The Trudeau government is expressing warmer interest in carbon border adjustments (CBAs) as a way to control industrial greenhouse gas emissions without putting Canadian companies at a competitive disadvantage internationally, just as the European Union and the United States begin serious musings about taking similar steps, the Globe and Mail reports this week.

With the Canada Pension Plan’s biannual public meetings under way this week, people from across Colorado have put together a series of video messages asking Canadian pension holders to stop funding fossil fuel companies—particularly Denver-based Crestone Peak Resources, a company 95% owned by the CPP.

ExxonMobil was scrambling Monday to clarify that it never received pressure from Donald Trump for a US$10-million campaign donation, after the rapidly-fading presidential candidate used the colossal fossil as an (apparently hypothetical) example of his fundraising prowess Monday evening.

A collection of 30 local, regional, and national public interest organizations from across the country is rallying against next-generation nuclear power development after the federal government announced a C$20-million infusion for the industry tied to its 2050 net-zero emissions target.

A fundamental law of physics coupled with 21st-century nanotechnology has yielded a product that could significantly reduce the emissions generated by the world’s 3.5 billion-plus air conditioners and refrigerators—at low cost.

Expensive to make and less versatile than their fossil-based cousins, bioplastic products are not the solution to the world’s plastic woes—and are by no means as biodegradable as consumers are led to think, a new study concludes.

In what CBC is calling “a major shift in tone for the Alberta premier”, Jason Kenney is saying Alberta fossils’ access to new project investment will depend on environmental action from industry and government.

Rejecting the oft-cited dictum that growth must be sacrificed to cut emissions, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has issued a “blueprint” for getting to net-zero by 2050 without economic pain—and with a healthier global population.

The Green Budget Coalition is calling on the Trudeau government to include C$10 billion for building energy retrofits, $4.8 billion for clean transportation, $4.8 billion for protected areas, and $2.6 billion for nature-based climate solutions in its 2020 budget.

With British Columbia five days away from a provincial election October 24, and mail-in voting already well under way, Premier John Horgan’s New Democrats are taking fire for doubling down on the subsidies the previous Liberal government had extended to the province’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry.

Thirty investor giants that manage a combined US$5 trillion in assets have committed to lowering the carbon emissions in their portfolios by as much as 29% by 2025—a pledge that will align them with the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The state government in Western Australia has issued planning approvals for the Asian Renewable Energy Hub, a vast solar, wind, and green hydrogen production complex whose backers have increased their long-term production target to 26 gigawatts.

A new report from insurance giant Swiss Re Group warns that more than half of global GDP—totalling US$42 trillion—is in peril, as climate change brings biodiversity to a tipping point and puts 20% of the world’s countries at risk of ecosystem collapse.

An acknowledgement that solar now delivers the “cheapest electricity in history” and a new source of uncertainty for Canada’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion are two of the takeaways emerging from the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook (WEO) 2020—amid criticism that the release still falls short of the analysis that would guide governments and investors to a 1.5°C future.

Kelly Trout is a senior research analyst with Oil Change International. In this feature interview, she talks about the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook (WEO), the agency’s long-standing allegiance to the fossil fuel industries, and what it would take for the IEA to really deliver “gold standard” energy modelling in an era of climate emergency.

Let’s face it Canada, as things go in this troubled world, we’re not doing badly. But that’s exactly when we need to take a breath and consider all the things either going wrong outside our borders, challenging us beyond today at home, or just upending all our old expectations from, oh, let’s say, January. An opinion piece by veteran journalist and former Energy Mix co-curator Chris Wood.

The World Bank is continuing a pattern of investing billions of dollars in fossil fuels, undercutting its own commitment in late 2018 to increase funding for climate change mitigation and adaptation between 2021 and 2025.

Boreal forest campaigners at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) were taking a victory lap this week, after Procter & Gamble shareholders voted overwhelmingly for the U.S. consumer products giant to eliminate deforestation and intact forest degradation from its supply chain.

It’s time for Asia—the region that British Columbia and Alberta are counting on as a future market for oil and gas exports—to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels and risk of stranded assets by embracing low-cost renewable energy options, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis concludes in a new report.

A mass shift toward electric transport is not enough to bring global transportation emissions in line with the targets in the 2015 Paris Agreement, according to a new study that calls for aggressive “degrowth”— encompassing radical mobility shifts—to keep warming below 2°C.

The International Energy Agency is taking intense criticism this morning for a set of energy futures scenarios that factor in the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, recognize the transition taking hold in global energy production, but still guide governments, corporations, and investors toward decisions that will drive average global warming far above 1.5°C.

November may be emerging as a crunch month for Canada’s small and mid-sized fossil producers, as banks go through a semi-annual review of whether their borrowers’ financial health and future prospects justify the level of operating loans they depend on—particularly with a second wave of the pandemic gaining momentum.

A maze of more than 2,600 bilateral treaties and preferential trade agreements could expose governments to costly lawsuits by allowing foreign investors and shareholders to recover losses on their stranded oil, gas, and coal assets, according to a new analysis by the London, UK-based International Institute for Environment and Development.

Natural gas is quickly declining as a supposed “bridge” between coal-fired electricity and renewable energy, without even factoring in the climate-busting methane emissions that come along with natural gas produced by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Global energy storage capacity could hit 741 gigawatt-hours (GWh) by 2030, an astonishing threshold that would be driven by compound annual growth of 31%, according to a new assessment by Wood Mackenzie that shows the United States accounting for almost half of the global total.

The Canadian government’s declared intent to ban certain single-use plastics and start leading on recycled content standards and extended producer responsibility (EPR) programs has met with backlash, praise, and demands that more be done.

The federal and Ontario governments will each invest C$295 million to help Ford Motor Co. retool its assembly plant in Oakville to make electric vehicles.

Newfoundland and Labrador is reeling from a series of fossil job losses this week, with three different companies all announcing definite or likely cuts.

The Jason Kenney government in Alberta is pitching hydrogen, plastics recycling, and even geothermal energy as elements of an economic diversification strategy that leans heavily on natural gas to create tens of thousands of jobs and reboot the province’s sagging economy.

The International Monetary Fund is calling on member governments to spend big and create millions of jobs with long-term infrastructure projects, particularly green infrastructure, even as many of the world’s leading businesses urge the G20 countries to step up in response to the climate crisis.

Faced with a massive wave of hype for a new generation of “silver bullet” climate solutions, from green hydrogen to carbon capture to (relatively) small nuclear reactors, experts are pointing back to the established technologies that can already deliver on a decarbonization agenda while bringing solid financial returns to investors.

University of Calgary undergrads are fleeing en masse from oil and gas-friendly majors as job security in the industry plummets. And renewable energy studies are picking up the slack.

ExxonMobil may be plotting to increase its already enormous annual greenhouse gas emissions by 17% over the next five years, as much as the entire nation of Greece, according to an internal assessment of the company’s US$210-billion investment strategy obtained by Bloomberg Green.

The economic advantages of renewable energy, accentuated by new federal incentives for low-carbon investment, may be driving a wedge between kindred conservative governments in Ontario and Alberta.

A Toronto-Dominion Bank subsidiary is planning a 60-megawatt battery storage project, Canada’s biggest to date, using arrays of Tesla batteries to store electricity and help balance and stabilize the Alberta power grid as it adds more renewable power.

Enbridge’s plans to build a pipeline tunnel to carry oil beneath a waterway linking Lake Michigan to Lake Huron are below industry standard and riddled with hazards, according to a group of experts asked to evaluate the project.

In what student campaigners are celebrating as a “historic victory,” Cambridge University has pledged to divest completely from fossil fuels by 2030, and to be emissions-free across its entire investment portfolio by 2038.

California’s decision to ban sales of internal combustion vehicles after 2035 is good news for both automakers and the electricity grid, Rocky Mountain Institute CEO Jules Kortenhorst writes in a recent blog post.

The Royal Bank of Canada’s announcement late last week that it will restrict investments in some fossil fuel projects was a “baby step” and just the first of many it will have to take to “move into a zero-carbon future,” two veteran climate analysts told The Energy Mix yesterday.

Combining solar power with hydroelectricity in floating reservoirs could meet nearly 50% of global electricity demand, says a new study being described as “potentially market-making.”

You would have missed it if you blinked (we did, too), but anti-nuclear advocates say the federal Speech from the Throne two weeks ago contained a clear signal of support for an industry with a “legacy of toxic radioactive waste” now trying to associate itself with Canada’s net-zero emissions target.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has thrown her country’s 2030 emissions reduction target of 70% into doubt, and may have jeopardized her governing coalition, with a climate plan that falls short of coalition partners’ expectations and steps away from past promises to tax pollution.

An international coalition of NGOs and Indigenous groups is warning that the net-zero emissions concept has become little more than a licence to pollute as governments and fossils leverage their version of “nature-based solutions” to dodge the heavy lifting of actual emissions cuts.

The global steel industry is on the verge of a transformative, multi-billion-dollar opportunity, with plummeting renewable energy costs and green hydrogen pointing to a possible pathway to completely decarbonize an extremely energy-intensive industry by 2050, writes Rocky Mountain Institute principal Thomas Koch Blank in a recent blog post.

The “renovation wave” of energy retrofits poised to sweep the European Union has architects and policy-makers excited for the chance to create a new common aesthetic—one that just may support a less arrogant understanding of humanity’s place in the natural world.

Climate and energy analysts are mostly praising a new two- to three-year, C$10-billion “growth plan” that includes $2.5 billion for clean power and storage, $2 billion for building energy retrofits, $2 billion to extend broadband access to underserved communities, $1.5 billion for zero-emission buses, and $1.5 billion for agriculture infrastructure, unveiled yesterday by the Canada Infrastructure Bank.

The federal government may be closing in on a decision on whether to overhaul the much-maligned passenger rail lines in the corridor between Toronto and Quebec City.

The supply chains of big, multinational companies like Coca-Cola, Walmart, and Total SA account for nearly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The head of Mumbai-based utility company Tata Power is calling on the government of India to phase out nearly 500 older coal plants that have been in operation for 25 or 30 years—but only sees about one-third of the demand that opens up being met by renewable sources of electricity.

A company 95% owned by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Crestone Peak Resources, spent more than US$607,250 to shape the results of state elections in Colorado in 2018, supporting “pro-business” candidates and political action committees bent on blocking tougher regulation of controversial oil and gas fracking operations in the state.

A new report released yesterday by Queen’s University’s Institute for Sustainable Finance concludes that meeting Canada’s Harper-era greenhouse gas reduction targets under the 2015 Paris Agreement would cost just a fraction of a percent of GDP—though the Trudeau government would still have to boost its climate investments, and the analysis relies on carbon capture technologies that are far from being proven or cost-effective.

Adam Scott is director of Shift:Action, an organization that engages with Canadian pension funds on climate accountability and risk. In this interview, he talks about the ideologies that still drive fossil fuel investment, the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board’s adventures in Colorado, and what it takes to make pensions a fascinating topic.

Carbon reduction pledges without action are like pandemic plans with no provision for social distancing, according to a group of University of Exeter scientists accusing governments of “climate hypocrisy” for supporting the 2015 Paris Agreement while subsidizing fossil fuels, clearcutting forests, and pursuing other policies that drive up greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.

Nordic countries are helping to lead on the European Union’s commitment to source 30% of its energy from renewables by 2030, thanks to renewable-driven heating systems and smart energy developments.

Canadian tar sands/oil sands producers are hoping for another export route to Asia after Donald Trump said he would issue a presidential permit to build a C$22-billion freight rail line between Alaska and Alberta.

China would rely on a massive increase in solar, nuclear, and wind capacity while cutting its coal consumption 96% between 2025 and 2060 under a “first blueprint” for fulfilling the carbon neutrality target unveiled by President Xi Jinping at last week’s United Nations General Assembly.

Within hours of each other Friday, Environment and Climate Minister Jonathan Wilkinson vowed that a series of five-year emissions targets through 2050 will be his top legislative priority this fall, while Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan unveiled a C$320-million cash infusion for the struggling fossil industry in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The world faces a “climate reckoning”, and countries must create a more equitable international system that can confront 21st century challenges, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the United Nations General Assembly in a recorded address Friday.

Ralph Torrie is a senior associate with the Sustainability Solutions Group, partner in Torrie Smith Associates, and one of Canada’s leading energy and carbon modellers. He helped design and lead a series of green recovery webinars and publications that laid some of the groundwork for last week’s Throne Speech. In this interview, he talks about what the speech got right, the tough path to 1.5°C, and what’s still needed to get Canada’s transition off carbon on track.

The world nuclear industry “continues to be in stasis,” with power plants shutting down at a faster rate in western Europe and the United States, the number of operating reactor units at a 30-year low, and the few new construction projects running into “catastrophic cost overruns and schedule slippages,” according to the latest edition of the annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report (WNISR), released last week.

The mayors of a dozen major world cities, including Berlin, Milan, and Vancouver, have pledged to divest from fossil fuels—a move that sends a shot across the bow of those still working to inhibit efforts to “build back better.”

Climate change moved to the centre of Canada’s million-job recovery strategy, the Trudeau government pledged immediate action on more ambitious carbon reduction targets, neither the fossil nor the nuclear industry rated a single explicit mention, and a government-appointed senator was more deeply critical than many of the country’s leading campaign organizations as Governor General Julie Payette read a much-anticipated Speech from the Throne Wednesday afternoon.

Despite a flurry of announcements from colossal fossils claiming great plans to decarbonize their operations, the companies’ actual performance shows they can’t be counted on to manage their own decline, Oil Change International concludes in a scathing new report that finds “failure across the board” in the industry’s climate plans.

Éric St-Pierre is Executive Director of the Trottier Family Foundation in Montreal. He recently coordinated an opinion piece from a dozen Canadian philanthropic foundations that set expectations for the Throne Speech and a green recovery. In this interview, he talks about the highlights and gaps in the speech, the next steps for the government, and the hard work ahead for the climate community.

Climate change denial is dangerous, but just as harmful are “climate delay” strategies that merely pretend to address the climate crisis. And learning to recognize the difference between real action and climate delay tactics is critical for both the public and policy-makers, warns a veteran Canadian climate policy analyst.

While Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk promised a US$25,000 electric vehicle within three years, driven by dramatic production cost reductions and performance improvements, for battery cells, his highly-touted Battery Day event earlier this week ended up disappointing investors looking for a bigger announcement and faster results.

As their homelands see more and more damage from the escalating chaos of the climate crisis, the national leaders of Bangladesh and the Marshall Islands called on the rest of the world for compassion, courage, solidarity, and action as the annual United Nations General Assembly convened this week.

Climate change denial is dangerous, but just as harmful are “climate delay” strategies that merely pretend to address the climate crisis. And learning to recognize the difference between real action and climate delay tactics is critical for both the public and policy-makers, warns a veteran Canadian climate policy analyst.

Alberta is set to surpass Ontario as Canada’s leading jurisdiction for utility-scale wind and solar, with 83% of the country’s new installations over the next five years, according to a new analysis by Oslo-based Rystad Energy.

Colossal fossil Royal Dutch Shell is planning to cut its oil and gas production costs 30 to 40% and focus more of its efforts on renewable energy, Reuters reports, hoping to fight competitors like BP and Total for market share “as economies around the world go green”.

The UK’s buses, ferries, and trains could be swapping diesel fuel for green hydrogen as early as 2022.

With the wait for the federal Speech from the Throne winding down to the last couple of days, news analysts are pointing to air quality issues in the west and the need for a clean economy industrial strategy as evidence that now is the time for the Trudeau government to embrace a green recovery.

The richest 10% of the world’s population accounted for more than half of humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions between 1990 and 2015, and the richest 1% in Canada emitted more than 100 times as much per capita as the poorest 50% world-wide, Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute conclude, in a report to be launched during a Climate Week NYC webinar Friday morning.

China is considering a long-term climate plan that commits to carbon neutrality by 2050, just days after the European Union boosted its 2030 emission reduction target from 40 to 55%.

Three different automakers are unveiling new plans to introduce electric pick-up trucks, or to use the vehicles as emissions-free “power plants” by equipping them with hydrogen fuel cells.

A $27-billion energy retrofit program, stepped-up investment in green electricity, and building an “industrial ecosystem” for zero-emission vehicles are lead elements of a five-year, $55.4-billion green investment program released Wednesday by the 15-member Task Force for a Resilient Recovery.

A list of more than 100 Canadian economists and resource policy specialists that includes a former CEO of BC Hydro and Ontario Hydro is urging the federal government to reassess the viability of the Trans Mountain expansion project in light of rising project costs and plummeting oil demand, while a group of campaigners in British Columbia takes a victory lap for slowing down construction of the controversial pipeline.

A decade after adopting a set of biodiversity restoration goals under a United Nations treaty, countries have missed every single milestone in the effort to protect the world’s genetic diversity, food supply, health, and security, according to a report released by the UN this week.

Two out of three low-income households in the United States face disproportionately steep energy bills, says a new report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).

The Canada Pension Plan’s “substantial private equity investments” in the fossil industry over the last few years have undercut the country’s climate commitments and “underestimate the urgent need for climate action and energy transition,” according to a new report from the Canada Climate Law Initiative that scorches the “troubling incrementalism” in the CPP’s investment strategy.

Colossal fossil BP is launching what Bloomberg Green calls a “five-year sprint” to increase its renewable energy portfolio eight-fold, or by 20 gigawatts, by 2025.

Canadians looking to buy an electric vehicle likely face a long wait, with auto dealerships across the country chronically undersupplied even as policy-makers invest in charging infrastructure and incentives, says a new report commissioned by Transport Canada.

A UK nuclear developer has abandoned two projects in a decision described as a “huge blow” to the industry, after Japanese multinational conglomerate Hitachi announced it was withdrawing from one of the two, the £15- to £20-billion Wylfa Newydd plant on Anglesey, Wales.

The federal New Democratic Party leadership is taking grassroot fire for failing to use its position in a minority parliament to press the Trudeau government for tougher green recovery measures in its hotly-anticipated Speech from the Throne September 23.

Municipalities are the cornerstone of the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and low-carbon investments and infrastructure will deliver the jobs, resilience, and support for marginalized and vulnerable populations the Trudeau government is expected to emphasize in its Speech from the Throne next week, according to the lead author of a new report on greening the global recovery through cities.

A group of big, institutional investors with a combined US$41 trillion under management is turning up the heat on 161 fossils, mining companies, and other major emitters, demanding that they adopt a set of strategies to reach net-zero emissions and pledging to hold them to account for their actions.

The global fossil industry is facing a parade of bad news this week, with colossal fossil BP concluding that global oil demand has already peaked, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) predicting a steeper demand drop due to the slow recovery from the pandemic, and the International Energy Agency warning that “the path ahead is treacherous”.

With Husky Energy on the hunt for government bailouts for its C$2.2-billion West White Rose project off the Newfoundland coast, the provincial government is making it clear it doesn’t have any spare cash available to help the Calgary-based fossil out.

While recent pledges by Lyft and Uber to electrify their entire Canadian fleets by 2030 are laudable, public policy is still needed to tackle the growing spike in emissions as a pandemic-wary public increasingly turns away from transit and toward ride-hailing.

A massive proposed solar+storage project in Kansas City could be a “game-changer” that shuts down claims that fossil fuels are still needed as a backstop for when the sun doesn’t shine.

A ban on SUVs, a frequent flyer tax, carbon emissions labelling, and protections for those most exposed in the push to net zero were among the core recommendations when the UK’s citizen-led Climate Assembly issued its final report last week.

Analysts are predicting a massive renewable energy boom across the Asia Pacific region over the next decade, with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) anticipating a 250% increase in renewables’ share of power generation between 2014 and 2025 and Wood Mackenzie forecasting more than 170 gigawatts of new renewables capacity each year through 2030.

Renewable energy capacity in Latin America is set to grow 2½ times, from 49 gigawatts today to 123 gigawatts in 2025, with Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, and Argentina leading the rise of an emerging “green powerhouse”, analysts at Rystad Energy write in a new assessment for Energy Voice News.

In an Australian first, Sydney-based public utility AGL is launching a “Netflix for EVs”: a rather pricey subscription service, paid weekly, that offers customers access to a serviced and insured electric car, along with the home charging system they need to keep it powered.

The risk of climate hazards is likely to increase over the next couple of decades for U.S. nuclear power plants whose economics are already tenuous enough that one unplanned disaster could put them out of operation, Utility Dive reports, citing a report issued last month by Moody’s Investors Service.

With passenger traffic at Vancouver International Airport (YVR) down 63% from last year, airport authorities have terminated a C$600 million expansion project—and the 4,000 jobs that went with it.

Husky Energy is looking to federal and provincial governments for a bailout for its C$2.2-billion West White Rose project, an oil and gas drilling venture off the Newfoundland coast that it had planned to expand until the COVID-19 pandemic sent global fossil markets into a tailspin.

Some of the world’s most colossal fossils posted epic financial losses between April and June this year, all in the interest of preserving their dividends to shareholders, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis concluded in a research brief late last month.

This is the second of two excerpts from Seth Klein’s A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency, published in early September and available here. The book includes Klein’s “battle plan”, a set of key lessons for the climate mobilization from the Second World War.

Millions of Americans live in so-called “sacrifice zones,” where racism and rapacious economic imperatives are robbing entire communities of the fundamentals for a healthy and dignified life. That has activists calling for the creation of a regenerative economy in which communities have a direct say in the policies and decisions that affect their world.

The impending closure of Ontario’s Pickering Nuclear Station is an opportunity to build a sustainable energy system based on sound energy efficiency programs, investment in local renewables, and hydroelectric power held in the public control—not ramped-up gas power generation, says the Ontario Clean Air Alliance.

Climate change will be a far bigger challenge to national economies than the COVID-19 pandemic, European Central Bank executive board member Isabel Schnabel told Reuters in an interview last week.

One of the partners in British Columbia’s massive LNG Canada megaproject, Malaysian state fossil Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas), is planning to cut global oil and gas production and expand its presence in solar and wind after posting a US$5.06-billion loss between April and June of this year.

With the Trudeau government expected to introduce a vision for a just, green recovery in its Speech from the Throne later this month, a profound shift in national monetary policy—yes, monetary policy—is emerging as a cornerstone of the new strategy.

This is the first of two excerpts from Seth Klein’s A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency, published in early September and available here. The book includes Klein’s “battle plan”, a set of key lessons for the climate mobilization from the Second World War.

The global fossil industry received a “staggering” US$3.1 trillion in direct and indirect subsidies in 2017, 20 times more than renewable energy, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) revealed in an analysis released last week.

The federal government’s Speech from the Throne will lay out an “ambitious green agenda” that sets the stage for a “long-term recovery” from the COVID-19 pandemic, leads the way on Canada’s shift to renewable energy and response to the climate crisis, and looks out for people working in industries affected by the transition, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Global News Wednesday.

More than three-quarters of Canadians see climate change as a serious issue, 57% say it has affected them or their loved ones, and 86% want the federal government to invest in clean energy technology to help address the crisis, according to an Abacus Data report released this week by the Canadian Nuclear Association.

Renewable energy delivered more than two-thirds of the 265 gigawatts of new electricity generation capacity installed around the world last year, with solar alone accounting for 45% of the total, according to the Power Transition Trends 2020 report issued this week by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).

In the latest in a groundswell of climate liability lawsuits, the coastal city of Hoboken, New Jersey is suing six fossil giants as well as the American Petroleum Institute (API) trade group, accusing them of a deliberate, decades-long campaign of deception and demanding compensation for current and future climate impacts.

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau travelled to Houston in March 2017 and declared fealty to a fossil fuel industry already entering its sunset, he showed it was bound to be a long, hard climb back to more sober-minded policy-making. Now, the question for Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is whether that position still rings true in the context of a global health emergency, an accelerating climate crisis, a mounting wave of fossil fuel divestment and stranded assets, and the meteoric rise of clean energy alternatives.

Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England now serving as United Nations special envoy on climate action and finance, signed on last week as vice-chair of Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management.

A business-as-usual response to the climate crisis will imperil the well-being of frontier and emerging economies by 2050—particularly in Asia, where the loss of outdoor working hours due to heat stress and humidity alone could remove US$4.7 trillion of the continent’s annual GDP.

As the residents of Louisiana’s industry-heavy coast begin the long work of recovering from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Laura—and the highly toxic chemical fire it triggered—citizens are once again facing down one of the hard truths of a fossil economy: when a climate disaster strikes, marginalized communities get pummelled.

The federal government isn’t saying whether it will top up funding for its C$300-million electric vehicle purchase incentive, even though Transport Canada figures show 75% of the funds used up in the first 15 months of the three-year program.

Renewable energy stocks that have “performed superbly” in spite of the Trump presidency are poised to do even better, if a Biden victory in the U.S. election this fall gives the cleantech sector its “next big push,” the Globe and Mail reported last month.

What do oil executives and climate activists have in common? Not much, if you listen to popular media narratives pitting environmental protection against economic growth. But at the Energy Futures Lab, diverse innovators and stakeholders in Alberta’s energy sector are finding plenty of room for collaboration.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is jeopardizing Canadians’ retirement savings, undercutting federal government policy, and making a mockery of one of the country’s few points of climate leadership on the world stage by investing C$141 million in Chinese coal companies, a leading pensions and climate advocate said in late July.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s dramatic resignation last night opens up an opportunity for his successor to embrace a green and just recovery as a cornerstone of the federal government’s COVID-19 recovery strategy, leading climate and energy strategists have told The Energy Mix.

Less than 24 hours after presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden chose Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) as his running mate in this fall’s election, the climate news wires were buzzing with recaps of her position on climate action, her record on environmental justice, and the likely outcome after the Biden-Harris campaign pushes the Trump administration out of office in November.

Canada’s tar sands/oil sands have a continuing and growing role to play, with their output increasing over the shorter and longer term as the country strives to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan told the Financial Times in an interview published this week.

The fine print in BP’s bold, new carbon reduction pledge shows the UK-based colossal fossil still plans to invest billions in environmental catastrophe over the next decade, writes self-described eco-auditor, columnist, and Stop Killing Cyclists founder Donnachadh McCarthy, in a blistering opinion piece for The Independent.

After agreeing long ago to donate land so that Toronto’s impoverished but determined-to-flourish Jane-Finch neighbourhood could build a cultural and community hub, transit agency Metrolinx is being excoriated for betraying its promise—a decision that seems to reflect the persistent appearance that, in the minds of policy-makers, Black lives don’t matter all that much, after all.

A group of seven renewable energy co-ops from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Nova Scotia is calling on the federal government to emphasize community power procurement, deep energy retrofits, and smart grid development in economic stimulus responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A “fundamental transformation” in the direction of a nature-friendly global economy could produce US$10 trillion in annual business opportunities and a mind-boggling 395 million jobs by 2030, the International Institute for Sustainable Development reports, in a review of a recent report by the World Economic Forum.

Pakistan may be jeopardizing its own hopes of bringing renewable energy to 30% of its electricity mix by 2030, from 4% today, by pursuing a parallel plan to build new coal plants.

While a carbon border adjustment looks reasonable at face value as a way to encourage faster, deeper carbon cuts, the approach will fail the equity test in the 2015 Paris Agreement if it puts the onus on developing countries to curtail fossil fuel use the developed world has worked hard to promote.

Summer speculation was swirling in Ottawa this week with the news that former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney is back in the country and advising the federal government on next steps in its economic recovery plan. Carney’s arrival coincided with persistent rumours that Finance Minister Bill Morneau may soon be out of a job, though Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went out of his way yesterday to express confidence in Morneau.

With colossal fossils Total and Shell downgrading the value of their oil and gas assets, BP pledging to cut oil and gas production 40% by 2030, and even fossil behemoth ExxonMobil ripping up a US$30-billion plan to renew its oil and gas reserves, Bloomberg Green is out with a timely explainer on stranded assets.

India’s plan to boost an economy ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic and reduce its dependence on expensive coal imports is producing a moment of deep peril for the Hasdeo Arand, a biodiverse, ecologically sensitive forest in the state of Chhattisgarh, as the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi sets its sights on the five billion tonnes of coal beneath the surface.

The decision by coal giant Peabody Energy to cut the declared value of the United States’ biggest coal mine by US$1.42 billion is an acknowledgement that “thermal coal mines in the U.S. have little value anymore and not much of a future,” the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) writes in an assessment of the August 5 announcement.

New Mexico is emerging as a promising model for governments aiming to phase out coal without leaving behind the households and communities that depend on coal industry jobs, after an Albuquerque-based private utility decided to divest its share of the 925-megawatt San Juan coal plant in 2022 and invest in 650 MW of solar generation and 300 MW of battery storage.

China’s most colossal fossil is investing some of its winnings in renewable energy after selling off US$38 billion worth of pipelines, after concluding it can make more money by switching technologies.

Solar developers and sheep farmers are being increasingly found in harmonious co-existence across the United States—and reduced fire risk, heightened community acceptance, and a shot at spectacular cost savings are three key reasons why.

A Milwaukee design team has produced an award-winning bike lane barrier made from discarded car tires. Reproducible at scale and easy to build with a few tools, the WeCLAIM barrier promises to repurpose a share of the 300 million car tires that are scrapped each year in the United States alone.

Sen. Rosa Galvez chaired the Department of Civil and Water Engineering at Laval University, where she led a research project on the consequences of the explosion and spill of an oil-carrying freight train in Lac Mégantic before she was appointed to the Canadian Senate on November 2, 2016. As a member of the Senate National Finance Committee, she played a leading role in a review of Canada’s economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this interview, she assesses the federal government’s record so far in building a green recovery that focuses on people first.

Successive Alberta governments over the last 44 years have mismanaged their way out of C$575 billion in revenue that should have been available to help cushion the province from a brutal oil price crash and chart a course to a more diverse, less fossil-dependent economy, according to a University of Calgary economics professor.

Although the financial sector’s commitments to climate accountability and greater transparency only began to pick up major momentum in the months before the coronavirus made its appearance, the pandemic has not slowed down the drive for lower-carbon investments, as many campaigners feared it might.

ExxonMobil’s massive Kearl Lake mine north of Fort McMurray may be the latest tar sands/oil sands to be devalued as one of the world’s most determined colossal fossils considers designating up to one-fifth of its global oil and gas reserves as stranded assets, part of a company-wide scramble to respond to crashing oil prices and weak markets for its product.

A group backed by 70 major investors with more than US$16 trillion under management has launched the Net Zero Investment Framework, the world’s first blueprint to help pension funds and other big investing institutions match the composition of their investment portfolios with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

The offshore wind industry is poised to increase its output eightfold, from 29 to 234 gigawatts, and create 900,000 or more jobs by 2030, according to new analysis by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) that shows China leading the growth in installed capacity.

Two years after an international expert wrote a lengthy report on the myriad factors likely to lead to major construction cost overruns on the Site C hydroelectric dam, BC Hydro is blaming the COVID-19 pandemic for the multiple woes that now beset the megaproject. Not so fast, say those who have long and fiercely opposed it.

After French petroleum giant Total wrote off C$9.3 billion in stranded assets in the tar sands/oil sands, the Jason Kenney government had the option of treating the announcement as a wake-up call, not a cheap shot. And Albertans were hurt first and worst when their government made the wrong choice, The Energy Mix publisher Mitchell Beer argues in a post for The Narwhal.

Alberta’s United Conservative Party is considering relieving the province’s oil and gas operators of their obligation to pay municipal property taxes, an act of corporate welfare that would leave rural communities unable to balance their budgets without resorting to steep residential tax hikes or savage cuts to services. 

The Trudeau government appears to be betting on a second White House term for Donald Trump, Environmental Defence Executive Director Tim Gray observes in a blog post this week. And that means Ottawa could be caught offside if Joe Biden wins the presidency, with his plan for a US$2-trillion green recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

London, UK-based BP says it will reduce its fossil fuel output 40% by 2030 and scale back its dividend to shareholders for the first time since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster in 2010, as the world’s fourth most colossal fossil responds to mounting calls for climate action, the economic chaos wrought by the coronavirus pandemic, and a US$6.7-billion quarterly loss.

The Ontario Energy Board must expand the province’s natural gas energy efficiency programs as a way to meet provincial carbon targets, create jobs, and drive the COVID-19 economic recovery, Efficiency Canada argues in a letter it submitted yesterday to three senior provincial cabinet ministers.

One hundred and sixteen years after the Volkswagen factory in Zwickau, Germany (also known as the City of Cars) first began producing internal combustion vehicles, the very last one has rolled off its assembly line, with a shift to full EV production planned for year’s end.

Arguing that global financial markets will inevitably begin factoring in the near-term policy response to climate change over the next five years, a United Nations program wants to help investors prepare for the portfolio risks they’ll face as a result.

NRG Energy’s decision to mothball a coal-fired carbon capture project in Texas, just 3½ years after it went online in January 2017, is a sign of things to come for other, similar plants in the United States, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) concludes in a new research brief.

French colossal fossil Total sent a shockwave through the Alberta oilpatch Wednesday with the announcement that it is writing off C$9.3 billion in assets in the tar sands/oil sands, including $7.3 billion in the Fort Hills mine, which opened just 2½ years ago, and the Surmont thermal oilsands project.

Canada is at risk of undermining its “historic reputation for environmental leadership” if it fails to match its words on climate change and an ambitious green recovery with action, former Irish president and United Nations human rights commissioner Mary Robinson writes in a post this week for the Globe and Mail.

After years of being left without flood protection—with all support earmarked for the coastal properties of the wealthy—Houston’s low-lying neighbourhoods have found champions in policy-makers determined to prioritize the protection of those who would face a more difficult recovery. But not everyone appreciates this application of environmental justice.

The United Kingdom’s biggest pension fund is banning investments in tar sands/oil sands, Arctic drilling, and coal projects—against the wishes of the country’s current pensions minister.

The most comprehensive cost-benefit analysis ever on nature protections has found that the economic, ecological, and spiritual benefits of protecting 30% of the world’s marine and terrestrial ecosystems will outweigh the costs by a factor of at least five to one.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is jeopardizing Canadians’ retirement savings, undercutting federal government policy, and making a mockery of one of the country’s few points of climate leadership on the world stage by investing C$141 million in Chinese coal companies, a leading pensions and climate advocate said this week.

Frankfurt-based banking giant Deutsche Bank is immediately cutting off financing for new tar sands/oil sands and Arctic oil and gas projects and will end its involvement with coal mining by 2025, in a move that at least one Canadian climate analyst praised but a European campaign organization cast as just a first step in a longer transformation.

The Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s largest chartered bank and one of its biggest boosters for new fossil infrastructure, is dipping its toe in the world of renewable energy finance by buying into two new solar farms producing a combined 39 megawatts of electricity in southeast Alberta.

As pandemic-weary Americans flee mass transit in droves and commuter-driven emissions begin to spike back up, a Black transit policy expert is urging city leaders to recognize the critical role that public transit plays in creating a world where Black lives do matter. 

Less than two weeks after a report that renewably-produced “green” hydrogen could be cost competitive with fossil-dependent “grey” by 2030, a new analysis by banking giant Morgan Stanley says plummeting wind energy prices could push green hydrogen into the lead by 2023.

Utility-scale solar has hit another absurdly low price threshold, with a consortium of four companies offering a tariff price of US1.35¢ per kilowatt hour for the two-gigawatt Al Dhafra solar farm in Abu Dhabi.

The International Energy Agency is giving political cover to new fossil megaprojects, and risks undermining its own influence over the next few years, by failing to put a 1.5°C limit on average global warming at the centre of its modelling and analysis, according to several analysts and campaigners cited in a review this week by Climate Home News.

Loan guarantees and other forms of financial risk management from Export Development Canada (EDC) could clear the way for bank loans well in excess of C$100 million to help individual fossil fuel companies weather the financial storm produced by the coronavirus pandemic, leaving taxpayers to help cover the banks’ losses if the companies can’t make good on their borrowing, The Energy Mix has learned.

The outsized political power of U.S. utilities has come into sharp focus over the last 10 days, with bribery scandals in Ohio and Illinois reaching senior politicians in both states, including the speakers of both state houses.

Ottawa and the provinces must work harder to support Canada’s Indigenous peoples in becoming full partners in the clean energy transition—and Indigenous youth need to be encouraged, mentored, and supported to lead those partnerships, according to a recent opinion piece in iPolitics.

The federal government’s successful use of its purchasing power to get medical equipment produced during the COVID-19 pandemic might help shift a years-long debate over the role of government procurement in supporting start-up cleantech companies.

Mammoth global insurance company Zurich has decided to abandon its role as principal insurer for the Trans Mountain pipeline when its coverage expires August 31.

An independent task force of Canadian finance and policy experts is calling on the federal government to invest C$50 billion over the next five years in five “bold moves for a resilient recovery”, with a $27-billion building energy retrofit program leading a list of 22 specific policy measures.

Sarah Petrevan is Policy Director at Clean Energy Canada, and one of the key climate advocates monitoring Ottawa’s progress toward a just, green recovery. With Canadians waiting and watching to see what form that recovery will take, she shares her latest assessment of where the discussion stands.

The federal government is promising to triple the pace of Canada’s energy efficiency improvements to 3% per year, and the country’s energy efficiency advocacy network, Efficiency Canada, is out with a three-point plan to get started down that path.

In what observers are describing as a “world-first” legal case, a 23-year-old law student from Melbourne is taking the Australian government to court, charging it with failing in its legal duty to inform investors in its sovereign bonds about climate-related financial risks.

Smart city technologies are poised to increase energy efficiency and encourage sustainable living in municipalities focused on building back better after the COVID-19 pandemic and curbing their greenhouse gas emissions, Oilprice.com reports.

Routing public financing through an “opaque Crown corporation with minimal government oversight” is not the way to be accountable for the way pandemic recovery funds are spent—or for the proportion of that money going to fossil fuel bailouts, three leading advocacy groups argue in a backgrounder published this morning.

Canada’s new impact assessment rules for power plants, pipelines, and other major infrastructure fall far short of the climate test environmental organizations have been calling for, and only require a path to net-zero emissions for projects that will still be in operation in 2050, under a new federal framework unveiled last week.

Just a day after declaring it a “mission impossible”, leaders of 27 European countries finalized a COVID-19 recovery plan and seven-year budget worth €1.8 trillion, with nearly one-third of the total set aside for climate measures but reduced funding to key climate initiatives and only limited “green strings” to prevent investments in polluting industries.

The long-suffering Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is hoping to emerge as a major beneficiary of the C$19-billion emergency relief package for provinces and municipalities unveiled last week by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

South Korea stepped back from setting a deadline for phasing out its greenhouse gas emissions last week is it unveiled a ₩42.7-trillion/US$35-billion plan to invest in renewable energy and environmental infrastructure.

Citing the pandemic-induced global collapse of air travel, British Airways has announced the immediate retirement of its legendary Boeing 747s. Elegant, but a gas-guzzler—and therefore incompatible with BA’s declared target of reaching net-zero by 2050—the world’s first jumbo jet was originally set to be retired from the airline’s fleet in 2024.

The slow pace of coal plant retirements around the world has a veteran climate advocate calling for a “cash for clunkers” program to speed up the process of getting the world’s most carbon-intensive fuel out of circulation.

Canada’s pandemic response to date has sent just C$300 million to clean energy, compared to more than $16 billion to fossil fuels, according to new data released this week by Energy Policy Tracker, a joint effort by multiple civil society organizations including the Winnipeg-based International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).

A yearly investment of US$2.7 trillion in ecosystem health would reap an annual 400 million jobs and $10 trillion in returns through 2030, according to a new report from the World Economic Forum, prompting the study authors to urge policy-makers to make restoration of the devastated natural world a cornerstone of all pandemic recovery efforts.