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Good afternoon, and welcome to Globe Climate, a newsletter about climate change, environment and resources in Canada.
Electric vehicles are the future of the auto industry. But who will make them?
A team of students from Ontario’s McMaster University and Mohawk College recently defeated rival teams from Canada and the United States to win an EV battery building competition, which the students hope will position them well to create cars of the future.
Now, let’s catch you up on other news.
Noteworthy reporting this week:
- Weather: Heat warnings in effect for Ontario, Quebec, Atlantic provinces and parts of B.C.
- Policy: Canada seeks to restore Indigenous rights language in UN plastics treaty
- Bill C-5: Métis leaders optimistic government will respect Indigenous rights as Ottawa moves forward with major projects
- Good news: How three Canadian women helped save the rare Tibetan blue poppy
- Water: Stratford’s iconic Avon River has dried up, stunning locals and tourists
- Explore: Hiking this Vancouver Island park was my chance to step back into history
- Food: Mexico City’s Baldio restaurant blends zero waste and ancient agriculture
A deeper dive
Forest fires have closed roads and caused mandatory evacuations from several Avalon Peninsula communities along Conception Bay North, N.L., on Aug. 5.Paul Daly/The Canadian Press
The latest on wildfires
For this week’s deeper dive, a round up of news relating to fires, evacuations and smoke across the country, as the wildfire season persists.
Wildfires are burning across the country.
In her story this weekend, Halifax-based reporter Dakshana Bascaramurty writes that in the last few days, heatwaves in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia have brought temperatures as high as 37 C. In the Maritimes, the risk for wildfires remains high because of persistent dry conditions. Nova Scotia has imposed a sweeping ban on activities in wooded areas, and provincewide burn bans are in effect in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, the latter of which has two out-of-control fires.
Right now, eyes have shifted from the Prairie provinces to Atlantic Canada, where homes have been lost in the four wildfires blazing across the Newfoundland and Labrador. The largest fire originated in Kingston in the Conception Bay North area and had grown to nearly 50 square kilometres by Sunday. Almost 3,000 people are under an evacuation order.
Amidst unusually little Maritime rainfall this season, Nova Scotia took extreme action and has announced a ban on most summertime activities in wooded areas to prevent wildfires. For many Canadians on the East Coast, the new restrictions mean summer as they know it is over and out.
A helicopter refills a bucket of water at Cameron Lake off Highway 4 where the Wesley Ridge wildfire burned out-of-control near Coombs, B.C., on August 3.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Canadian Press
There is also currently an out-of-control fire outside of Kelowna where evacuations are underway on the West Coast, including on Vancouver Island. In Ontario, waterbombers are fighting fires in the Kawartha Lakes region. Two of those waterbombers were initially promised to help Newfoundland, but were needed in Ontario.
Starting earlier last week, several provinces were already forcing thousands of people from their homes and air-quality warnings were sent in cities thousands of kilometres away. The deteriorating conditions have added up to a wildfire season that is on track to be one of Canada’s worst on record in terms of area burned, second only to 2023.
Canadian officials have said it is not possible for wildfire fighters to lessen the impact of smoke drifting across vast swathes of the country and blanketing some American states, after several U.S. lawmakers complained that Canada is not doing enough to combat the smokey conditions. The U.S. politicians have called for an investigation of Canada’s wildfire management practices and for potential remedies under international law.
What else you missed
- Ontario labour group urges more worker protections amid rising air quality concerns
- BC Hydro says Site C dam is fully operational ahead of schedule
- Yukon First Nation to oppose all new mining claims as regional land-use planning process gets started
- To keep wildfires at bay in Catalonia, herders enlist goats and their voracious appetites to reshape the countryside
- Fast-spreading wildfire in France burns area larger than Paris, kills one
Opinion and analysis
Greg Mercer: Canada’s lobster industry is on a roll. But we can’t take the good times for granted
Editorial board: Provincial forest bans miss the point
Green Investing
Amid tariff turmoil, will Algoma find demand for its green steel?
Algoma Steel Inc. has started using the heat cast off by the arcs of powerful electric currents to make greener steel. Part of that strategy has been to dramatically reduce emissions in an attempt to differentiate its products; it even trademarked Volta as the name for its cleaner steel that it plans to produce from a mix of low-emission iron feed and scrap metal.
But experts say the project is coming online as the market for green steel, and the metal more generally, faces turmoil from tariffs and price pressures, making it unclear what financial advantages producers may get from the big upfront investments needed.
- QM Environmental files for creditor protection with almost $98-million in liabilities
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
Indigenous women from various ethnic groups take part in the Women's Indigenous March to demand climate justice, in Brasilia, on Aug. 7.EVARISTO SA/AFP/Getty Images
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
- The North Atlantic right whale’s collision course
- Beauty is a thing of joy, a driver for change
- A park to remind us about the past
- In the fires, after the floods
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