Globe Climate: Drill, baby, drill ... that ice

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Good afternoon, and welcome to Globe Climate, a newsletter about climate change, environment and resources in Canada.

The eighth edition of The Globe’s annual national travel guide is here for 2025.

Hidden Canada celebrates Canadian wanderlust with 10 new destinations at a time when traveling at home is being celebrated a little more than usual. Dig in!

Now, let’s catch you up on other news.

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Noteworthy reporting this week:

1. Energy transition: Sustainable finance experts launch effort to bolster transition plans for Canadian companies
2. Oil and gas: Political support for LNG gaining traction in Canada, Indigenous leader says
3. Pipelines: TotalEnergies signs LNG deal as B.C. project’s pipeline costs soar to $12-billion
4. Wildfires: Two dead in Manitoba wildfire as province deals with early fire season
5. Technology: Deep Sky CEO Damien Steel steps down from ambitious Canadian climate-tech startup
6. Food: New Agriculture Minister wants to seize momentum and launch Canadian food into new markets
7. Wind: Is offshore wind Nova Scotia’s greatest opportunity since the Age of Sail?
8. Analysis: Honda’s EV delay shows how Canada’s new Industry Minister has her work cut out for her
9. On the ground with The Narwhal: 86 per cent of a river gone – First Nation calls on BC Hydro to let more water through

A deeper dive

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Drilling the longest ice core in Canadian history

For this week’s deeper dive, a closer look at the Müller Ice Cap project and what we can learn from the core.

You might remember science reporter Ivan Semeniuk’s story about how scientists have been on mission to drill deep into climate history in Canada’s high Arctic.

This past week, the expedition hit rock bottom – and that’s a good thing.

Ivan wrote again to let us know that scientists atop the Müller Ice Cap on Axel Heiberg Island in Nunavut reported that last Friday their drill struck rock at a depth of 613 metres.

At that depth, the project has achieved its primary goal: drilling out the longest ice core ever obtained in Canada or from any location in the Americas.

Drilling began on April 16. By April 24, the team had reached a depth of 100 metres.

“We rammed and drilled into the bottom for a day,” said Alison Criscitiello, director of the Canadian Ice Core Lab at the University of Alberta and a co-leader on the expedition. “We did everything we could to confirm bedrock.”

Their goal is to extract 10 to 20 thousand years’ worth of climate history, reaching back to a time when vast sheets of ice covered most of the country.

“We have been thinking about this ice core for more than 10 years,” said Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, the expedition’s leader. “There are only a few spots left in Canada where the ice hasn’t disappeared – we think Müller is one of them.”

Time has been a key factor for the expedition because as conditions warm in the 24-hour Arctic daylight, the snow-covered surface of the ice cap is softening and could be unsafe for aircraft as early as mid-June.

Continue to watch for Ivan’s next stories or, for a change of pace, catch up on his reporting on (possible) alien life.

What else you missed

• Alberta government announces indefinite freeze on industrial carbon price
• Atlantic Canada’s lobster industry stung by low prices and global economic turmoil
• U.S. aid cuts leave food rations for millions mouldering in storage around the world, sources say
• Bryde’s whale washes ashore in only known sighting of the animal in B.C.
• B.C. sending almost 100 firefighters to Ontario, after 42 deployed to Manitoba
• Montreal welcomes North America’s largest net-zero industrial park
• BC Hydro’s challenge: Powering province through surging demand, drought and trade war

Opinion and analysis

Normand Mousseau: How did Quebec‘s carbon tax survive? The province made it invisible

Green Investing

Opinion: Strathcona bid for MEG Energy is a vote of confidence for Carney’s energy agenda

Last Thursday, Strathcona launched a $5.93-billion hostile takeover bid for neighbouring oil sands producer MEG Energy Corp. Executive chairman Adam Waterous, an experienced M&A practitioner, would only attempt such an acquisition if he believed Alberta’s energy future is brighter than its present, Andrew Willis writes.

• Investor clinic: When will Brookfield Renewable’s unit price catch a gust of wind?

The Climate Exchange

We’ve launched the next chapter of The Climate Exchange, an interactive, digital hub where The Globe answers your most pressing questions about climate change. More than 300 questions were submitted as of September. The first batch of answers tackles 30 of them. They can be found with the help of a search tool developed by The Globe that makes use of artificial intelligence to match readers’ questions with the closest answer drafted. We plan to answer a total of 75 questions.

Photo of the week

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Guides and Explainers

• Want to learn to invest sustainably? We have a class for that: Green Investing 101 newsletter course for the climate-conscious investor. Not sure you need help? Take our quiz to challenge your knowledge.
• We’ve rounded up our reporters’ content to help you learn about what a carbon tax is, what happened at COP29 and just generally how Canada will change because of climate change.
• We have ways to make your travelling more sustainable and if you like to read, here are books to help the environmentalist in you grow, as well as a downloadable e-book of Micro Skills - Little Steps to Big Change.

Catch up on Globe Climate

• Canadian company net-zero rankings
• Shipping is a dirty business
• Climate on the ballot
• Safe drinking water on the campaign trail

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