labour anywhere along its solar supply chain. But human rights observers said that last assertion didn’t stand up to the evidence.

August 29, 2021: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s campaign promise to cap oil and gas sector emissions at today’s levels and set five-year targets to reduce them beginning in 2025 amounted to the end of fossil fuel expansion in Canada, a leading climate advocate said.

June 25, 2021: Taking on an audacious “national retrofit mission” would enable Canada to upgrade every building in the country by 2035, eliminate their fossil fuel consumption by 2050, make energy poverty a thing of the past, and free up 50 terawatt-hours of electricity for other uses—enough to eliminate 60 million tonnes of carbon pollution per year if it were used to power 10 million electric vehicles, according to analysis by Efficiency Canada.

January 20, 2021: The Canadian economy has added 42 new jobs for each one it has lost in fossil fuels since 2014, and a 20-year industry phaseout would only reduce fossil employment by about 8,500 positions per year—as many as the country usually creates every 10 days—concluded economist Jim Stanford in an analysis published by Toronto-based Environmental Defence.

July 14, 2021: More than two-thirds of Canadian fossil fuel workers are interested in jobs in a net-zero economy, 58% see themselves thriving in that economy, and nearly nine in 10 want training and upskilling for net-zero employment, according to a groundbreaking survey released by Edmonton-based Iron & Earth.

July 15, 2021: Toronto city councillors carried off a two-fer in a single 24-hour period, adopting two new policies to accelerate energy-efficient building retrofits before endorsing the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty on a 22-2 vote.

November 3, 2021: UN climate finance envoy Mark Carney’s Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net-Zero only brought together a highly-touted US$130 trillion in global financial clout over 30 years by assuring participating institutions they could set their own pathways to achieving net-zero, with or without a commitment to end fossil fuel investment, then counting on sustained public attention to keep them on track.

A cap on oil and gas emissions, a 75% methane reduction this decade, a net-zero electricity grid by 2035, a mandated 50% target for electric vehicle sales by 2030, and a renewed commitment to international climate finance are among the elements of the mandate letter issued to Environment and Climate Minister Steven Guilbeault Thursday afternoon by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Bruce Power’s recent issuance of C$500 million in green bonds to help extend the life of Ontario’s biggest nuclear power plant is being touted as a critical step toward decarbonization. But it could also be seen as a dangerous and time wasting dead-end, a corruption of the very notion of green financing.

Aligning climate targets with a 1.5°C future, aiming to at least halve absolute emissions by 2030, and issuing annual reports on the climate impacts of investments are among the best practices put forward for Canada’s five biggest banks in a report issued yesterday by Investors for Paris Compliance.

McDonald’s has made several commitments to address its supply chain emissions over the past decade, but critics say the company is not delivering results.

In the very crosshairs of the climate crisis, and still in the grip of a self-interested fossil sector, Louisiana is in desperate need of a just transition, with roughly 20 oil refineries shut down since a 1980s production peak and 25,000 oil workers losing their jobs since 2014.

Citing his sport’s outsized climate impact, as well as Canada’s history of oppressing Indigenous peoples, a competitive climber has resigned from the national team.

A group of countries led by the United Kingdom and Indonesia say they are launching a new partnership aiming to protect tropical rainforests, meet growing demand for commodities like palm, soy, and timber—widely criticized for their devastating impact on forests—and preserve the livelihoods of growers, Indigenous farmers, and local communities.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says he wants a national mandate forcing auto dealers to sell a certain number of electric vehicles to be in place by the end of next year.

Nearly 70% of New York voters have backed an amendment to the state’s climate law to grant all residents the right “to clean air and water and a healthful environment,” potentially laying the groundwork for lawsuits against fossil fuel polluters and developers.

Using retired electric vehicle (EV) batteries in smaller, localized power grids could be a “game-changer” for microgrid owners, say the proponents of an innovative plan to reduce grid costs and emissions.

The right wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is developing model legislation for U.S. state governments aimed at preventing business divestment from fossil fuel companies.

An agreement reached by Germany’s new three-way coalition of the Social Democratic (SDP), Green, and Free Democratic (FDP) parties commits to phase out coal earlier than previously planned and increase the country’s renewable energy capacity.

Strolling his church’s rooftop among 630 solar panels, Bishop Richard Howell Jr. of north Minneapolis acknowledged climate change isn’t the most pressing concern for his predominantly Black congregation—even though it disproportionately harms people of colour and the poor. Yet his Shiloh Temple International Ministries welcomed the opportunity to become one of many community solar providers popping up around the U.S. amid surging demand for renewable energy, The Associated Press reports.