Energy

As oil prices rose and fell, the federal government somehow wrestled a national agreement on climate change — with two notable exceptions. The fates of pipelines that had consumed public interest for years were drawn, while others were punted into the future. Canada’s beleaguered oil and gas industry faced an uncertain year with a new Liberal government in Ottawa, and 2017 looks like it will have its own share of big shifts. For the year that was, here are the top five energy stories.

B.C.’s Environmental Assessment Office has issued two new enforcement orders for Site C, an 1,100-megawatt hydroelectric project under construction on the Peace River.

It has also posted an inspection record that found several issues of non-compliance related to erosion and water management.

Dear Prime Minister Trudeau,

Allow me to introduce myself. I am a lifelong, pretty old British Columbian who loves his province with the same passion I’m sure people in Trois Rivières love theirs. Your inferential calling BC’s patriotism into question because we will vigorously oppose your approval of the Kinder Morgan pipeline demonstrates clearly that you’re quite unable to understand this, your connections to BC notwithstanding.

Dec 14, 2016 - After working on climate and energy issues intensively for the past nine years, I would love to scream from the rooftops about how Canada now has a real climate framework, and how as a nation we are proudly, if belatedly, walking the talk. Instead, I feel immensely disappointed by last week’s First Ministers’ Meeting on climate change both in terms of its limited outcomes, as well as the media focus on the politics of getting to a deal rather than the substance of the deal itself.

OVERVIEW • 

WHAT’S MISSING • 

To view this 6 page, Dec 12, 2016  summary click here: 

Dec 13, 2016 - On Dec. 9, after much deliberation and political theatre, the federal government, eight provinces and three territories signed the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change.

Saskatchewan and Manitoba were notably absent from the list of signatories.

Dec 22, 2016 - After spending the past 13 months focused on international and national climate negotiations, Environment Minister Catherine McKenna will turn her attention in 2017 to the more prosaic work of implementation – ensuring that what was agreed to at high-profile political summits is acted upon.

The pan-Canadian climate agreement signed earlier this month by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and 11 provincial and territorial premiers includes a plan for Ottawa to impose a carbon price on provinces that refuse to adopt their own by 2018.

Dec 15, 2016 - And there’s one country that can claim a huge share of the credit for it.

Solar power is becoming the world’s cheapest form of new electricity generation, data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) suggests.