This editorial was written and published by the Toronto Star on July 26, 2024.

It is easy enough in Canada to become inured to beauty. We are blessed, after all, in this country with mountains and three ocean coasts, with rainforests, rocky lakes and endless pink Prairie skies. It is no coincidence that Canada’s most famous artists — The Group of Seven — found renown in nature’s beauty. Beauty is our birthright. Beauty is our everyday. Beauty, in our increasingly urban country, where three in four people now live in cities, can even feel a little forgettable sometimes, like oxygen or gravity — vital but invisible and always there.

But the wildfires ravaging Jasper, Alta., this week are a reminder that we take the beauty of this country for granted at our peril. Nothing, not even nature, is permanent. Everything erodes with time. Every moment is a blessing. Sometimes even what feels like forever can disappear.

We don’t yet know the extent of the damage in Jasper, a mountain hamlet in the Rocky Mountains west of Edmonton. But based on photos and videos that have trickled out, that damage is closer to unimaginable than it is severe. One clip shot from a truck driving through the village shows almost nothing but rubble and ash. There are burned out buildings and burned out cars, burned out hotels and burned out homes. Everything everywhere looks enveloped in lifeless grey.

Perhaps more than anything else, it is that visual that stuns. Smaller and less crowded than Banff, Jasper has always felt something like a secret kingdom, a magical world of imagined colours that appears, as if from a fairy tale, as the Prairies give way to the mountains in the Canadian West.

Few who are lucky enough to visit the town, to walk the mountain paths that surround it, or to stare out at its cerulean lakes, come away less than stunned. It’s the kind of place that can change your conception of what a colour can be. It makes “blue” seem inadequate. It creates new depths of green.

To see that vivid world made monochrome by wildfire is almost too much to bear. It is heart-rending. It is shocking. But perhaps worst of all, it is no surprise.

It is impossible to say with certainty whether any one wildfire was caused by climate change. But we do know, unequivocally, that climate change is making wildfires more common, more intense and more destructive. As long as we continue to burn fossil fuels unabated, not just in this country but around the world, the number of wildfires in Canada will continue to increase. They will grow bigger and more severe. They will consume more towns, more nature, more treasures. They will create entire summers of fire, a new fifth season in this country, of ash and hot smoke, of wrecked homes and wrecked lives.

Pierre Martel, from Parks Canada, told reporters Thursday that firefighters were dealing with “a monster” in Jasper. But it is, at least to some extent, a monster of our own making. It would be negligent not to acknowledge that now. To ignore the role climate change is playing in Canadian wildfire season, as it happens, is to doom us to fires — like the one that consumed Jasper this week, the one that ravaged Fort McMurray in 2011 or the one that flattened Lytton, B.C., in 2021 — forever more.

In the video that spread so widely Thursday, the truck slows at one point in front of a smoking shell of rubble. What’s left of the building is no more than a few feet high, a mess of incinerated debris. “There’s mom and dad’s house,” a man’s voice can be heard. Then the truck speeds up and drives away.

It is a reminder of the human-scale tragedy that wildfires bring. Every house destroyed in Jasper is a person’s home. It’s hard to imagine the pain, the shock and the fear of being forced to flee and having to wonder, from a cot in a community centre or two twin beds in a overcrowded motel, whether everything you left behind is gone.

Climate change is real. Climate change is devastating. The only question now is how much more of our unparalleled country, how many more homes and communities, how much nature and beauty, we are willing to lose before we start treating it that way.

Climate change is making Canadian wildfire season longer, deadlier and more destructive. We need to take action now

This Letter to the Editor was written by Ray Nakano and was published in the Globe & Mail on July 26, 2024.

Re “Jasper National Park evacuations complete after massive effort to help thousands flee wildfire” (July 24):

We can only imagine what the campers and residents of Jasper and the surrounding Jasper National Park are going through. Worry, fear, anxiety. Our hearts and minds go out to them because of this unnatural disaster. Climate change is harming us directly – burning homes, communities and places we know and love. Disasters like these are increasing in frequency because of climate change. These unnatural disasters are fueled by burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal. Canada’s actions alone won’t stop wildfires. But every tonne of fossil fuel pollution we reduce matters, and Canada is a big source of this pollution. Canada needs to regulate pollution and innovate. We need to show the way and keep up with record setting investments in renewable energy in countries such as China. We’re all facing this together. Let’s pull together to protect the people and places we care about.

Ray Nakano, Toronto

Homeowner’s experience shows how difficult it can be to extricate oneself from fossil fuels

This article was written by Marco Chown Oved and was published in the Toronto Star on July 25, 2024.

When Paul Dowsett made the call to Enbridge to cut off his natural gas service last year, it was the culmination of years of efforts to show that zero emissions households aren’t just possible, they’re practical and affordable.

But a year later, he has received a bill for more than $350 and is finding out it’s much harder to get off gas than he thought.

An architect by trade, Dowsett had put green building theory into practice in his environmentallyretrofitted home in the Pocket neighbourhood off the Danforth.

After installing a heat pump and induction stove, he had completely electrified his house and no longer needed natural gas — a particularly potent greenhouse gas that causes global warming.

“I’m motivated to be as environmentally friendly as I can possibly be and the way to do that is to stop burning fossil fuels,” he said. “I have an all-electric car, so I don’t burn gas in my car. And I now have an all-electric house, so I don’t burn natural gas in my house. It’s amazing.”

As soon as his new stove was in place, Dowsett called Enbridge to close his account and was surprised at how easy it was.

“The person on the other end of the phone said: ‘Sure. No problem. We can close your account,’ ” and after reading the meter, they determined that Enbridge actually owed him money.

“Within a couple of days, boom, the money was in my account. And I never saw a bill after that. So I thought, ‘OK, everything’s taken care of,’ ” he said.

But this month, Dowsett received a bill for $357, even though he had used no gas.

Enbridge had charged him a “customer charge” of $22.88 each month for the past 13 months and a $25 “new account charge,” even though he hadn’t asked for one.

“They had opened an account for me and charged me for the privilege, which I thought was a bit of cheek,” he said.

Dowsett’s difficulty extricating himself from the fossil fuel industry has implications beyond his pocket book, because getting off gas isn’t a lifestyle choice, it’s an environmental imperative, climate change experts say.

Climate change is overwhelmingly driven by the burning of fossil fuels and most countries around the world have committed to all but eliminating their use by 2050. The city of Toronto has a more ambitious plan for net zero (which means offsetting the small amount of fossil fuel combustion that cannot be eliminated) by 2040.

In practice, this means everyone will have to replace their furnace with a heat pump, and buy an electric car or go without. It doesn’t have to happen today, or even this year.

But if we are to meet local, national and international goals for limiting the adverse effects of climate change — like the devastating rainstorm last week — whenever anything that burns oil or gas wears out, it must be replaced with a zeroemissions alternative.

Enbridge Gas, which has a monopoly on natural gas distribution in Ontario, promotes alternatives to electrification as a path to net zero, including renewable natural gas, derived from decomposing agricultural waste and landfill, and hydrogen as a way to keep people using furnaces. But there’s no way to replace anywhere close to the amount of natural gas currently in use.

This means millions of Ontarians are going to have to cut off their gas in the next 26 years. And Dowsett’s experience shows that it may not be as simple as expected.

After receiving the surprise bill, he called Enbridge to follow up. Dowsett said the company agent asked if he had specifically requested to “lock-off” his meter or have it removed when he closed his account.

Not only was this the first time he’d heard of either procedure, Dowsett said he was surprised that a customer would be expected to ask for such things unprompted when closing their account.

“The onus should be on Enbridge, not on the customer, to know the secret code that they need to say to get this done,” he said.

The agent then explained that Enbridge opened an account for his property because it still had a meter and no one had taken over the account.

“I said, ‘Wow. It would have been nice if you had called me before opening an account on my behalf.’ ”

Contacted by the Star, Enbridge said it could not comment on Dowsett’s individual situation, but said it would work with him to resolve it.

“Enbridge Gas recognizes that customers may be looking for different energy sources and promotes energy choice. We will strive to provide more explicit information about options when customers request to close their accounts,” wrote spokesperson Leanne McNaughton in an email.

In followup emails, Enbridge representatives explained that anyone wanting to cut off their gas permanently should have the meter and gas line removed from their property, which involves excavating a trench and sealing the gas line at the street.

Enbridge will do this at no charge, but the customer may be responsible for an excavation permit and ensuring “locates” are completed to avoid disturbing underground infrastructure, said spokesperson Lesley Hunter.

Alternatively, Enbridge will lock-off a meter if a customer wishes to temporarily suspend their gas service.

This can be completed without disturbing the ground, but is intended for a seasonal pause and not a permanent end to gas use.

After speaking with Enbridge, Dowsett arranged for his meter to be removed, but nobody showed up on the appointed day.

Despite the surprise Enbridge bill, Dowsett says retrofitting his home has reduced his energy bills and made it more comfortable.

“I save $400 a year on my bills and what I get additionally, that I didn’t have before, is now I have summer air conditioning from my heat pump,” he said.

If you factor in the savings from his EV — which he estimates at $4,000 in fuel costs a year — it’s an even better deal.

“I’m saving money and I get more service for less money, which is really kind of nice.”

Every month since June 2023 has now ranked as the planet’s hottest since records began

This article was written by Gloria Dickie and was published by the Weather Network on July 24, 2024.

This opinion was written by Janis Sarra, professor of law emerita at Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia, and was published in the Globe & Mail on July 22, 2024.

We have been hearing much criticism of two amendments to the Competition Act on deceptive marketing practices regarding climate-related claims that received royal assent on June 20. Reactions include oil sands companies removing their environmental performance claims from their websites and the Alberta government threatening to “use every legal option” to push back against the legislation.

These moves mask the reality that companies have been getting away with bold unsubstantiated climate-related claims and now they need to withdraw them or temper them to be realistic.

The purpose of the Competition Act is to encourage competition in Canada to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy. And part of healthy competition is that companies accurately represent their products and services to consumers. The two new provisions augment existing protection of consumers from deceptive market practices.

Under the first provision, the Competition Bureau, as the independent law enforcement agency, can review a company’s conduct to investigate its public-facing claims. The bureau can investigate a company if it represents to the public (directly or indirectly) a product’s benefits as protecting the environment or mitigating the environmental, social and ecological causes or effects of climate change.

Critics have cried foul over this provision, saying it overly polices their marketing claims. But companies have an easy defence built into the statute – that they have adequately tested their claims.

Is that so hard? If companies find that burdensome, what does it say about them – that they had previously made claims without any verification, and want to continue doing so? The second new provision limits how a company can make a representation to the public with respect to the benefits of a business activity for protecting or restoring the environment or mitigating the environmental and ecological causes or effects of climate change. A company cannot do so for a claim that is not based on adequate and proper substantiation in accordance with internationally recognized methodology. Here, again, an easy defence exists. The defence is new, but creates a lot of protection as a company need only demonstrate that it relied on any internationally recognized methodology in making a claim.

Companies are using the amendments as an excuse to back away from existing unsubstantiated claims and reset their claims to be accurate, which is a good thing. While companies are spending a small fortune on new disclaimer clauses, qualifying climate-related claims is good business practice. Disclaimers, such as that the claims are based on best available science, make sense as climate science is continuing to evolve. What is key here is that consumers need protection from the plethora of claims regarding environmental performance so they are able to make informed decisions in their purchases.

What also seems lost in the frenzied concern that companies will stop making claims that they will reach net-zero carbon emissions is that all publicly traded companies already need to report material climate-related and other environmental risks and how they are managing them.

The Competition Act amendments give protections to consumers that investors already have under securities law and also creates a baseline of accountability in respect of the environmental claims made by both private and public companies.

The Competition Bureau, as it always does, will issue guidance to companies on the new provisions and is consulting with Canadians as it develops this guidance. It is in all our interests to have companies base their environmental claims on real data and accepted methodologies, including international sustainability accounting standards.

The amendments will help advance Canada’s goal of financial sustainability, and by requiring claims to be accurate, will ensure that the markets for green and net-zero products operate to incentivize production that actually generates these effects.

This editorial was written and published by the Globe & Mail on July 22, 2024.

Three years ago, when the Pacific Northwest suffered under a deadly heat dome, scientists quickly determined the central role played by climate change in one of the worst natural disasters in Canada’s history – one that killed 619 people in British Columbia.

The conclusion was unequivocal. Scientists at World Weather Attribution said the intensity of the heat dome – temperatures peaked at almost 50 degrees Celsius in B.C. – was “virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.”

This work is what’s called rapid attribution analysis – and its goal is to help the public and political leaders better understand the lashings of climate change when its effects are clear yet also difficult to discern. Detailing and highlighting climate change’s role in the increasing litany of extreme weather is essential.

This is especially true as some political leaders, such as Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, attempt to deny it by promoting fossil fuels, undermining clean power and attacking “climate alarmism.” In B.C., Conservative Leader John Rustad, running close in the polls with the governing NDP ahead of a fall election, insisted during a recent interview with The Globe’s editorial board that it was “false” that humans burning fossil fuels is the cause of climate change. “It doesn’t matter how much we try to reduce carbon,” Mr. Rustad claimed, “it is not going to change the weather.”

These are varying degrees of climate science denial in the mainstream of Canadian politics and all of it ignores factual reality, starting with the mountains of evidence produced by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Climate change is no longer some theoretical future. It is today’s reality. Canada is one year removed from catastrophic forest fires that burned the equivalent of one-quarter of Manitoba to the ground. Globally, over the past year, every single month has registered at 1.5 C or higher than preindustrial times, the mark at which the world aims to limit heating under the Paris Agreement. Last November, there were two days at 2 C higher than preindustrial times. This should be a five-alarm call to action.

Environment Canada recently debuted its pilot project of rapid attribution analysis. It looked at the heat wave in June this year in Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada that saw peak temperatures as much as 10.7 C above average. Environment Canada, using a scale that includes a measure of uncertainty, concluded that the heat wave was “much more likely” to have happened because of climate change, a range between two times and 10 times more likely.

All countries must take greater action. In recent months, there has been a groundswell of support to push military spending in Canada to the promised 2 per cent of GDP. Canada needs the same widespread conviction behind climate action. The climate-policy push has to be more than the Liberals in Ottawa. Too many provinces, save for the likes of B.C., aren’t doing enough. And the federal Conservatives, like the B.C. Conservatives, appear skeptical about climate action, with limited proposals that are in part centred on increased exports of methane gas.

Greenhouse gas emissions in Canada are down 7 per cent as of 2022, the latest official figures, from 2005. Canada’s initial Paris Agreement pledge was a 30-per-cent cut. Where did that number come from? Stephen Harper. It was then maintained by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals; in 2021, as part of the Paris Agreement’s call for escalating action, the goal was increased to 40 per cent. By Dec. 1 of this year, Ottawa is legally bound to deliver a 2035 target under the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act.

While reasonable progress has been made, there’s a long way to go to 40 per cent, never mind a new, more ambitious target. Pending policies such as Ottawa’s clean electricity regulations must be amended and finalized, and embraced across the country. Provinces need to work together and connect their power grids, instead of acting like insular fiefdoms.

In 2018, the UN warned, “Limiting global warming to 1.5 C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.” Work to show how extreme weather is exacerbated by climate change is key to underscoring the urgent need for change. And most of all, remarkable advances in technology – starting with solar power and batteries – make such change possible and realistic.

This article was written by Conor Chell and was published in the Toronto Star on July 20, 2024.

CONOR CHELL IS A LAWYER, PARTNER AND THE NATIONAL LEADER OF ESG LEGAL RISK AND DISCLOSURE FOR

Whether by act or by omission, greenwashing will not be tolerated in Canada.

A new era in environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosure and regulation is upon us.

With the federal Competition Act (Bill C-59) passing into law, Canadian organizations will now be required to back up their environmental and social claims about products or services with “adequate and proper tests.” Similarly, they must substantiate any claim they make about their business protecting or restoring the environment or mitigating the environmental and ecological causes or effects of climate change (i.e., netzero or carbon-neutral claims) with an “internationally recognized methodology.”

Those that cannot back up their claims will face stiff penalties. Individuals can be fined up to $750,000 for a first offence and up to $1 million for subsequent orders. Penalties to organizations can be up to $10 million, or an amount three times the value of the benefit derived from the claim, or three per cent of the organization’s global annual gross revenue, whichever is greater. For each subsequent order, the penalty jumps to $15 million.

Greenwashing — making exaggerated, inaccurate or misleading statements about an organization’s environmental or social impact — is not a new phenomenon. But, it’s become much more prevalent and problematic in recent years as the demand for ESG information and the scrutiny of stakeholders have grown. Greenwashing can damage an organization’s reputation, erode trust with customers and investors, and now, expose it to legal liabilities and sanctions.

Once broken, integrity and trust are difficult to repair, and can harm an organization’s ability to access future capital.

According to the UN Environment Programme and New York’s Columbia University, the number of climate-related lawsuits has more than doubled since 2017 with nearly 2,500 climate-related lawsuits filed globally. That number is expected to rise significantly in the coming years as ESG-related reporting becomes mandatory and anti-greenwashing laws are enacted around the world and here in Canada.

With increasing legal risk, it is important for organizations to ensure they can support the claims they’re making.

Our understanding is that over the coming months, the Canadian government will update its guidance to provide clarity as to when action will be taken under the new provisions of Bill C-59. We also expect the Competition Bureau to review and update its enforcement guidance to ensure transparency for the business and legal communities.

Bill C-59 is not the only law to worry about.

Greenwashing is currently regulated by other various federal and provincial laws and agencies that, depending on the requirements, ultimately obligate organizations to disclose material information related to ESG factors, including climate change risks, carbon emissions, diversity and inclusion, human rights and corporate governance.

Proposed new legislation aims to address gaps and inconsistencies in ESG definitions, standards and disclosure requirements, such as the federal Bill C-372, known as the Fossil Fuel Advertising Act, and Bill S-243, or the Climate-Aligned Finance Act.

The impacts from Bill S-243 alone will reverberate throughout the economy as financial institutions seek to cascade their needs for climate data and improvement down to their vendors and customers.

Given that many organizations will be directly or indirectly impacted by incoming mandatory ESG reporting requirements and by one or more of the incoming anti-greenwashing pieces of legislation, legal risk, and the potential for liability for organizations, organization leaders and boards of directors is sharply increasing.

The only choice organizations have today is to back up, revise or overhaul their public commitments and communications.

Organizations will be held accountable on how clearly they measure, verify, and communicate ESG performance and impacts. Even historical ESG reports — based on voluntary, not mandated disclosures — could potentially be classified as greenwashing, and need to be looked at against these new regulations.

There are ways organizations can mitigate legal risks.

They will need to assess their ESG disclosures from a legal risk perspective. This includes ensuring that their ESG data, information, targets and goals are credible and verified. ESG targets, goals and ambitions will need to be proven as technically, financially and operationally feasible.

Organizations also need to identify where they’ve made ESG disclosures or talked about ESG publicly, ranging from websites, investor decks, media interviews and social media to the less obvious like responses to request for proposals.

They will need to close any gaps in their compliance programs and ensure their internal and external processes and controls can withstand the expected additional legal scrutiny public ESG disclosures will undoubtedly attract.

Taking these steps will help organizations to be duly diligent and protect themselves from charges of greenwashing.

Leaders will emerge not only based on the sustainability claims they make, but rather on their ability to back them up, anticipate concerns, and withstand new waves of scrutiny.

The organizations that can communicate their ESG commitments with confidence and integrity will be well-positioned to navigate this new reality.

Turbines and panels could be how to keeping the lights on, green energy experts say

This article was written by Marco Chown Oved and was published in the Toronto Star on July 20, 2024.

Cynics often say we can’t rely on renewable energy because the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow.

But when the rain falls really hard — like it did this week — wind turbines and solar panels could be the key to keeping the lights on, green energy experts say.

“People often think about renewables as a solution to reducing the emissions that drive climate change,” said Mabel Fulford, director of innovation partnerships at Peak Power, a Toronto cleantech company. “But they also help us weather the storms that climate change brings.”

After Hurricane Sandy hit New York City in 2012 — putting 8 million people out of power — the state embarked on a grid renewal project that involved installing rooftop solar and batteries that can keep operating even during a blackout.

“When you invest in renewables and storage, you’re investing in resiliency,” said Fernando Melo, federal director of the Canadian Renewable Energy Association.

“You can have a large transmission line or a localized substation go down, but if you have a renewable generation coming in, you’re adding new power at different points in the system that can then be dispatched.”

During Tuesday’s storm, Hydro One tweeted out a picture of a west end transformer station that looked like it had been built in a swimming pool. Even with all the other transformers operational, this one failure put more than 100,000 people out of power.

Failures at these crucial nodes in the grid show the weakness of a traditional power grid, said Fulford.

“The traditional grid has this small number of very centralized generation assets. So usually what that means is that where the power is being produced is very far away from where the power is actually needed for use. And it also means that there’s more dependency on these big transmission corridors,” she said.

“The more distributed resources are on a grid, that usually means the generation is a lot closer to where it’s being used. So you get a lot more local resiliency and you get the ability to have certain areas of the grid support themselves.”

These “microgrids,” which typically involve solar or wind and batteries, can keep the power on at an industrial site or a university campus; they even work on an individual household level.

People who have solar panels and batteries (or electric vehicles that contain large batteries) can power their homes during extended blackouts.

“I have a friend outside Ottawa. When the power went out a couple of weeks ago, he had people over to just make morning coffee because he was running his house off of his Ioniq 5,” said Melo.

Renewable energy is often touted as being inexpensive and causing zero emissions, helping us expand our power system to prepare for an energy transition away from fossil fuels. But its ability to add resilience is yet another reason to build more renewables, as Canada lags the rest of the world in a drive to triple renewable power by 2030.

“Storage and renewables have huge value as we think about these extreme weather events,” said Fulford.

Not only do they help address the broader challenge of the climate crisis by reducing the emissions that drive climate change, she said, they also help our grid become more resilient and reliable during the extreme weather events that are predicted to become more frequent and more severe.

“They help us weather the storm, and they help us slow down the trajectory of more and more storms in the future.”

Scientists are watching heating trends for clues as global warming accelerates

This article was written by Inayat Singh and was published by CBC News on July 8, 2024.

Temperatures have hit record highs across the world in 2023

Last month was the hottest June since records began and the thirteenth month in a row to set a temperature record, according to new data released on Monday from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

This article was written and published by the United Nations on July 8, 2024.