Globe Climate: Science meets tradition

If you’re reading this on the web or someone forwarded this e-mail newsletter to you, you can sign up for Globe Climate and all Globe newsletters here.

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

Another year of COP has come and gone. This year, delegates at the United Nations climate talks adopted a deal to direct at least US$300-billion annually to helping developing parts of the world cope with the ravages of global warming. The negotiations were tense, highlighting the split between rich and poor countries.

Here’s our explainer on what to know about the new climate finance deal agreed to at COP29.

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

Noteworthy reporting this week:

1. Site C: B.C. dam comes on stream as new cabinet looks to secure power for AI, critical minerals
2. Keystone XL: Donald Trump wants to revive long-dead pipeline as he pushes fossil-fuel agenda
3. Water: Canada’s largest bottled water producer to pull out of Ontario
4. Plastic: Countries remain divided as fifth U.N. plastics treaty talks begin
5. Weather: Hurricane-force winds hit B.C. coast as bomb cyclone cuts off roads and power on Vancouver Island
6. Air pollution: Why India’s smog strategy has failed to solve its out-of-control pollution
7. From The Narwhal: Councillors in Canada’s coldest city are split on whether to phase out fossil fuels to heat buildings

A deeper dive

Traditional Indigenous knowledge is revitalizing wild rice

Pippa Norman is the Innovation Reporter at The Globe. For this week’s deeper dive, she talks about farmers’ and scientists’ hope to revitalize wild rice from sprout to table.

Phyllis Smith dreams of a store that exclusively sells Canadian Indigenous wild rice. The shelves would be adorned with packets filled with different shapes, sizes and colours, and customers would be able to pick their preferred rice based upon its tasting notes.

But over the past few years, the wild-rice harvester’s dreams have been getting dimmer. In the Métis community where she lives near Pinehouse Lake, Sask., harvest yields have been decreasing steadily.

Among the issues plaguing the industry are extreme variations in temperatures and water levels (largely owing to climate change), plus unidentified pests. While 2023 was a bumper crop, relative to the current climate, a CBC report details the strife caused by this year’s alarmingly low yields. Some harvesters have already given up partway through the season.

Industry-wide, wild-rice harvesting is happening at 10 per cent of historic levels and its aging workforce isn’t getting any younger. Bruce Hardy, who is Cree-Métis and the founder of biotech company Myera Group, said that if nothing changes, “Indigenous knowledge of over 4,000 years is at complete risk of being lost in less than 10 years.”

But Hardy and Smith aren’t sitting back watching the industry collapse. They’re both part of a team – which also includes scientists and researchers from local academic institutions – that is rebranding wild rice to increase sales, processing capacity and awareness of the culturally significant crop.

Open this photo in gallery:

Lab work is being done to identify the distinct genetic traits and flavours of wild rice – something that data has been severely lacking on in the past. And Hardy is focused on using this research to get something no Indigenous product has ever had: a Geographical Indication.

A Geographical Indication is a type of intellectual property, most commonly used to safeguard wine and spirits, that allows producers to protect a product if its uniqueness is directly tied to its place of origin. For example, the Napa Valley, Okanagan Valley and Prince Edward County are protected Geographical Indications in Canada.

Such a designation increases the value, recognition and competitive edge of anything protected by it. The use of this system could be a game changer for Indigenous products, Hardy said, and have huge economic benefits for Indigenous communities where the rice is grown.

As research into how to sustain the industry in the face of climate change is under way, Hardy is confident Canadian Indigenous wild rice could go from a dwindling grass to a coveted ingredient – and bring Smith’s dreams of a boutique store one step closer to reality.

- Pippa

Open this photo in gallery:

What else you missed

• British farmers to protest against ‘tractor tax’ in London
• Urban salmon return to Metro Vancouver streams to spawn, inspire recovery efforts
• Alberta Energy Regulator orders Sunshine Oilsands to suspend its wells, facilities and pipelines
• More than 100 people arrested after Australia climate protest forces ship to turn back from coal port
• Alberta and western Saskatchewan brace for another onslaught of heavy snow
• Study of hot spots for collisions between ships and whales could map out solutions
• Extreme weather remains the wild card as Alberta aims to fix auto insurance system

Opinion and analysis

Neil Hauer: COP29 is exposing Ilham Aliyev’s Azerbaijan as the warmongering autocratic petrostate that it is

Martin Olszynski: Why you should pay attention to this Ontario court ruling on a climate-change case

Vince Beiser: The problem with recycling: no silver bullet to the critical-metal supply conundrum

Kaella-Marie Earle: Being Anishinaabe in the oil and gas sector has its challenges

Green Investing

Climate group calls on TD Bank to review board practices, policies

Investors for Paris Compliance, which aims to hold companies to account on climate action, filed a shareholder proposal requesting Toronto-Dominion Bank to do an impartial investigation into its board governance policies and director-selection criteria. In October, the bank pleaded guilty of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Shareholders are concerned the governance issues that contributed to the bank’s compliance failures are systemic, and could allow for other gaps that extend beyond money laundering, according to the group.

• From COP29: How public funds are being used to lure private dollars in race for climate financing
• HSBC’s chief sustainability officer steps down after executive committee role dropped
• Responsible investing is growing, but advisors aren’t driving adoption

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

Open this photo in gallery:

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 COP28 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

• Entangled in cross-border measures
• Our history of reporting on the environment
• Will America vote red, blue or green?
• In B.C., we go diving for dinner

We want to hear from you. Email us: GlobeClimate@globeandmail.com. Do you know someone who needs this newsletter? Send them to our Newsletters page.