Category Archives: Energy

Cost of Climate Change, Energy

B.C. will soon decide the fate of four projects with big climate and biodiversity impacts

By Matt Simmons, The Narwhal, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

B.C. Premier David Eby’s newly appointed cabinet is about to decide the fate of a handful of proposed projects,  each of which comes with a slew of implications to biodiversity and  climate. 

While provincial ministers wrestle with the decisions, delegates from across the country and around the world are gathered at COP15,  the United Nations biodiversity conference in Montreal. The aim of the  conference is to secure government commitments to slow the global  biodiversity crisis underway — the crisis is sometimes referred to as  the sixth mass extinction and is the first to be human-caused.

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Energy, Indigenous Nations

‘You will be arrested’: Coastal GasLink security denies Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief access to monitor project construction

By Matt Simmons, The Narwhal, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

Under an early November snowfall, a tense standoff slowly unfolded between Coastal GasLink security workers, RCMP and Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chief Na’moks.

“If you pass this gate, sir, my understanding is that you will be arrested by the RCMP,” a pipeline security guard told the Chief and his supporters. He was standing in front of a yellow gate across the access road to where the company is drilling under Wedzin Kwa (Morice River) about two kilometres away.

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Energy, Indigenous Nations, Rivers & Oceans

Tensions rise as Coastal GasLink blasts a creek near a Wet’suwet’en camp

By Matt Simmons, The Narwhal, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

Less than one kilometre from a Wet’suwet’en camp and village site, where cabins, tiny homes and a feast hall provide space for ceremony, cultural practices and opportunities to reconnect with the land, is a vast muddy clearing, guarded by private security workers. 

Here, the path of the Coastal GasLink pipeline crosses Ts’elkay Kwe (Lamprey Creek), a tributary of Wedzin Kwa (Morice River). This work requires digging a trench right through the creek to bury the pipe under it.

Ts’elkay Kwe is a known spawning channel for steelhead trout trout and other species, including coho salmon, according to a 2007 land-use plan. But steelhead and salmon throughout the watershed are in decline, in part due to widespread clearcut logging and climate change.

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Energy, Politics

Bloc Québécois MP Monique Pauzé confronts feds about Trans Mountain’s ‘cooked’ books

By Natasha Bulowski, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Bloc Québécois MP Monique Pauzé blasted the federal government in question period after a report forecasted roughly $17 billion of Trans Mountain’s public debt will be forgiven.

“The government has cooked the books to hide the fact that it continues to sink our money into the Trans Mountain pipeline,” the MP for Repentigny told the House of Commons in French on Oct. 7.

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Energy, Forests

Talk Is Cheap, Part 1: BC Fails to Fulfill its Carbon, Climate, Forestry Promises

The government of Canada, and the BC government, state publicly that they are committed to carbon reduction and proactive responses to climate change; yet both Canada and BC remain consistently among the world’s top carbon emitters per capita. In 2019 Canada was the world’s highest carbon emitter per capita.

On the one hand, our government proposes initiatives that would improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions — in sectors like transportation and construction. But on the other hand, they continue to subsidise existing and new fossil-fuel projects such as LNG Canada and the Coastal Gaslink pipeline — to expand fracking.

Canada’s Liberal government spent $4.5B to purchase the Trans-Mountain Pipeline in 2018, only to announce in Spring 2022 that no further funding would be allocated to the project as cost overruns neared 70%. But wasting money may be the least of our problems. These fossil-fuel projects have huge carbon impacts.

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