If Canada is going to meet its climate targets, virtually everything will need to be electrified. Gas guzzlers swapped for electric vehicles and public transportation; heat pumps put in place of gas furnaces; and renewable energy moving to centre stage as coal, oil and gas power plants are phased out.
Affordable, reliable electricity grids are essential to modern life and form the backbone of Canada’s economy. Without abundant power, energy-intensive sectors like auto manufacturing or steel production fall by the wayside.
Oil in the North Sea is expected to be net-energy negative by 2031. This means that in 2031, it’ll cost more energy to extract the fossil fuels than we would gain by using them, rendering extraction unfeasibly expensive. Yet, rather than use our remaining years of access to these fuels to turbo-charge new energy infrastructure, fossil fuels are being extracted and burned for business as usual: quick cash. Around the world, the lights will go off in nations that don’t have back-up renewables. That’s most of them.
Free Transit Ottawa (FTO) organized a public meeting on March 18 on the theme “Fighting Climate Change: Beyond the Carbon Tax.”
The event was cosponsored by a range of local climate-justice movements: Ecology Ottawa, Horizon Ottawa, Justice for Workers, Fridays for Future and CAWI (City for All Women Initiative).
Two new reports find B.C.’s old-growth forests are still on the chopping block despite claims to the contrary by the provincial government and a U.K.-based corporation.
Government data leaked to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) shows B.C.’s Ministry of Forestry rejected more than half the proposed logging deferrals recommended by an expert panel with a mandate to protect important old-growth forests.
Revenue from forestry has topped natural gas royalties in 12 of the past 13 fiscal years, but the sector will likely play a supporting tole in the foreseeable future with reduced timber supplies
The natural gas industry is poised to take centre stage in British Columbia’s economy and overtake the forestry sector as the largest contributor to the province’s resource revenue.
While the world burns, conservative governments in both Alberta and Ontario continue to spend billions hiding and protecting their failed hydro deregulation schemes. This is money that should be spent combatting the climate crisis.
