BRITISH COLUMBIA

B.C.’s budget

Last week saw B.C. deliver its latest budget, which included important dollars for climate action. Specifically, it featured funding for skills training, manufacturing support, and zero-emission trucks. It also included more than a billion dollars to help make communities more resilient to climate change. As Clean Energy Canada’s Mark Zacharias said in a statement, “B.C.’s new budget takes important steps toward transforming its economy to better compete in a cleaner, low-carbon world, though a clean industrial strategy remains the key piece missing to realize this vision.”

The government now needs a clear plan for how B.C. will compete in a changing world and how it will support the industries that will be growing in 2040 and beyond. In Mark’s words, “This government now has a generational opportunity to move key industrial projects across the finish line in the next two years, setting B.C. on a path to a prosperous future while doing its part for the climate and workers.”

It’s a path that British Columbians clearly want their province to embark on. A new Clean Energy Canada poll found that British Columbians overwhelmingly prefer that the government focus on developing renewable energy (64.0%) over LNG (18.2%)—a viewpoint held consistently for at least the past three years. Indeed, most British Columbians wanted to see more climate action, with only 7.6% feeling that the previous John Horgan government should have done less to prevent climate change.

Progress on procurement

The federal government announced new federal clean procurement standards last week that will drive down emissions and support low-carbon Canadian companies and their workers. Government procurement accounts for 13% of Canada’s GDP and up to one third of the market for construction materials, giving it significant purchasing power. The new standards are a first step to delivering a promised “Buy Clean” strategy to prioritize low-carbon materials in public infrastructure projects. As Clean Energy Canada’s Ollie Sheldrick said in a statement, “the real opportunity to Buy Clean lies beyond its immediate jurisdiction (and) the federal government must work now with provinces, municipalities, and Crown corporations to expand Buy Clean nationally.”

Leading the way

This new op-ed from the chair of the First Nations Major Projects Coalition and the CEO of the Business Council of Canada explores ways to increase Indigenous participation in the energy transition, particularly for new clean energy projects. In the words of the op-ed, “Engaging First Nations as partners in the planning and development of new projects is the best way to ensure that rights and interests are protected.” It comes the same week that a new Indigenous-led council was announced to advise the federal government on the energy transition in rural and remote Indigenous communities. Indeed, many communities and companies are already blazing the trail to remote decarbonization, including the Inuit-led Nukik Corporation, which is hoping to build new transmission lines that will reduce diesel use in Nunavut. 

Washed in green

Net-zero pledges now feature in the future plans of 40% of Forbes's list of the 2,000 largest public companies. But as this new op-ed from former Canadian climate minister Catherine McKenna puts it, “many are not robust enough. At their worst, the pledges create a false impression that lead investors and consumers to believe that a company is doing more to protect the environment than it is.” To this point, a new study found that climate promises increased companies' market value, regardless of whether they actually resulted in any emissions reductions. Meanwhile, another op-ed (this one from a professor of political science at the University of Toronto) points out that the use of carbon offsets as a corporate tool to tick the ESG box is preventing the urgent “long-term investments in systemic transformation.”

From coal to clean

Power generation company TransAlta is building a multi-million-dollar clean energy project at a former coal mine in Alberta. The facility will feature a green hydrogen electrolyzer, a hydroelectric system, and a 100-megawatt off-site windfarm. The new hydro facility won’t have much company in the province (water currently powers about 5% of Alberta’s electricity capacity). But it was not always the case, as this CBC story explores: hydro once made up around half of the province’s power capacity. 

The U.S.’s successes

The economic wheels of the Inflation Reduction Act have been turning stateside, accelerating a number of clean energy projects. The U.S.’s Postal Service has recently awarded contracts for 9,250 new battery EVs as well as 14,000 charging stations as it realizes its ambitions for a nationwide electric fleet. Meanwhile, the  U.S. Department of Energy is loaning US$375-million to Toronto-based Li-Cycle to help it build North America’s first major refinery for recycling battery-grade lithium. The facility is set to recycle 35,000 tonnes annually of “black mass” (waste from old battery cells) for use in new lithium-ion batteries.

Wind-powered dreams

After a 15-year moratorium on the development of new wind power lifted last year, Newfoundland’s windy dispositions has powered a host of new wind projects. This new story in the Globe and Mail explores the province’s ambitions for its new wind-powered future.

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