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.
LNG vs climate. Five charts show the burden on British Columbians
B.C. continues to approve major LNG projects but can their climate pollution fit the province's climate targets? Take a visual tour through the data in five charts to see the implications for British Columbians.
Canada's climate gap twice as big as claimed - 59 million tonne carbon snafu
Canada’s proposed climate plan doesn’t even get halfway to its target because of problems with international offsets. The resulting emissions gap is twice as big as advertised.
'Hard cap' for oilsands climate pollution has loopholes the size of Nova Scotia
Prime Minister Trudeau says Alberta's 100 million tonne "absolute cap on oilsands emissions" was a key factor in approving Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. But a close look at this cap reveals it has loopholes you could fit all of Nova Scotia's emissions through, or even entire nations like Costa Rica or Nicaragua.
There's some good news about Canada's 2020 climate target
Remember our 2020 climate target? Turns out, the overwhelming majority of Canadians are close to reaching it, but our progress has been wiped out by oilsands pollution.
Oilsands pollution on collision course with Canada's climate plan
Alberta's "hard cap” allows oilsands to grab an overwhelming share of our nation's climate budget. The big grab is growing wildly out of proportion to the share of Canada’s jobs and GDP.
Trans Mountain pipeline and the carbon pollution absorbed by the oceans
Lost in the heated arguments over Kinder Morgan's proposed Trans Mountain pipeline is this simple fact: more than a quarter of the bitumen flowing through it will end up as pollution spilling into our oceans — one way or the other.
Americans pull ahead of Canadians in the race against climate change
Latest data shows the Yanks may already have passed us by. The world’s other top ten economies have lapped us.
California's Thomas Fire torches record books, as 'normal' climate burns away
The freakish, "rainy-season" Thomas Fire in California has just burned itself into the record books. On Dec. 22, 2017 it officially became the state's largest recorded wildfire, having already burned 273,400 acres.
Hurricane Irma, global warming and the bomb: comparing energy giants
Four atomic bombs a second, 36 Hurricane Irmas blasting non-stop. Global warming is supercharging our climate.
Fossil fuel expansion crushes renewables
Renewables are rising, but fossil fuels are rising even more.