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 …

A critical court case that pits the interests of creditors against the environment has largely fallen outside the public’s radar since it first began in late 2015. Following a May 2016 ruling in favour of the company’s creditors, the legal battle surrounding Redwater Energy Corporation is now likely to advance to Canada’s Supreme Court, bringing with it …

VANCOUVER – A promised “review” of natural gas industry fracking operations should be broadened to a full Public Inquiry that examines all aspects of the dangerous gas extraction technique, says a coalition of community, First Nation and environmental organizations. The call on the new BC government is to broaden a promise first made by the …

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 …

These are exciting times in British Columbia for those interested in building sustainable, just and climate-friendly energy systems. The recent change in government could mean a shift away from a corporate agenda driven by the needs of a massively energy-intensive fracking and LNG industry towards one that prioritizes action on climate change, First Nations’ self-determination …

Few environmental messes inherited by the new BC government rival the unregulated free-for-all that has unfolded in the province’s northeast where companies that frack for natural gas have built nearly 60 unlicensed dams. Not only do some of those dams show distressing signs of failing, but the companies that built them—and the government agencies that …

Engaging Saskatchewan’s Oil-Producing Communities on Climate Change Issues Download the study The future of oil extraction and transportation is one of the most contentious issues in Canadian politics. Plans for the construction of new pipelines to both the East and West coasts has entrenched old divisions between Eastern and Western Canada and opened up new …

The following article, originally published by National Observer, is part of a series called The Price of Oil, which reveals the impacts of the oil and gas industry on rural and underprivileged communities in Saskatchewan. This year-long investigation was undertaken through a massive and unprecedented national collaboration between three major news outlets (National Observer, The Toronto Star, Global …

I sent the following letter to BC’s Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) in response to Progress Energy’s extraordinary request to retroactively exempt the Lily and Town dams from environmental reviews. Such reviews should have been conducted before the dams were built. Not only did those reviews not happen, but the company also failed to obtain other …

September 30, 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the opening of the first large oil sands mine and processing plant in Fort McMurray. The facility was developed by Great Canadian Oil Sands, the precursor to Suncor Energy, which is one of Canada’s largest producers of fossil fuels. Over the past five decades, the northern Alberta …

Newly uncovered documents obtained through Freedom of Information requests reveal the cozy relationship between the fossil fuel industry and the last BC government went even further than suspected — all the way to inviting industry to directly craft the province’s climate “leadership” plan. Let’s rewind for a second: back in the spring of 2015, then-premier …

British Columbians should not be lamenting Petronas’ decision to pull its Pacific Northwest Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) proposal. Instead, they should be celebrating the demise of a project built on bad economics, climate change denial and wishful thinking. A few pundits have told the Petronas story as a tragedy. Some are blaming the brand new …