Don Pittis highlights Vancouver's grants for home retrofits since market forces alone won't end our natural gas addiction.
You may have seen recent media warnings that the price of natural gas is soaring.
As COP26 heads into its final week, those trying to help Canadians meet our climate commitments and prevent the world from overheating have a different view. The problem with fossil methane — the main component of natural gas — they say, is not that it's expensive, but that it is still so cheap.
It is also efficient, reliable and in millions of Canadian homes. And at the burning stage at least, research shows it's cleaner and far less greenhouse gas intensive than other fossil fuel alternatives.
Some, including former federal Conservative finance minister Joe Oliver, now chair of Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator, oppose the move to stop using natural gas, saying it will be prohibitively expensive and self-defeating.
But there is a problem. It depends how you calculate it, but most figures show space heating comes in after oil and gas production and road transport as being the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Of heat sources, natural gas is the biggest single GHG producer partly because it is so widely used. To reach net zero by 2050, experts say we have to stop heating with gas.
Read the full article at CBC.ca
Canadians and people around the world need stories that can help make visions of the future of our climate real, according to an article on The Conversation.
World-renowned primatologist and climate activist Jane Goodall says carbon pricing schemes like the one Canada has deployed aren't a silver bullet to solve the pressing threat of climate change, according to a CBC News article.
CBC writes that Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe claims heat pumps aren’t viable in his province because it gets too cold, but some experts say newer models work in lower temperatures even if a backup is encouraged.