For more background on the Ontario floods, check out Toronto's flooding crisis will get worse without smarter infrastructure, experts say.

Photo by Toronto Fire Services.

In his speech to the Republican convention, Donald Trump promised two things on day one, if elected. Close the borders and “Drill, baby, drill.” He actually unpacked the latter at great, rambling length. On the extraction side, he would supercharge drilling for “liquid gold.” And on the demand side, he would cancel the “green new scam” (the cause of inflation, in his telling). He was particularly focused on ending sales mandates for electric vehicles, and ensuring you can drive “whatever you want.”

If you want a deeper dive into Trump’s speech, Genevieve Guenther has one for you. (You’ll remember Guenther and her new book as the subject of The words that wreck the world — the Zero Carbon newsletter, two weeks ago).

Michiko Kakutani, the former New York Times’ chief book critic, noted a striking coincidence with Octavia Butler’s Parable duology, the first published in 1993.

The new U.K. government “will create a company to own and operate clean energy assets in a bid to inject more public money into the shift away from fossil fuels… Labour plans to extend a windfall tax on oil and gas companies to fund many of its plans.” reports Bloomberg.

Great British Energy will receive $14.7 billion (CAD) of taxpayer money to own and operate assets in collaboration with the private sector.

As one reader noted when forwarding the article, it’s exactly the structure by which “Canada buys pipelines.”

Europe’s Green Deal appears to have survived the EU elections, as has president Ursula von der Leyen.

“This funding has the potential to make a massive impact by protecting ecologically and culturally important ecosystems that hold and sequester carbon while benefitting clean water, air and wildlife,” said Tori Ball, a conservation director with the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.

An Indigenous-led project headed by Fisher River Cree Nation received $5 million for conservation activities in the Interlakes region of Manitoba with its carbon-rich peatland and migratory bird habitat. The Métis Nation of Alberta got $5 million to protect 450 hectares of land and the Manitoba Habitat Conservancy will use $6 million to protect 1,200 hectares of biodiverse lands, reports Natasha Bulowski.

Nearly $4.5 million goes to the Nuxalk Nation to avoid planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions by buying and protecting culturally-significant private lands, which will include forests in the Great Bear Rainforest near Bella Coola. The BC Parks Foundation gets $37 million to protect thousands of hectares of carbon-rich ecosystems, such as grasslands, wetlands and mature forests.

Flanked by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and Toronto Mayor Oliva Chow at a Toronto Transit Commision train yard, Prime Minister Trudeau announced the Canada Public Transit Fund will invest $3 billion per year, over 10 years, in public transit.

To tap the program, municipalities will be required to increase housing supply by taking steps like scrapping mandatory minimum parking requirements within 800 metres of high-frequency transit lines and allowing high density housing near public transit, reports John Woodside.

The fund provides “baseline funding” that can be used to upgrade buses and trains, as well as specific project-based funding for electrification.

Some public transit advocates were critical, noting the money won’t start flowing until 2026 –– after the next federal election. And none of it is going to cover day-to-day operations, which observers note is the major gap transit systems are dealing with right now.

The newly-released Canada Green Buildings Strategy commits to phasing out heating oil in new buildings. It’s not yet clear how the federal government plans to regulate this area of provincial jurisdiction although Quebec has already banned oil heating in new builds since 2021.

The Canada Green Buildings Strategy does not tackle the much larger problem of gas heating, used in 60 per cent of existing buildings. But the document notes that, as of May 1, nearly 125,000 heat pumps have been installed with federal support across Canada.

Buildings are the third largest source of climate pollution in Canada, after the oil and gas industry and transportation, accounting for about 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions.

Nearly 16.6 million existing buildings need upgrades. And there’s huge demand for new housing. Canada’s National Observer is breaking down the challenges and opportunities in a new series, Big Green Build.

Although climate experts welcomed the new objective for heating oil, “The strategy contains neither the mandatory performance standards nor public investments needed to achieve net-zero emissions, and that was the reason for producing a strategy in the first place,” said Brendan Haley, policy director at Efficiency Canada.

“There is a dangerous mismatch between words and deeds when it comes to coal in Canada,” write doctors Melissa Lem and Joe Vipond.

“The federal government rightfully acknowledges thermal coal — the type used for electricity generation — as a uniquely dirty and dangerous source of energy, so much so that the entire country is phasing out its use through legislation.” And yet, “the Port of Vancouver steadfastly continues to serve as North America’s export hub for one of the most climate-damaging fossil fuels.”

It was the largest layoff in Canadian history. Thirty-two years ago, the cod fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador was shut down due to plummeting stocks caused by decades of overfishing and mismanagement. Now, the Canadian government has reopened the fishery.

Cloe Logan talked to scientists worried the decision will prevent the population from recovering. They are concerned the population isn’t healthy enough and the decision ignores the stress of climate change on cod and its prey.

“It was rebuilding, and [now] it won't be rebuilt," says marine biologist Daniel Pauly, well-known for the concept of “shifting baseline syndrome.”

Cultural burning is the use of controlled fire to generate new growth and prevent large, destructive wildfires. Long used by Indigenous people, the practice was criminalized in 1874 and remains tightly regulated by provincial laws.” Marc Fawcett-Atkinson reports on a program led by Joe Gilchrist, a member of the Skeetchestn First Nation to teach Indigenous youth how to work with fire.

"[We need] more cultural burning on the ground," says Gilchrist. "To make the area safe from wildfire because of climate change. It's getting worse and worse — drier, hotter, windier — and the only thing we can control is the fuel.”

“Elders and community members always knew something was bubbling under their feet on this remote B.C. First Nation territory,” reports Matteo Cimellaro.

“Now, a depleted oil and gas well has been chosen to be transformed into a renewable, and 100 per cent Indigenous-owned, geothermal energy facility. The plant is set to help power the First Nation and create economic ventures to support northern B.C., the Northwest Territories and Alberta.”

Calgary-based TC Energy (formerly TransCanada Pipelines Ltd.) has lost its US$15-billion arbitration case against the U.S. government over the Keystone XL pipeline, much to the relief of environmentalists.

The decision, with details not yet released, could have an impact on several cases unfolding in Canada, including Ruby River Capital’s US$20 billion lawsuit against Canada. The American company sued after the federal government and Quebec rejected its proposal to build a natural gas liquefaction plant and maritime terminal near the mouth of the St. Lawrence River.

In related news, TC Energy sponsored the Republican convention.

“Clean energy generated a record-high 44 per cent of China’s electricity in May 2024, pushing coal’s share down to a record low of 53 per cent,” writes Lauri Myllyvirta for CarbonBrief.

China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell in March 2024 and the continuing trend over recent months has analysts speculating that China’s emissions may have peaked in 2023.

“If current rapid wind and solar deployment continues, then China’s CO2 output is likely to continue falling, making 2023 the peak year for the country’s emissions,” writes Myllyvirta.

China is installing the wind and solar equivalent of five large nuclear power stations per week, a pace so quick the country would meet its own renewable energy target for the end of 2030 by the end of this month. It has pledged to peak emissions by 2030 as part of the Paris Agreement.

And the top leadership has, for the first time issued a directive to begin cutting carbon emissions in the “Plenum” — an important five-yearly meeting that charts major economic reforms, which concluded on July 18 in Beijing. Chinese president Xi Jinping refers to “green development”, which he has described as the “base colour of high-quality development.”

I’ll leave you with a very clarifying piece by David Fickling for Bloomberg. “There’s rarely been a better time to be a seller of fossil fuels — nor a worse time to be exposed to their effects,” Fickling writes in The Great Climate Change Wealth Transfer Is Here.

Before his current gig at Bloomberg, Fickling worked for the Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times. Not a hippie-dippy.

“Losses from natural disasters hit $280 billion last year. Fossil fuel companies will profit, while homeowners will pay the price… In less affluent corners of the world, the expenditure is even more devastating, as money that should be invested in growth is spent instead on repairing the effects of disasters…

“Signs of a turning point in humanity’s fossil fuel addiction are everywhere, from evidence that China’s emissions are peaking this year, to the ongoing failure of crude oil output to climb above levels it hit in 2018.”

“Still, emissions need to not just plateau, but fall dramatically over the coming decade, and then the decade after that. At this point, politics and profit are making it harder for us to hit that target.”