Climate change & energy policy

Canada is still a rogue state on climate change

Dec 11, 2017
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It has now been two years since world leaders created the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. At those meetings, the Canadian delegation joined a broad coalition aiming to keep “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above… View Article

Where is BC headed on climate action?

Nov 30, 2017
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Canadian politicians have a long-standing tradition of proclaiming targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, then failing to meet them. After a wake-up call in the form of a record fire season this past summer, what are the prospects for climate leadership from BC’s new government? First, a look back November 29 marked ten years since… View Article

Sticker Shock: The impending cost of BC Hydro’s shift to private power developers – Ten years on

Nov 24, 2017
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In April 2007, the BC government’s energy policy was rapidly transforming the province’s electricity system from publicly owned to one operated in the interests of private energy developers and multinational energy corporations. Sticker Shock was written to expose the enormous costs of the BC government’s private power agenda. It documented the fact that the BC… View Article

BC needs a full public inquiry into fracking

Nov 6, 2017
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Last year, more natural gas was produced in British Columbia than at any point in the past 10 years. That may come as a surprise to some people who thought that growth in BC’s natural gas industry hinged on the emergence of a Liquefied Natural Gas sector. It does not. The reality is that even… View Article

The University of Victoria seeks to profit from climate change deniers and policy obstructionists: The Exxon connection

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The school year is now well under way. For many new students starting at the University of Victoria, the university’s stated commitments to sustainability were likely attractive, especially for BC residents whose summers were haunted by relentless wildfires. Given the needed move towards low-carbon economies it makes excellent sense for students to select universities that… View Article

Climate justice and the BC carbon tax: 20th Anniversary retrospective

Oct 27, 2017
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BC’s carbon tax was announced in February 2008, a year after the landmark February 2007 Throne Speech that focused extensively on climate change. That set in motion a whole-of-government exercise out of the Premier’s office aimed at developing a climate action plan. (See my ten-year retrospective here.) At the time, a carbon tax was widely… View Article