Writing from our researchers this year
Dec 19, 2024
Climate change, the impact of fossil fuels and the role of BC’s oil and gas industry were much-read analyzes this year. Here are some key articles…. View Article
Climate change & energy policy
This election we need a conversation about phasing out fossil fuels
Oct 1, 2024
In this BC election, we need to have a real conversation about upping our climate game. That means phasing out the production and consumption of the fossil fuels that are causing climate change. Here’s how.
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How BC’s oil and gas industry sidestepped carbon pricing
Jun 27, 2024
When BC first introduced a carbon tax in 2008 the point was to apply it to all emissions causing climate change, but start at a low rate and increase it over time. Yet, as the carbon tax has increased for households at the gas pump and to heat homes, large industrial players—including the oil and… View Article
Thanks for a great ride
Apr 26, 2024
Twenty years ago, an insect attack of biblical proportions in British Columbia’s forests became a hot-button topic. Thanks to unusually warm winters (guess why), mountain pine beetles exploded in number in the province’s interior forests killing millions upon millions of lodgepole pine trees. The provincial government responded by approving huge increases in logging so that… View Article
As wood pellet exports to Japan surge, BC’s primary forests feel the strain
Apr 24, 2024
In the land of the rising sun, the light of a setting sun glints so brightly on the shiny metal piping of Renova’s Ishinomaki Hibarino power plant that you have to shield your eyes. Located near the city of Sendai, north of Tokyo, the new thermal electricity plant is one of several in Japan that… View Article
Leaked data reveals new threat to BC’s old growth forests
Mar 7, 2024
BREAKING: officials in the Ministry of Forests have been working on a map that radically departs from the recommendations of a panel appointed by the provincial government to advise it on how to protect British Columbia’s imperiled old growth forests…. View Article
Getting to Net-Zero in Canada: Summary
Feb 8, 2024
Scale of the problem, government projections and daunting challenges The urgency of mitigating climate change through significant emission reductions is globally recognized—most recently with the call to transition away from fossil fuels at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP28). Canada has long accepted this challenge: its latest pledge… View Article
Knives out for Clean BC
Jan 25, 2024
It’s taken sixteen years of incremental policy change in BC but you might have noticed that climate policies are starting to take hold. Electric vehicles are widespread, new building standards with much higher energy efficiency are being introduced and heat pump sales have surged as people replace home heating equipment. Nonetheless, the long knives are… View Article
What would it take to meet Canada’s 2030 climate targets?
Oct 5, 2023
Adapted from the CCPA’s fall 2023 submission to Canada’s Net-Zero Advisory Body by Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood & Marc Lee When Canada first signed the Paris Agreement way back in 2015, the commitment to reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions by 30% below 2005 levels by 2030 seemed far away. So far away, in fact, that in… View Article
Fires and farmworkers: Climate justice means improving protections for migrant farmworkers
Sep 15, 2023
The impacts of the climate crisis are socially and geographically uneven: the wealthiest regions contribute disproportionately to the destruction of the planet while the poorest regions suffer the heaviest consequences. In this context, migrant farmworkers find themselves doubly displaced, facing droughts and inundations in their home countries, then heatwaves, fires and floods where they come… View Article