Barry Saxifrage
Climate Analyst | Vancouver
About Barry Saxifrage
Barry Saxifrage is Canada's National Observer's resident chart geek and climate analyst. In his visual carbon columns, Saxifrage deconstructs the data behind global warming and Canada's climate targets, as he charts international progress and graphically documents failures by industry and governments. His work is cited frequently by academics and climate publications internationally, including by George Monbiot in The Guardian, Yale Climate Connections, Bill McKibben's New Yorker newsletter, The Times Colonist, and many others. When he's not analyzing the corporate reports of major oil companies or comparing Canada's government's promises against Canada's actual emissions, Saxifrage is an avid soccer player.
Picture this — your carbon emissions as plastic straws
"Seeing" our family car litter 15 plastic straws out its tailpipe every second on the highway completely changed my understanding of our climate pollution emergency. And then I did the math for my flight. Barry Saxifrage details his eye-opening findings.
Canada pledges to strengthen 2030 climate targets. How ambitious should we be?
The Paris Agreement calls on all countries to strengthen their initial targets this year. What should Canada aim for? Here are four charts illustrating the current situation and the choices ahead.
The good, the bad and the ugly in Canada’s 2030 climate plan
For the first time, Canada has proposed a way to meet its climate targets, but it will take a lot more tough legislation to rein in emissions from our highest polluters, writes Barry Saxifrage.
Canada is losing the race to low-carbon prosperity
The Americans and Europeans have sprinted ahead, and even the coal-choked Chinese economy is about to pass us by, says Barry Saxifrage.
CO2 emissions from forestry are a surging climate threat. Ottawa needs to act
The logging industry continues to cut faster than Canada's managed forests can keep up with. The resulting flood of CO2 is a rapidly growing climate threat, Barry Saxifrage writes, and Ottawa needs new climate policies to rein it in.
California megafires rise exponentially as global heating takes the gloves off
Record temperatures are teaming up with record droughts to turn the Golden State into a tinderbox. Megafires have followed with increasing frequency and size.
Canada supporting fossil fuels at 10 times the G20 average during pandemic
It’s crucial that we don’t accelerate deeper into danger, like we did after the last recession.
Global fossil burning breaks record in 2019. Canadians in top 1%
Humanity continues its reckless sprint away from climate safety. Digging into the latest BP energy data to create the missing charts showing fossil fuel burning trends in Canada and worldwide.
How Canada's managed forests became super-emitters
The ongoing collapse of our managed forests — from needed carbon sinks into dangerous super-emitters — reached record levels in 2018. So here's an illustrative walk through the latest data.
Canada's emissions rise, yet again. Can we please adopt U.K. Carbon Budget law now?
Canada's emissions have surged to their highest level in more than a decade. The U.K. offers an alternative climate tool kit we could adopt to try to reverse our multi-decade climate failure.