Even on its own terms, the outcome of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow was catastrophic
The future was supposed to be copitalism: a new global economic paradigm where national governments work together through the United Nations (UN) Conference of the Parties (COP) process to limit emissions and prevent runaway climate breakdown – while leaving capitalism otherwise intact.
For decades, the fossil fuel industry ran a wildly successful and well-funded campaign to muddy the waters when it came to climate change. It denied the science, created false equivalencies and dumped billions upon billions of dollars into projects designed to protect profits. Then, a few years ago, this lie was exposed just as the impacts of climate change began to be felt widely around the world.
Extreme weather fuelled by climate breakdown is exposing the vulnerability of key infrastructure in British Columbia and is reviving questions among environmentalists and residents about building the Trans Mountain expansion pipeline.
As British Columbia’s New Democratic Party prepares for its first biennial convention since winning the 2020 election, memories of last summer’s deadly heat domes and wildfires still burn deeply. B.C. is experiencing the global consequences of carbon-intensive extractivism – the kind of “rip and ship” (extract and export) economic policies pursued by the previous right-of-centre B.C. Liberal government for most of its 2001-2017 term of office.
