The race for Liberal party leadership is on. Former finance minister Chrystia Freeland has announced that if elected Prime Minister, she will get rid of the consumer carbon tax. Former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor Mark Carney has been cagier about the issue, but may also do the same.
On 11th December 2024, while replying to a question in Pakistan’s National Assembly, the federal finance minister admitted for the first time that since 2019, and while under an International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, gas prices increased by a record 840% and electricity tariffs rose by over 110%.
Canada’s insurance sector is raising alarms about the potential for the country to become “uninsurable” by 2035 due to insufficient policy action on escalating climate disasters. Meanwhile, a former California insurance official has criticized the industry for underwriting the very fossil fuel projects that worsen the climate crisis.
Pension funds are gambling with Canadians’ retirement savings by placing multi-billion dollar bets on hydrogen's ability to rescue old, polluting gas pipelines from terminal decline, according to a climate finance advocacy organization.
The Pathways Alliance’s proposed carbon capture and storage megaproject has not begun construction or even received approval, and yet its business model is already collapsing, according to a global think tank.
So now we know how the second Trump era begins: with Los Angeles on fire.
Apocalyptic, tragic and almost impossibly emblematic. The world at large is spiralling past the guardrail of 1.5 degrees while politics retreats from tackling the problem. Ten thousand homes and buildings burned, neighbours dead and neighbourhoods reduced to ash while the incoming president deflects, derides and promises more drilling for fossil fuels.
