The business beat has long been an ideal perch for reporting the climate story, and it’s doubly so now that Mark Carney is becoming the new prime minister of Canada. Initial reporting on Carney replacing Justin Trudeau as the Liberal Party leader and designated prime minister focused on the implications for Canada’s trade war with the US, where President Donald Trump on Tuesday repeated his increasingly aggressive threats to annex the US’s neighbor, saying the only way for Canada to avoid Trump’s tariffs “is for the country to ‘become our cherished Fifty-First State,’” the CBC reported.
What hasn’t yet gotten much press attention are Carney’s views about climate change and fossil fuels, which are commendably grounded in science but carry radical political and economic implications. Over the past decade, Carney has repeatedly stated that the vast majority of Earth’s remaining reserves of oil, gas, and coal must be left in the ground, unburned — because burning them would risk a catastrophic overheating of the planet. The world’s climate scientists have been saying exactly that with increasing urgency for years. But leaving most fossil fuels in the ground poses enormous practical challenges for Canada, one of the world’s foremost producers and exporters of oil and gas. It also could be another flashpoint between Canada and the US, which now is led by an administration promoting climate-change denial.
With new elections expected very soon in Canada, this consequential twist in the climate story cries out for fresh reporting. Canada’s opposition parties will call for a vote of no confidence when parliament resumes on March 24; if the vote passes, Canadians would return to the polls, probably by early May. As Carney faces voters, reporters might well ask if he still believes that most fossil fuels must be left unburned. And if so, how does he plan to pursue that vision when fossil fuels are such a big part of Canada’s economy?
In a landmark speech he gave as the head of the Bank of England in 2015, Carney warned that excessive investment in fossil fuels threatened a repeat of the 2008 global financial collapse. The International Energy Agency had recently concluded that only about one-third of the world’s remaining oil, gas, and coal reserves could be burned without pushing temperature rise beyond 2 degrees Celsius, at the time the accepted threshold for avoiding disaster. In financial terms, that would make the remaining two-thirds of reserves all but worthless “stranded” assets. But fossil fuel companies counted those reserves as genuine wealth, as did insurance companies, banks, and pension funds that invested in those companies. That mismatch amounted to a carbon bubble, similar to the housing bubble that triggered the 2008 financial collapse.
To keep that carbon bubble from bursting, Carney went on to order British banks to undergo climate stress tests — theoretical exercises to check if banks could remain solvent if most fossil fuels became stranded assets. The practical effect was to encourage a shift away from fossil fuels. Carney has continued this approach in recent years as the UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance. With the temperature target now tightened to 1.5 degrees C, he endorsed a November 2023 report by the Energy Transitions Committee that concluded that “65% of all oil and gas reserves and 90% of all coal reserves must be left in the ground …. and there is no need for any exploration of new oil and gas fields.”
On the campaign trail, Carney responded to Conservative Party attacks by promising to “end the consumer carbon tax” Trudeau had implemented, “meaning Canadians would no longer pay a tax when they fill up their petrol tanks or heat their homes. Instead, the burden would shift to corporate polluters,” the Times of London reported. How such a policy would affect the larger scientific imperative of leaving fossil fuels in the ground is unclear. But unlike many world leaders, Carney plainly takes climate science seriously and has thought hard about how it should guide policy. How the former central banker explains his vision to Canada’s voters during the upcoming election campaign and perhaps again as the prime minister is a story not only for environmental reporters but for their colleagues on the business, politics, and international affairs desks as well.
From Us
89 Percent Project webinar. Join CCNow co-founders, Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope, next Thursday, March 20, at 7am ET or 1pm ET, to learn how you and your newsroom can get involved in The 89 Percent Project, a year-long initiative kicking off this April with a CCNow Joint Coverage Week. The 89 Percent Project will shine light on the fact that a huge majority of the global population want governments to take stronger climate action, a perspective all too often missing from the public climate discourse. RSVP for the webinar and learn more about the project.
NOAA press briefing. Today, CCNow and Climate Central, in collaboration with the American Meteorological Society, hosted an hour-long webinar on what journalists should know about cuts to NOAA, including the agency’s importance to public safety and climate research. Guests included Bernadette Woods Placky, Chief Meteorologist and Vice President for Engagement at Climate Central; Alan Sealls, President-elect of the American Meteorological Society; and Gabrielle Canon, senior climate and extreme weather reporter for the Guardian. Watch a recording.
Power & Progress newsletter. The latest edition of our biweekly newsletter about the politics of the renewable energy transition unpacks the Trump administration’s federal funding freeze, which has hamstrung ongoing climate projects nationwide. Check out the Power & Progress archive and sign up to get it every other Tuesday.
Noteworthy Stories
Words to action at COP30. André Aranha Corrêa Do Lago, Brazil’s secretary for climate, energy, and environment and the country’s pick to lead upcoming COP30 negotiations later this year in Belém, issued a public letter to lay out his vision for the summit. At a time of significant geopolitical upheaval, Do Lago suggests new leadership and decision-making mechanisms, saying this COP must be about transitioning from words and future-looking promises to concrete actions. Specific priorities in Belém will include countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions, climate adaptation, and forest protection. By Matteo Civillini for Climate Home News…
Oil drilling in the Amazon. As Brazilian president Lula da Silva moves to enact new oil drilling in the Amazon rainforest, an op-ed in the Amazon-based Sumaúma argues that doing so is a betrayal. “If the project flouts responsible technical analyses and moves forward, it will constitute a brutal attack on Nature on the eve of COP30 … [and] leave a stain on Lula’s record that will be harshly judged by future generations.” By Eliane Brum for Sumaúma…
Secretary of oil and gas. In a speech to fossil fuel industry leaders in Houston, US energy secretary Chris Wright argued that what the world really needs is more fossil fuels. He framed this as a matter of justice and equity, explaining that Americans’ lifestyles require an average of 13 oil barrels annually per person, while life in other countries uses only three barrels. One fossil fuel representative offered this review of Wright’s remarks: “He’s one of us.” By Dharna Noor for the Guardian…
Yes, take backs. As part of an ongoing effort by the Environmental Protection Agency under Trump to reclaim $20 billion that the agency gave to climate nonprofits under the Biden administration — money that was contractually obligated under law — the Trump Department of Justice has ordered the nonprofits in question to hand over records to the FBI and appear in court later this month. By Jean Chemnick for Politico’s E&E News…
Don’t say “climate change.” The US Coast Guard Academy, which prepares future officers for service in a military branch “that confronts global warming every day” — think: hurricane battered coasts and the melting Arctic — is censoring the words “climate change” and other related terminology from its curriculum to comply with Trump administration orders. By Marianna Lavelle for Inside Climate News…
Adapting to the unlivable. The French government has released a national climate adaptation plan that accounts for a 4-degrees-Celsius temperature rise above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century. The plan includes dozens of measures to support a wide variety of economic and social sectors — mountain, coastal, agricultural, healthcare, and more — cope with the challenges of a changing climate. By Matthieu Goar for Le Monde…
- CCNow adds: While it’s great to see the need for climate adaptation taken seriously, it must be said that science is unequivocal that global warming as high as 4 degrees C will make large swaths of the world unlivable and result in catastrophic upheaval virtually everywhere else.
Dispatch #1 from the Climate Blueprint for Media Transformation
For the next few months, we’ll periodically share standout insights from the Climate Blueprint for Media Transformation, a collaboration between CCNow and the Solutions Journalism Network. This is the first.
Climate visuals can help humanize a complex subject, vividly illustrate how potential solutions work, and showcase humanity’s resilience and creativity. But it can also perpetuate stereotypes and clichés about human suffering. People are complex, and they should be shown that way.
Justin Cook and Caitlin Ochs, two experienced visual journalists, teamed up to share approaches they’ve learned to share the climate story holistically, using visuals to deepen understanding rather than just intensifying feeling. And this isn’t just a technique question; it involves a commitment to ethical behavior and to care for the people and places you visit.
“Inspire awe, wonder and possibility to expand the climate imagination,” they write. Read their story, “Climate awe is a salve for climate doom.”
Resources, Events, Etc.
SciLine “crash course.” On March 18, at 2pm US Eastern Time (6pm GMT), SciLine will host a free, one-hour training session for local and general assignment reporters “to teach basic principles about how science works and ways it can be used to strengthen virtually any news story.” Learn more and register.
Photographing climate solutions. On March 19, at 2pm US Eastern Time (6pm GMT), the Solutions Journalism Network and Project Drawdown are hosting a webinar about “how photojournalism can better capture stories of hope, resilience, and climate solutions.” Learn more and register.
Journalists’ mental health after the LA fires. On March 19 at 2:30pm US Pacific Time (9:30pm GMT), The Uproot Project, in association with the C.A.R.E.S. Media Initiative (in which CCNow is a contributing partner), is hosting “a two-hour virtual workshop focused on mental health for climate and environmental journalists in the wake of the fires in LA and southern California.” Learn more and register.
Jobs, Opportunities, Etc.
National outlets & organizations. Floodlight is hiring an investigative reporter (remote, apply by March 26). Common Dreams is hiring a staff writer and reporter (remote). The Committee to Protect Journalists is hiring a regional director for the Americas (New York or D.C.). Bloomberg is hiring an associate reporter for health policy (Arlington, Va.). Popular Science is hiring an associate editor (remote).
Local outlets. CalMatters is hiring a managing editor. The Herald-Leader in Lexington, Ky., is hiring a regional economic development reporter. The Connecticut Mirror in Hartford is hiring an economic development reporter.
Internships, etc. The Lever is hiring an editorial fellow (remote).
Separate but related. The oil and gas watchdog group Fieldnotes is hiring both a researcher and a research fellow (remote). The Global Strategic Communications Council (GSCC), “a global network of communications professionals in the field of climate, energy, and nature,” is hiring a senior associate for media outreach (remote).
I-79 Media Consults, a Nigerian platform dedicated in part to media training and sustainability, has a great list of fellowships, grants, and awards programs that are open for applications, some for journalists in Africa specifically and some for journalists worldwide.
LAST CHANCE: The Society for Environmental Journalists, in partnership with The Uproot Project, is offering travel stipends to reduce financial barriers for journalists in need to attend its 34th Annual Conference in Arizona. The groups will prioritize applications from “applicants who are members of [a journalism] affinity organization … and those with experiences and identities often underrepresented at professional settings.” Applications are due TOMORROW, March 14. Learn more and apply.
The Public Media Journalists Association is accepting applications for the “Opening Doors” initiative, a program designed “to increase diversity in public media newsrooms.” Ten BIPOC journalism students in their junior or senior year of college will be selected for a two-year program “that will provide skills training, mentorship, and paid internships … with a specific focus on science, health and economics reporting.” Both students and journalists interested in serving as mentors may apply. The deadline for applications is March 23. Learn more and apply.
EJN Biodiversity Media Grants. “To ensure the public has a clearer understanding of what’s at stake — and the solutions that policymakers and the private sector could implement to curb [the biodiversity crisis],” the Earth Journalism Network is offering grants to help newsrooms “increase the quality and quantity of biodiversity stories and build the capacity of journalists to improve their coverage of biodiversity issues.” The deadline for applications is March 30. Learn more and apply.
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