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Good afternoon, and welcome to Globe Climate, a newsletter about climate change, environment and resources in Canada.
I know we usually start with lighter news, but today we have some findings to share: Last year was the hottest on record. The top 10 hottest years were all in the past decade. Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are at an 800,000-year high.
That’s all from a report last week from the World Meteorological Organization, attributing the heating to human activity.
Now, let’s catch you up on other news.
Noteworthy reporting this week:
- Energy: CEOs write to federal political leaders on how to boost production, Canadian sovereignty
- Pipelines: Poilievre promotes reviving LNG project in Quebec’s Saguenay region
- Research: U.S. government is asking Canadian researchers whether their work deals with DEI, climate, gender
- Analysis: Oil sands show signs of giving up on carbon capture
- Agriculture: Canada’s seafood producers seek to cast wider net at North American Expo
- Mining: Poilievre says Conservatives would co-fund roads with Ontario into Ring of Fire, speed up development
- From The Narwhal: Mark Carney takes the stage in Canada’s carbon tax theatre, putting politics over policy
A deeper dive
An orphaned well sits in a field near Red Deer, Alberta. May 24, 2023.GEOFF ROBINS/Getty Images
Alberta wants to clean up wells with taxpayers as backstop, document shows
For this week’s deeper dive, we are pulling from the recent work of Jeffrey Jones, ESG and Sustainable Finance reporter.
An Alberta government panel is proposing a series of actions to deal with the massive cleanup bill for aging and uneconomic oil and gas wells. Some of these actions would see taxpayers backstop activities that the industry has long been responsible for, a leaked document shows.
The recommendations include:
- Establishing special-purpose companies to acquire mature wells
- Produce the remaining hydrocarbons and use the cash flow to fund cleanup
- Setting up an insurance fund financed by the industry but guaranteed by taxpayers
The report: The options above, and numerous others, are detailed in a draft report of a process to create what the province calls a “mature asset strategy” to deal with a massive backlog of wells that remain on the books of producing companies but are no longer profitable. A copy of the confidential report, dated Jan. 28, was obtained by The Globe and Mail.
The context: Companies are legally required to plug spent wells and reclaim the land. But ballooning underfunded cleanup liabilities have fuelled significant friction between the industry, government and rural municipalities, which say they are owed $253.9-million in unpaid taxes from energy companies.
When companies go bankrupt, their wells can be transferred to the Orphan Well Association, an industry-funded group tasked with cleaning them up. The OWA has received millions of dollars in loans from the Alberta and federal government in recent years to shore up its operations.
Under the proposal: The province would set up a company it calls ClosureCo to acquire old assets for cleanup so they would not be passed to the OWA. Another entity, called HarvestCo, would seek to maximize production from the assets to fund cleanup. The government could offer regulatory and financial supports with the aim of “engaging the financial sector” to participate, the report says.
Critics Say: Some who have reviewed the draft say many of the recommendations amount to giveaways to a dwindling part of the industry, and are an affront to the polluter-pay principle. They also say recommendations also fail to address ways for municipalities and landowners to recover unpaid taxes and surface rents.
What else you missed
- Ottawa’s deal to export hydrogen to Germany awaits more federal funding decisions
- Feds joins Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in deal to protect Chignecto Isthmus
- Researchers on Nova Scotia’s wild Sable Island share lessons on science, friendship
- Ottawa commits $187-million in new funding to rebuild critical infrastructure in Jasper
- Wildfire in Texas prompts evacuations as Arkansas and Florida also battle blazes
- Ben & Jerry’s alleges parent company Unilever removed its CEO over social activism
Opinion and analysis
Campbell Clark: Pierre Poilievre wants to axe the tax, even if it is the wrong one
Sarah Lawrynuik: The deeply demoralizing betrayal by Carney, climate finance wonk
Matt Price and Adam Scott: As oil CEOs debase their own climate pledges, Bay Street must act
Green Investing
The climate indicator banks are facing rising pressure to report
The Climate Exchange
We’ve launched the next chapter of The Climate Exchange, an interactive, digital hub where The Globe answers your most pressing questions about climate change. More than 300 questions were submitted as of September. The first batch of answers tackles 30 of them. They can be found with the help of a search tool developed by The Globe that makes use of artificial intelligence to match readers’ questions with the closest answer drafted. We plan to answer a total of 75 questions.
Photo of the week
After a long day fishing on a frozen ice fjord, Hans Sandgreen prepares to feed his sled dogs before returning home, near Ilulissat, Greenland. Amid dizzying changes caused by a warming climate and global attention, Greenlanders don't want to have to choose between embracing the future and honoring their heritage.IVOR PRICKETT/The New York Times News Service
Guides and Explainers
- Want to learn to invest sustainably? We have a class for that: Green Investing 101 newsletter course for the climate-conscious investor. Not sure you need help? Take our quiz to challenge your knowledge.
- We’ve rounded up our reporters’ content to help you learn about what a carbon tax is, what happened at COP29 and just generally how Canada will change because of climate change.
- We have ways to make your travelling more sustainable and if you like to read, here are books to help the environmentalist in you grow, as well as a downloadable e-book of Micro Skills - Little Steps to Big Change.
Catch up on Globe Climate
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