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Good afternoon, and welcome to Globe Climate, a newsletter about climate change, environment and resources in Canada.
From Canada to China, we’ll breeze through some of the latest news in wind energy and projects you should know about.
First, let’s catch you up on other news.
Noteworthy reporting this week:
- Natural assets: Protected natural areas helped generate $11-billion in GDP, new research shows
- Electric vehicles: Feds knew funding for EV rebates was running out months before telling public, documents suggest
- Infrastructure: Nunavut road project could transform the territory, but at what cost?
- Oil and gas: New U.S. proposal could revive Keystone XL pipeline assets, but would need Trump’s approval
- Podcast: Why road salt causes Canada billions in damage each year
A deeper dive
The West Pubnico Point wind farm in Nova Scotia in 2021.Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press
The power of wind
For this week’s deeper dive, a closer look at the electrical transformation happening in Nova Scotia.
Nova Scotians will soon have the option of bypassing the province’s monopoly utility for electricity, writes Jeffrey Jones, The Globe’s ESG and sustainable finance reporter.
Currently, both residents and businesses in the province get their electricity from Nova Scotia Power, the regulated utility that supplies virtually the whole province. More than half of Nova Scotia’s electricity generation is coal-fired, with the remainder powered by natural gas, wind, hydro, biomass and oil, according to the Canada Energy Regulator.
But the development of an onshore wind farm, expected to start operations late this year, will transform the market.
Customers have the opportunity to buy contracts from Nova Scotia-based Renewall Energy Inc., which first applied for its retail licence more than four years ago.
The Mersey River Wind project, which launched formally last Thursday, will comprise of 33 onshore turbines located about 150 kilometres southwest of Halifax. They will generate 150 megawatts, enough to power 50,000 homes.
The new venture is the first renewable-to-retail licence in the province, and customers will be able to purchase the electricity as early as the end of this year.
But this is not the only wind project planned in the Maritime province.
Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston is promoting the massive Wind West offshore development, which could eventually cost as much as $40-billion – plus another $20-billion for new transmission lines. The proposal was referred to the government’s Major Projects Office last year, though it still requires a private-sector proponent.
On the international stage
The rest of the world is looking at wind, too. From Report on Business Magazine comes a look at Chinese and American wind power, put into more perspective.
In Donald Trump’s recent World Economic Forum speech, he accused China of making almost all of the “windmills” but not using any itself.
He’s right that China is a massive exporter of wind turbines: As of 2024, 10 of the top 15 suppliers are Chinese, according to the Global Wind Energy Council. But roughly 94 per cent of installed capacity was in its home market. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, 16 per cent of China’s electric power generation comes from wind, and it added 76 gigawatts of wind energy in 2024 alone. That’s roughly enough to power 66.5 million U.S. households for a year.
The Globe and Mail
What else you missed
- A horse’s neigh is a unique combination of whistle and song, scientists say
- Irene Galea writes about rethinking what it’s like to explore northern England, where nature and industry blend
Opinion and analysis
Love is one of democracy’s most powerful resources
The 149 proposals put forward by the French Climate Convention were smart and pertinent. But what struck me far more forcefully was something I had not theorized at all: love.
— Hélène Landemore, author and professor of political science at Yale University
Business and investing
Asset managers restart Net Zero initiative with looser rules after year-long pause
The Net Zero Asset Managers initiative relaunched last Wednesday with more than 250 members after a year-long suspension. The group performed a six-month review before releasing a new “commitment statement” without an explicit requirement for members to align their investment portfolios with net-zero by 2050 or to set a 2030 target.
Fewer U.S. companies signed up than previously. Criticism from some Republican politicians that membership could breach antitrust rules had prompted the world’s biggest investor, BlackRock, to leave NZAM, after which the group suspended all activity.
Photo of the week
People spend time among blooming almond trees at Quinta de los Molinos park in Madrid, Spain, on March 1.Ana Beltran/Reuters
Guides and Explainers
- 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.