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Political landscape No Canadian government has ever met its own climate targets.  It seems that whenever it comes time to implement policies for achieving such goals, backtracking and greenwashing take precedence. The Carney administration supports oil and gas exports and has done away with Trudeau climate initiatives. But this hasn’t changed much. For example, the Trudeau era cap on oil and gas emissions allowed increases in oil and gas production up to 2030 that magically entailed a reduction of emissions, thanks to ineffective...

Intro The prime catalyst for AI data centres growth is Trump’s fetish for such centres. The global IT capacity of data centres under construction represented 23 gigawatts (GW) by September 2025, 75% of this capacity is in the U.S. For 2028, the energy impact is estimated to be around 6.7% to 12% of electricity U.S. demand dedicated to data centres. Seven companies, dominate U.S. data centres landscape, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Tesla, Microsoft and Nvidia. The exponential race to build U.S. data centres is ...

Empirical evidence illustrates that among the 3 main electric vehicle (EV) jurisdictional centres of activity, China, Europe and North America, the China’s EV sector is light years ahead; the EU manufacturing sector is catching up; and North America automakers are falling way behind global EV developments. These contrasts are well-illustrated what follows by: leading in with what’s behind the Volkswagen metamorphosis; the leveraging of mid-level tariffs on Chinese EV imports to foster local manufacturing; the U.S. and Canada back peddling;...

Introduction The EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), many years in the making, is revolutionary.  CSRD will replace the questionable smorgasbords of stand alone inserts on corporate sustainability profiles.  It does so by requiring firms to provide detailed framed descriptions on integrating sustainability into all facets of corporate decision-making. This includes Scope 3 considerations on suppliers and end-users. Most important, CSRD will become an international gold standard since all firms with significant business in the EU most submit CSRD reports. In total, CSRD...

Short lifespan illusions An imagined slump in fully electric vehicle (EV) sales reflects short-lived illusions of a society-wide osmosis.  According to Cox Automotive report on U.S. EV prospects, 2024 Path To EV Adoption, high EV prices and fear of there not being enough public charging units available have taken hold. Broken down, the study indicates that currently 45% of those intending to purchase a new vehicle within the next 12 months are considering an EV, that becomes 79% in the 2026...

Nuclear cost and time overruns While nuclear power has gained interest as a low carbon solution, cost and time overruns have dampened this interest. A Boston University study of 400 nuclear plants over 80 years indicated that, on average, building nuclear plants cost double the before construction projections, and 64% exceeded their timelines.  Average costs go 120% over original budgets, with the majority more than doubling. High maintenance costs add to the unattractiveness of the nuclear option, in particular, the old reactors...

Electric vehicle (EV) imports from China will account for 25% of EV sales in Europe in 2024. Now China-based EV and battery firms are on the verge of coming to North America and there is no such thing as batteries without content from China.  This is the context for U.S. protectionist legislation. What follows is a most comprehensive plethora of reasons on why 1) protectionism won’t work and 2) North American and European EV manufactures are vulnerable to disruptive market threats...

Expectations for COP29 in Azerbaijan, based COP28 in the United Arab Emirates? The light getting in though the cracks is few countries are immune to competition with China’s sweeping expeditious green transition. China’s brisk energy transition intentions are three-fold, decarbonization of its economy, domination of global clean tech manufacturing and reduced dependence on imported fossil fuels. Renewables The COP28 final statement calls for a tripling of renewables capacity by 2030.  China had an objective to triple renewables capacity by 2030 too, but China...

New vison, clean tech acquisitions and fossil fuel divestments Under the leadership of Shell CEO, Ben van Beurden, 2014 to 2022, it really seemed that Shell was taking climate change seriously.  In 2017, Ben van Beurden purported that the “biggest challenge” for the company was to acquire public acceptance.  He asserted “If we are not careful, broader public support for the sector will wane.” Perhaps, the most astonishing component of the new orientation was the Ben van Beurden plan to divest...