May 29 2023 — Adam Radwanski — Globe and Mail — Executives from an array of low-carbon industries are attempting a show of strength on Parliament Hill this week, at a precarious point in Canada’s efforts to keep pace with the United States and other countries prioritizing low-carbon economic growth. Although representatives of specific sectors frequently show up in Ottawa to press members of Parliament for […]
Oct 27 2021 — Adam Radwanski — Globe and Mail — Justin Trudeau has fired a shot across the bow of Canada’s fossil fuel industry with the appointments of a pair of climate-focused ministers in his new cabinet. Steven Guilbeault, who before entering politics was one of Quebec’s most prominent environmentalists, is now in charge of Environment and Climate Change Canada. He can be expected to […]
Aug 16 2021 — Adam Radwanski — Globe and Mail — The introduction to the Conservatives’ new climate plan reads like their party is having an argument with itself. It derides the Liberal government’s carbon-pricing model as a “tax hike.” Then it recognizes that carbon pricing is “the most efficient way to reduce our emissions.” Then it circles back to familiar arguments against the policy it’s […]
Feb 23 2021 — Adam Radwanski — Globe and Mail — The federal government has been handed some much-needed suggestions for how to better engage the agricultural sector in cutting Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions despite tensions with farmers over carbon pricing. In a prebudget submission being publicly released on Tuesday, the nascent organization Farmers for Climate Solutions – a coalition of agricultural and environmental groups – […]
Jan 19 2021 — Adam Radwanski — Globe and Mail — Joe Biden is poised to begin his presidency with a wake-up call for Canadians who expect him to compromise his climate agenda in the name of diplomacy. The president-elect’s apparent plan to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline expansion as one of his first actions after Wednesday’s inauguration, laid out in leaked transition documents, shouldn’t come […]
Dec 17 2020 — Adam Radwanski — Globe and Mail — After Joe Biden takes office next month, one of the earliest cross-border priorities for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals will be gauging the next U.S. president’s interest in setting continental quotas for electric-vehicle sales. For months, there has been speculation about Mr. Trudeau’s government imposing a zero-emissions vehicle mandate, addressing auto manufacturers’ perceived failure to meet demand […]
Dec 11 2020 — Adam Radwanski — Globe and Mail — Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have boldly, if belatedly, picked a lane on the road to meeting Canada’s climate-change targets. For five years after their Paris Agreement commitment to cut greenhouse-gas emissions 30 per cent by 2030, it was never clear how that was supposed to happen – not with the government mostly dabbling in green policies […]
Nov 30 2020 — Adam Radwanski — Globe and Mail — Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are starting with the low-hanging fruit, in their bid to use the recovery from COVID-19 to accelerate the transition to a low-emissions economy. The two biggest new commitments to climate-related spending in Monday’s fall economic statement – $2.6-billion for energy-efficiency retrofits to Canadians’ homes, and $150-million in new money over the next […]
Oct 19 2020 — Adam Radwanski — Globe and Mail — The federal government is opening the door to implementing carbon tariffs, as a way of pricing industrial greenhouse gas emissions without hurting domestic companies. Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson responded to a Globe and Mail query about carbon border adjustments (CBAs) – a method of applying carbon pricing to imports that has recently gained traction elsewhere, […]
Oct 2 2020 — Adam Radwanski — Globe and Mail — More than three years into its existence, the Canada Infrastructure Bank has finally been put in a position to succeed. Now Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals really need to hope that it is capable of doing so, because much of their ambition for a climate-friendly economic recovery hangs on it.
Sep 29 2020 — Adam Radwanski — Globe and Mail — As the federal government prepares to roll out climate-related spending commitments as part of its economic recovery strategy, a report being released on Tuesday suggests that Canada’s emissions reductions targets could be achieved at a surprisingly manageable cost. Produced by the new Institute for Sustainable Finance at Queen’s University, the study estimates that meeting the […]
Sep 27 2020 — Adam Radwanski — Globe and Mail — Suddenly, Canada has a foothold in one of the world’s fastest-growing and most pivotal clean-technology sectors. Only days ago, being a player any time soon in making electric vehicles seemed preposterous. Ontario’s manufacturing heartland, despite its proud automaking history, had been passed over for new investments in the cars expected to take over global fleets. […]
Apr 11 2020 — Adam Radwanski — Globe and Mail — The people running governments are among the few in this country who don’t have much time, during the biggest crisis since the Second World War, to sit around and contemplate what the economy will look like on the other side of it. That’s a problem, because they’re also among those who will soon have the […]
Mar 6 2020 — Adam Radwanski — Globe and Mail — So much for this year’s federal budget being all about environmental and energy policy. Never mind what the Liberals have been foreshadowing through the winter, after coming away from the fall election convinced that climate change is what now motivates their voters. They didn’t count on the COVID-19 virus overtaking all else, as a global […]
Feb 18 2020 — Adam Radwanski — Globe and Mail — When Justin Trudeau promised during last fall’s election campaign that his Liberals would put Canada on course for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, it may have seemed surprisingly bold. Other countries had made similar commitments, but most were much lower emitters than Canada, without economies in which fossil fuel extraction plays anywhere near as […]