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December 8th 2023
Feature story

One for the record books

’Tis the season for year in reviews and unless an asteroid hits us in the next few weeks, 2023 will be the hottest year on record.

The record year isn’t surprising in itself, at least to anyone who understands climate change. It’s the surge above all previous extremes that’s horrifying.

The record is exactly what we’d expect — if you’re climbing, you keep getting higher. It would be surprising if we didn’t keep setting records.

The shock is the huge leap above previous records and the new trajectory in the second half of 2023. This year, we’ll cross the finish line just shy of 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures. An alarming figure but even more disturbing because 2023 didn’t come out of the blocks this way. The past six months have accelerated away from the pack so dramatically that they’ve lifted the yearly average up near that talismanic temperature. If this new trajectory continues, we can expect the 12-month running average to exceed 1.5 C.

“Barring an asteroid hitting in the final three weeks of 2023,” says Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, it’s now safe to say “2023 is the warmest year in human history.”

This year had six record-breaking months and two record-breaking seasons (summer and fall). And you can see very clearly how 2023 peeled away from our climate history in the second half of the year.

You can also clearly make out the spike for two days above two degrees last month.

So, it's a year for the record books but the record isn’t likely to stand for long.

“As long as greenhouse gas concentrations keep rising, we can’t expect different outcomes from those seen this year,” says Carlo Buontempo, the director of Copernicus. “The temperature will keep rising and so will the impacts of heat waves and droughts,”

We should maybe take a deep breath at this point. Because you probably know these seemingly small temperature figures have enormous implications. To take just one example, the best science we’ve mustered shows a sustained 1.5 C rise means the destruction of 75 per cent of coral reefs. Over 90 per cent are killed above 2 C. The implications for heat waves, ice sheet loss and human suffering barely bear thinking about.

It’s worth emphasizing that we cannot know if the current trajectory will continue or subside back to ordinary climate breakdown. Highly esteemed scientists like James Hansen think climate change is accelerating and he has declared the goal of 1.5 “deader than a doornail.” This week, Hansen and colleagues wrote that “even the 2 C goal is dead if policy is limited to emission reductions and plausible CO2 removal.” Hansen is not alone in this view but other scientists still see a possible pathway if we make steep cuts in fossil fuels.

Problem is, steep cuts are looking very far-fetched as each attempt gets obstructed by politicians and industry. And the public has very little context for why the efforts are such a BFD in the first place — almost nowhere will you find the debate contextualized with the kind of facts and measurements Copernicus has laid out.

Instead, the fights over climate policy are presented as exciting political battles in the race to the next election. Without context, reining in fossil fuels comes off as something optional or something we could do later. Deploying cleaner alternatives is presented to the public as if it were mostly about competing for a lucrative new market, not a race against impacts many cannot survive.

Climate policy without a climate context

I suppose there’s some consolation in the fact climate policies have become so central in the political fray. But it’s astonishing how rarely debates over climate policy make any mention of the climate itself. From Parliament to Dubai, the measures to cut carbon are debated as if that carbon wasn’t forcing us onto a terrifying trajectory.

Pierre Poilievre is threatening to bog down Parliament with “thousands” of procedural motions and stop the House from taking a winter break unless there’s a new carbon tax carveout for farm fuel to dry grain (most on-farm fuels are already exempt). Not a mention anywhere that temperatures are rising faster across the planet than Poilievre is raising them in the House of Commons.

Over in Dubai, the president of the international climate talks managed to invert the situation entirely, claiming there is “no science” behind demands for phasing out fossil fuels. Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber — who is also the head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company — got in a testy, mansplainy exchange with the former president of Ireland, Mary Robinson, even badgering her with the old denier canard about taking “the world back into caves.”

At least at the UN summit, the climate context isn’t quite as absent as domestic politics. Al-Jaber has been backpedalling after many hundreds of climate scientists quickly forwarded the precise citations on the need for a rapid phaseout. “The phasedown and the phaseout of fossil fuels … is essential,” Al-Jaber conceded at a hastily convened press conference. “It needs to be orderly, fair, just and responsible.” That sounds reasonable enough until you consider his company’s plans for fossil fuel expansion, in which case, the translation becomes “something we can do later.”

The feds have been announcing new measures at COP28. Most notably, draft regulations for 75 per cent cuts in fugitive methane and a new “framework” for an oil and gas emissions cap.

Both are generally in line with public pledges already made by the oil and gas industry. And you’ll notice one is a “draft” and one is … whatever you call whatever comes before a draft.

Neither come anywhere near the requirement for “fundamental changes to … political and economic systems” laid out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Nevertheless, both are virulently opposed by premiers like Danielle Smith and Scott Moe who threaten constitutional mayhem and predict dire economic impacts. Nothing about caves from the premiers, although Smith hasn’t shied from “freeze in the dark.”

The premiers are then amplified by the likes of Jordan Peterson to his millions of followers — “Up yours, you scumrat Steven Guilbeault,” Peterson posted in response to the emissions cap. “Get ’em, Danielle.” and “Don’t let those bloody appalling incompetent federal propagandist (sic) push the West around.”

Dispatches from Dubai

John Woodside is our guy in Dubai, reporting on the two-week summit where fossil fuel lobbyists have infiltrated the UN climate talks in record numbers — at least 2,400 of them.

Canada has been tapped by the United Arab Emirates to help land a final deal for COP28. In an interview with Canada’s National Observer, Steven Guilbeault confirmed he and seven other middle powers have been asked by summit president Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber to find “landing zones” so that countries can agree, for the first time, to signal the end of the era for fossil fuels.

Quebec was promoted to the leadership team of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA), joining Costa Rica and Denmark as co-chairs. “I don't like hearing about phasing down [fossil fuels],” said Quebec Environment Minister Benoit Charette. “It's not enough. Phasing out is the real [goal] we need to reach.”

Meanwhile, the Prairie provinces are flogging oil and gas. Former environment and climate change minister Catherine McKenna told Canada’s National Observer it’s “completely bonkers” to come to a climate summit to push oil and gas extraction. (We’ll circle back with a more humorous take on the pitch by Prairie premiers at the end of the newsletter.)

It’s worth delving into the details on the new framework for an emissions cap on oil and gas, and what happens next. Not only will it be a major flashpoint in Canadian politics, “no such policy exists anywhere else in the world, let alone for a major fossil fuel producing country.”

Beyond the formal negotiations in Dubai, the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance gained new members: Spain, Samoa, Kenya and Colombia.

And 12 countries have now endorsed the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative alongside the World Health Organization, the European Parliament and over 100 subnational governments.

Colombia’s endorsement is particularly important because the country is heavily dependent on fossil fuel extraction but its president committed to reorient away from such “poisons.”

“Between fossil capital and life, we choose the side of life,” declared Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro.

The roundup

Oilsands group ‘mystified’

Even the head of the oilsands Pathways Alliance is "a bit mystified" by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s outrage over federal plans to cut methane emissions, reports Natasha Bulowski. Meanwhile, Tristan Goodman, president of the Explorers and Producers Association of Canada, said the reductions are “achievable.”

New chief for Assembly of First Nations

Cindy Woodhouse was elected the new national chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) on Thursday, with a mandate to implement the AFN’s climate action strategy. Woodhouse was a force behind the historic $23-billion child welfare settlement.

“First Nations are always the first affected by climate change,” Woodhouse said, pointing to massive floods crippling First Nations in her home province of Manitoba. The new chief wants to amp up clean energy while navigating the influx of mining stakes for critical minerals on Indigenous territories as well as demands for exemption from the carbon tax.

Although the Chiefs of Ontario broadly supports climate action, the organization has launched a legal challenge to force negotiations over carbon pricing. The Chiefs of Ontario argues the system is discriminatory, reports Matteo Cimellaro, because Indigenous communities have been severely disadvantaged, the rebate mechanism is tied to the federal income tax system and remote communities rely on expensive diesel power.

Gas utility sues Quebec town

Quebec’s gas utility Énergir hit the town of Prévost with a lawsuit because the community passed a bylaw banning natural gas this autumn.

Prévost is not the only municipality aiming to wean itself off natural gas — Montreal passed its own ban in October — but Marie-Noëlle Foschini, co-ordinator of Sortons le Gaz, says it’s being targeted because its rules are the most comprehensive, covering not only new construction but replacements of heating systems as well.

Massachusetts rules against gas

“State utility regulators (in Massachusetts) issued a sweeping ruling that sets a framework for reducing the use of gas for heating as part of a larger strategy to address climate change,” reports Inside Climate News.

“The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities rejected arguments from utilities and the gas industry that had urged the use of ‘renewable natural gas’ and hydrogen as lower-carbon alternatives to natural gas. Instead, the department ruled that the state should encourage a transition to using electricity for heating and other functions gas currently serves.”

Feds and Nova Scotia veto offshore oil

Nova Scotia and the feds announced a joint decision to reject a licence to restart fossil fuel exploration offshore of the province.

The decision to reject the licence effectively overrules the Offshore Petroleum Board because of “shared commitments to advance clean energy and pursue economic opportunities in the clean energy sector, which are beyond the scope of the board's regulatory purview,” reports Cloe Logan.

Annexing the oil

Venezuela held a referendum and claims its citizens have voted to annex the oil-rich region of Essequibo in neighbouring Guyana. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro ordered the state oil company to issue licences and proposed the National Assembly pass a bill to make the area part of Venezuela. The UN Security Council is holding emergency meetings and the U.S. has announced military drills with Guyana.

“The long-running dispute over the Essequibo — which comprises some two-thirds of Guyanese territory — has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered oil there in 2015,” reports CBS News.

Ban the blowers

California is banning the sale of new gasoline-powered lawn mowers, leaf blowers and other landscaping tools starting next year.

Not only are they obnoxiously loud, using a leaf blower for one hour emits as much smog-forming pollution as driving 1,100 miles, and Bloomberg reports lawn tools spew over 30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in the U.S.

“What we’re putting our R&D efforts toward, what we’re putting our advertising toward, it’s all toward electrification,” said Christine Potter, president at Stanley Black & Decker’s outdoor unit.

Solar for Summerside

Summerside, P.E.I., flipped the switch on a large solar farm tied to grid-scale batteries and built on top of the city’s water well field.

You may know Summerside as the city that “lit up fast” after tropical storm Fiona, thanks to its municipally-owned power company. Or as the little Canadian city that became an inadvertent climate leader.

The Sunbank project will eventually have over 65,000 panels (48,000 are already installed). The city says the solar farm will have the capacity to provide 25 per cent of the electricity the city uses. Add on the wind power the city already generates, and Summerside will produce 65 per cent of its own electricity.

“There’s no question that we need to reduce the amount of carbon we are putting into the atmosphere, and we also need to make sure we are more energy independent,” Summerside Mayor Dan Kutcher told Saltwire. “And this project does both of those things.”

Dousing the flames

Canada’s first electric fire engine hit the streets of Vancouver this week. The Rosenbauer RTX pumper truck is more manoeuvrable, less carcinogenic and part of Vancouver’s pledge to switch to electric vehicles when fuel-powered ones need replacing.

And Tim Hortons rolled out its first electric delivery truck in Guelph, Ont.

‘I don’t care’

A shout-out to Mike from Regina for sending in your bonbon for this week. It’s Phil Tank’s take on the Saskatchewan delegation to COP28. The columnist for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix created a transcript for the imaginary conversation Premier Scott Moe might have with his staff on arriving at the province’s pavilion in Dubai. Here’s how Overheard at the Sask. pavilion at the COP28 conference begins:

Moe: Can you explain the banner at our pavilion?

Staffer: It’s a climate change conference and it features your most noteworthy statement on climate change.

Moe: But it says, “I don’t care.”

Staffer: That’s what you told the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce in the spring of 2022 about the province having the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.

Moe: I remember. But that’s not the story we want to tell to the world…