Climate Change

15/11/23
Author: 
Barry Saxifrage
2030 image

Nov. 15, 2023

Canada still has eight years to achieve our 2030 climate target. But rising emissions over the last two years look like they've already pushed it out of reach. That’s because we are now at a point where each wasted year makes the remaining task overwhelmingly larger.

Have we already run out the clock on climate hope in Canada? Take a look at these five charts and decide for yourself.

The rising cost of delay

My first chart shows the rapidly steepening path to Canada’s 2030 climate target.

15/11/23
Author: 
Tik Root
Lawn equipment spews ‘shocking’ amount of air pollution. Photo by Seattle Parks and Recreation/Flickr (CC BY 2.0 Deed)

Nov. 15, 2023

This story was originally published by Grist and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Lawn-care equipment — leaf-blowers, lawnmowers and the like — doesn’t top most people’s lists of climate priorities. But a new report documents how, in aggregate, lawn care is a major source of U.S. air pollution.

10/11/23
Author: 
Claire Elise Thompson, Associate Editor

Nov. 8, 2023

 

The vision

“Air conditioning was a most important invention for us, perhaps one of the signal inventions of history. It changed the nature of civilization by making development possible in the tropics.”

Lee Kuan Yew, the founding prime minister of Singapore, in a 2009 interview

10/11/23
Author: 
Natasha Bulowski
Bloc Québécois MP Monique Pauzé before a federal committee meeting on Sept. 28, 2023. Photo by Natasha Bulowski

Nov. 10, 2023

Canada’s environment commissioner said it is not clear how the oil and gas sector will achieve the greenhouse gas emission reductions prescribed under the federal government’s climate plan, and called for more transparency around the modelling.

07/11/23
Author: 
Natasha Bulowski
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's non-binding motion to exempt all forms of home heating from the carbon price was defeated on Nov. 6, 2023. File photo by Alex Tétreault

Nov. 7, 2023

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s symbolic motion calling for more carbon tax carveouts was defeated, but this won’t end the polarizing debate that centres on equity.

For the most part, opposition politicians and provincial governments have focused their attention on pushing for more carbon price carveouts, calling the Liberals’ three-year exemption on heating oil unfair to the rest of Canadians.

06/11/23
Author: 
Wilderness Committee
Another massive LNG plant on the West Coast?

Nov. 6, 2023

Ksi Lisims LNG is a proposal in Nisga’a territory to liquefy almost as much gas as LNG Canada. Although the proponent wants to use hydroelectricity to do so, that will only happen if BC Hydro — and its ratepayers — build it a brand new transmission line. Even then, the fracking required to fill it will make the facility among the province’s worst polluters.

05/11/23
Author: 
John Woodside
Illustration by Ata Ojani/Canada's National Observer

Nov. 3, 2023

Nuclear proliferation experts are warning that 50 years of policy designed to limit the spread of nuclear weapons is unravelling as governments invest in certain small modular reactors that could be misused to build bombs.

The concerns are aimed at Moltex, a Saint John, N.B., nuclear startup building small modular reactors (SMRs) that will be powered with spent fuel from CANDU reactors. To make the fuel, Moltex plans to separate plutonium from uranium in CANDU waste and use the extracted plutonium to power new SMRs.

04/11/23
Author: 
John Woodside
Mark Carney speaks at the Fall 2023 Net-Zero Leadership Summit in Ottawa on Oct. 31, 2023. Photo via Carney/X(Twitter)

Nov. 2, 2023

It’s estimated that the Canadian economy could take a $5.5-trillion hit by the end of the century due to climate change, according to a white paper from Independent Sen. Rosa Galvez’s office published this week as sustainable finance experts and policymakers descended on Ottawa for a high-level conference Wednesday.

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