By Gavin Pitchford

I was absolutely gobsmacked earlier this week by just how pervasive certain myths are, and realizing how much work we in the clean economy have to do before Canadians will believe we can make the transition.

And before a critical mass of Canadians see the clean economy as a real option that can displace the fossil fuel industry as an engine for prosperity, employment, improved health, a better environment, and also, a little climate action.

At the invitation of greenwashing expert Dr. Wren Montgomery (Clean50 2026), I took the clean economy show down Highway 401 to London, Ontario and Western University, my alma mater. I was addressing two fourth year Honours Business Administration (HBA) classes at Ivey, arguably Canada’s top business school.

Before I began my description of Canada’s clean economy, I asked both classes a lead-off question: What percentage does Canada’s oil and gas business contribute to our GDP?

Their answers blew me (and Wren) away.

The students came back with a wide range of responses. The closest, from just one of the ~20 students who answered, suggested 35%. Most of the others? Between 50 and 65%. One said 40% and a couple came in at 70%, with one outlier suggesting 90%.

It was literally breathtaking.

Murmurs of ‘Wow’

These are very sharp students. Some of them have already spent summers working for banks and consulting firms. And from all the attention we pay to the fossil fuel industry, the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) the industry spreads, and the amount politicians talk about it, students assumed its importance to Canada was literally 10 times bigger than it actually is.

Also of note, it’s only ~20% of Alberta’s GDP. Of course, if Premier Danielle Smith stopped making it impossible to roll out new wind and solar projects, that number would decrease quite rapidly.

My lecture then tabulated the clean economy numbers—clean/climate tech, renewable energy, green building, green fuels, biotech, venture investment, responsible investing, sustainability consulting. Counting only the numbers I could get with any accuracy, with lots of holes still to fill, the total for the clean economy was actually higher.

And so I was blessed to actually watch world views changing –and in real time!

We talked about where the fossil fuel industry is headed over the next 10 years (flat to down) vs. the clean economy (300% growth over next 10 years, if we keep pace with the rest of the world).

We talked about the incredible impact and massive risk of abandoned oil wells and the oil sands ($260 billion in estimated cleanup costs, with less than $2 billion held in reserve to do the job). How Big Oil offloads liabilities for cleanup by selling almost-depleted wells for pennies on the dollar to smaller companies that strip as much oil as possible—then abandon the business, the cleanup, and the liability, leaving taxpayers on the hook for yet one last VERY big subsidy.

To put this in perspective, the cleanup bill will get bigger, as 50% of existing wells are expected to become non-profitable/non-productive by 2030. And yet the cleanup tab is already half –HALF—of our federal budget for one year.

Solutions That Are Saleable World-Wide

They were dumbfounded all this information was not already well understood by Canadians. That no one had ever shared it with them. One perceptively compared the fossil industry’s misinformation to that previously spread by the tobacco industry.

And they wanted this information spread widely!

We had a couple of dissenting voices in the crowd. “I don’t want government support going to the oil companies—but I don’t want it going to clean tech, either,” said one. Several nods from the free market bros around the room.

So we talked about why clean tech companies should get government support and why oil companies should not: Because clean tech is in a start-up phase, because it’s where the jobs are and where many more will come from, and mostly because intellectual property is highly portable. Other countries want ours, and our best are being pursued with significant government support, matching and top-ups for building facilities, easier access to capital—the list goes on. It means tomorrow’s Canadian business leaders can be lured south to the United States, to Europe, and even to China. taking the jobs with them. And so Canada needs to keep pace with investment, or lose them.

Nods from the free market types. They got it now…

After a lot of further conversation, the students expressed genuine frustration that no one had ever shared these facts with them before, then asked what they could do.

And then they committed to calling their MPs. And I’m holding them to it!

If you want to add your comments, there’s a shorter version of this story posted on LinkedIn.

Gavin Pitchford is founder and executive director of the Canada’s Clean50 sustainability leadership award program and CEO of Delta Management. This post originally appeared in the weekly Clean50 newsletter, and has been edited to match Energy Mix style.

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By Gaye Taylor

As the Canadian oil and gas sector continues to automate, shedding 10,000 jobs in Alberta alone last year, and as the low-carbon transition accelerates, a new report urges Ottawa to adopt a “future-ready work force strategy” that better connects displaced workers with real opportunities.

When it comes to employability within a lower-carbon economy “most Canadian workers already possess many transferable skills,” an “occupational compatibility” that bodes well, writes C.D. Howe Institute public policy analyst Lin Al-Akkad in her recent report, Future-Ready Workforce Strategies and Matching Skills Model: The Energy Transition Case.

But skill gaps remain, alongside limited clarity on how green job demand will evolve. There is an urgent need to “map how workers can shift into emerging green industries,” said Al-Akkad, who expanded on the issue in an Hill Times op-ed.

“Imagine a pipeline of workers laid off from one sector, discarded like old parts, while next door a booming green industry sits idle, struggling to hire,” she wrote.

Oil and Gas Jobs Fall As Output Climbs

Alberta’s oil sector slashed 10,000 jobs in 2025 despite soaring production, the Edmonton Journal reports. “The industry is finding ways to do more with less,” Mark Parsons, chief economist at ATB Financial told the newspaper, identifying “driverless trucks in the oil sands” and other forms of automation as examples.

The Journal says the 2025 layoffs bring oil and gas employment closer to its 20-year average, following a hiring surge during the 2014 boom, but a recent analysis indicates the trend reflects longer-term operational changes. Last October, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis found that in the United States, the industry’s shift toward hydraulic fracturing—a practice increasingly used in Alberta—has contributed to what it calls “long-term employment decay.”

In 2014, the U.S. oil patch required 53 workers to produce 1,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. By 2024, after fracking became the dominant extraction method, that figure had fallen to 27.

Millions of New Green Jobs

By 2030, the energy transition is expected to disrupt 14.4 million jobs globally, with 12 million jobs created and 2.4 million lost, according to  [pdf] the World Economic Forum.

In Canada, an estimated loss of 1.5 million oil and gas jobs by 2050 in a net-zero world will be “far exceeded” by a gain of 2.2 million jobs in clean energy, according to a March 2023 report from Clean Energy Canada. The sector is projected to grow at 7% per year through mid-century.

But a smooth transition depends on deliberate policy choices. “To date, energy transition planning in Canada has been long on verbiage and aspiration, but short on concrete levers and commitments to shape the outcome of transitions in ways that benefit workers,” wrote [pdf] the Centre for Future Work in a recent report.

Mapping, Bridging the Green Skills Gap

A key recommendation in Al-Akkad’s report is a significant expansion of Ottawa’s Occupational and Skills Information System (OaSIS) database into a “centralized labour market intelligence platform.”

An expanded platform would map current and emerging green occupations by sector and identify “skills adjacencies and transferable competencies.” This in turn would help identify transition pathways that require “minimal upskilling,” improving the chances for oil workers to secure employment in a low-carbon economy.

The system would also link with training providers and employers to forecast job demand, inform curriculum development, and integrate international benchmarks from organizations like the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training.

Training programs, writes Al-Akkad, must be innovative and aligned with decarbonization goals. Industries like low-carbon cement manufacturing, hydrogen production, and green construction each “demand specialized competencies, adaptable delivery models, and strong partnerships between industry and educational institutions,” she writes.

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Colossal fossil Shell and industrial conglomerate Mitsubishi are trying to sell off their shares in the $40-billion LNG Canada liquefied natural gas megaproject, reinforcing predictions that 2026 would be the year that an oversupplied global market for the climate-polluting gas begins to hit home.

“The moves come as owners of the massive liquefied natural gas facility weigh a potential expansion, and after another stakeholder, Petronas, successfully offloaded a piece of the project,” Reuters revealed Friday, in an exclusive report citing three sources familiar with discussions.

The news agency says Shell has been working with investment bankers at Rothschild & Co. to offload up to three-quarters of its 40% share in the project, for an asking price of about US$15 billion. “Shell has expressed willingness, however, to consider different options relating to its exposure to the project’s Phase 1, which is operational, and the proposed Phase 2, given their different risks,” Reuters writes.

Mitsubishi hasn’t begun courting buyers, but has hired RBC Capital Markets while it assesses its options.

LNG Canada, the first North American facility of its kind with direct access to the Pacific Ocean, “has a supply cost advantage because prices for Canadian natural gas consistently trade at a discount” compared to the U.S. price benchmark, named for the Henry Hub pipeline distribution centre in Louisiana, Reuters explains. “Even so, existing and potential owners will consider industry fears of global oversupply of the supercooled fuel, as new LNG output comes online.”

The news comes just a month after Energy Transfer LP “indefinitely paused” its Lake Charles LNG project in Louisiana after extending its target date to start exports from 2025 to 2031, preferring instead to focus on domestic natural gas pipelines. And that wasn’t the only retrenchment, as fossil companies absorb the prospect that the LNG glut will become a “sinkhole”.

“Solar, wind power, and batteries are set to make life a misery for the liquefied natural gas market,” warned Thomson Reuters editor and news analyst Antony Currie, in one of the news agency’s prediction pieces for 2026. “Some fossil fuel executives already think the push by incumbents like ExxonMobil, Shell, and Woodside Energy to hike global production by some 50% by 2030, per the International Energy Agency, is creating a bubble. But renewable energy’s advantages will make the pop even worse.”

Public musings about that bubble have been intensifying at least since late August, when Prime Minister Mark Carney and Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson travelled to Germany to pledge a first wave of Canadian LNG deliveries. “I think you’re probably talking about five to seven years,” Hodgson told Politico EU in an interview in Berlin.

At the time, multiple analysts contacted by The Energy Mix and Berlin-based Clean Energy Wire said they saw limited prospects for increased LNG trade.

“There is absolutely no window in the next 25 years when you can think, oh, the EU will really need that LNG then,” wrote Adrian Hiel, Brussels-based director of the Electrification Alliance. “It’s nothing but one effort after another to push expensive, inefficient gas out of the EU’s energy system.”

Hiel predicted an “enormous glut” of LNG between 2026 and 2030, as new U.S. supply enters the global market.

Toward the end of the year, as well, industry and trade media began reporting mounting evidence of declining imports to Asia, long seen and often over-hyped as the most promising source of steady demand for Canadian LNG.

On LinkedIn, Richard Brooks, climate finance lead at Stand.earth, hailed the Shell/Mitsubishi story as big news.

“This may be a sign that this project is not performing as well financially as expected, particularly in the face of a widely reported multi-year LNG supply glut that is under way. Long-term outlook is nosediving. Projects are being cancelled and delayed everywhere, even in the USA,” he wrote.

“It means the Phase 2 expansion, which has been referred to the Major Projects Office for fast-tracking, is delayed or dead,” Brooks added.

Reuters says LNG Canada referred questions about the sale to Shell and Mitsubishi. Shell declined comment, while Mitsubishi wasn’t reachable outside business hours in Japan. Rothschild didn’t respond to a request for comment.

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By Mitchell Beer

Alberta is demanding even faster federal approval of a bitumen pipeline to British Columbia’s west coast, even as a former provincial energy minister admits the project would have “zero” chance of attracting private investors without federal subsidies to “backstop” it.

The new demands came just six weeks after Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney signed a controversial memorandum of understanding (MOU) that envisioned an accelerated, two-year approval schedule for at least one new pipeline. Smith issued her latest letter to Carney after Donald Trump’s bombing and kidnapping raid in Venezuela became the latest pretext to demand ever-faster federal action on the pipeline plan despite a glutted global market for oil.

“Alberta intends to submit its application for a pipeline to the Major Projects Office by June—and [Smith] asked that it gets approved by this fall,” CBC reports.

“Within the current geopolitical context, timelines of up to two years are still woefully long and risk putting Canada at a disadvantage,” Smith wrote. “Any delay risks ceding market share, losing investment, and undermining Canada’s competitive position in a rapidly changing global energy landscape.”

When the MOU was signed in late November, impact assessment experts warned that even a two-year approval period would be too short to allow for thorough review of a major, new pipeline, or for engagement with Indigenous and other affected communities. Short-circuiting those steps could help land a project in court, where it would only face further delays.

Smith’s letter also sidestepped major questions about the years it would take to refurbish Venezuela’s decrepit oil production infrastructure, whether U.S. fossil companies are willing to invest, and whether there will significant global demand for new oil—from Venezuela, Canada, or anywhere else—by the time any new project could be completed.

A west coast pipeline would also need federal subsidies, Smith’s former energy minister, ex-pipeline lobbyist Sonya Savage, told a CBC podcast. Without taxpayer support, “I would say it’s not just diminishing, the likelihood of a private sector proponent.… I would almost say it is zero at this point,” she said.

While the MOU explicitly calls for any new pipeline to be built and financed by private companies, Savage said a federal “backstop” to cover cost overruns, like the massive, 584% budget increase that plagued the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, would not be a new concept for Canada.

“The TransCanada mainline gas line in the 1950s would not have been built without federal government intervention,” she told CBC’s West of Centre podcast. “They set up a Crown corporation, they backstopped it. Enbridge’s Line 9 in the 1970s would not have been built without a federal government backstop.”

In a release Monday, the Calgary-based Pembina Institute called on both governments to “stay true” to the language about “strong regulations that will drive down oil and gas emissions” that accompanied the release of the MOU.

“Alberta using this moment to lobby in public against what it is now calling an ‘overly aggressive’ industrial carbon price raises more questions about the outcome Alberta has in mind—especially given it already agreed in the MOU to strengthen its system,” said Executive Director Chris Severson-Baker. “This is in addition to the regulatory changes Alberta pushed through in December—days after signing the MOU—that weakened its industrial carbon pricing system and effectively moved the goalposts on the negotiation before it had begun.”

Severson-Baker added that, “far from being a reason to further expedite a pipeline proposal and weaken Canadian climate policy, the Venezuela situation should give further pause for thought and reassessment about the best economic bet for Canada going forward.”

“42 days after signing the ‘grand bargain’ MOU with the federal government, Alberta is trying to change the terms of the agreement, leveraging the current situation in Venezuela,” veteran climate analyst Dan Woynillowicz wrote on LinkedIn. “Underpinning the MOU is a commitment to ‘good faith’ collaboration,” but “I don’t see how seeking any and every opportunity to change the terms of the MOU or shift the goalposts can be seen as living up to this.”

On Substack, fossil industry analyst and communicator Bill Whitelaw praised Savage for “speaking her truth” on the taxpayer backstop that private investors would expect before pouring their own money into a new pipeline project. That “loadsa dough” subsidy won’t happen, he said, as long as there’s a chance that Alberta separatists will succeed in pulling the province out of Canada—much less making it Donald Trump’s sought-after 51st state.

“Ottawa will need to pony up big bucks to bolster an already-thin business case,” Whitelaw wrote. “Fellow Canadians would never countenance Ottawa forking over billions to a province that can’t be bothered with Confederation.”

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By Mitchell Beer

2026 is shaping up as the year when the risks of a volatile, glutted global market for liquefied natural gas (LNG) may be fully felt, with severe impacts for fossil producers, investors, governments, and Indigenous and other local communities looking to cash in on a fuel that was once touted as a “bridge” to a renewable energy future.

LNG exports did see their biggest increase in three years in 2025, and several countries—including Canada—carried on as though that trend was sure to continue for years or a couple of decades. In August, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson maintained that Canada could get a first shipment of LNG to Germany in “as little as five years”. And the December 11 edition of Global Energy Monitor’s Inside Gas newsletter cited Argentina, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Morocco, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, Poland, Puerto Rico, and Tanzania as jurisdictions where new LNG development was planned or under way.

The arrival of a new year doesn’t mean those enthusiasts will suddenly conclude that LNG looks more and more like a losing bet. But serious questions about a sustained LNG boom date back a decade or more, and 2025 saw persistent warnings that a wave of construction of new gas import/export terminals was outrunning gas demand. An LNG export boom in the United States drove down the prices companies could charge on international markets while simultaneously contributing to a spike in energy costs for U.S. consumers.

“The price surge is contributing to a deepening sense of runaway costs in the U.S., and flies in the face of Trump’s claims to have driven down energy prices during his first year back in office,” the Financial Times wrote last month. “It comes alongside frigid temperatures across the U.S., pushing up demand for power generation to heat homes and businesses.”

Meanwhile, renewable energy and energy storage costs continue to fall, creating faster, wider competition in regions of the world where LNG had been expected to dominate new energy supply for decades.

LNG boosters have been taking comfort from one of the three energy futures scenarios in the latest edition of the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook, published in mid-November. The Current Policies Scenario (CPS) projects rising oil and gas demand through 2050 and 3°C average warming based on existing national laws, policies, and regulations.

Independent analysts quickly framed the CPS as a pragmatic response to extraordinary pressure from the Trump administration. They said it represents a world in which no countries anywhere take any further action to reduce their climate pollution—or to take better advantage of renewable electrification options that are cheaper than fossil fuels in most parts of the world, go online faster, and are more resilient to extreme weather and other disruptions.

The IEA’s Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS) shows faster adoption of renewable energy, while its Net Zero Emissions by 2050 scenario charts a course to eliminate net carbon dioxide emissions by mid-century. Even under STEPS, “questions still linger about where all the new LNG will go,” the IEA said, with the potential for higher global demand limited by “continued momentum behind the deployment of renewables, nuclear energy in some countries, and [energy] efficiency policies.”

Those factors make the CPS “a backward-looking relic that ignores the seismic shifts already reconfiguring the global energy system,” Carbon Tracker analysts Guy Prince and Harry Benham wrote late last year. They called the scenario “a warning, not a forecast: it implies energy innovation stops in 2030, as if hitting some sort of intellectual brick wall.”

LNG Glut Becomes a ‘Sinkhole’

The wider trends have Thomson Reuters editor and news analyst Antony Currie warning that renewables are on track to turn the LNG glut into a sinkhole.

“Solar, wind power, and batteries are set to make life a misery for the liquefied natural gas market,” Currie warns, in one of the news agency’s prediction pieces for 2026.” Some fossil fuel executives already think the push by incumbents like ExxonMobil, Shell, and Woodside Energy to hike global production by some 50% by 2030, per the International Energy Agency, is creating a bubble. But renewable energy’s advantages will make the pop even worse.”

The industry “argues LNG is the transition fuel to wean the world off coal power—especially Asia, which already accounts for 65% of global LNG imports,” he adds. That hope “might look rational” on the surface, with European imports rising, AI data centres bumping up demand, and Donald Trump “trying to force purchases of more U.S. fossil gas into trade agreements with the EU, Vietnam, and others.” (Although, so far, that isn’t going very well for him.)

But renewables plus storage are cheaper than gas, they’re quicker to install, and gas also faces multi-year delays for new gas turbines that have tripled in price per kilowatt-hour, according to energy tech analyst Jamie Skaar.

All in all, “excess fuel supplies, a hardware backlog, and a more competitive alternative bode ill for LNG market incumbents,” Currie writes. “A crash is looming.”

In the dying days of 2025:

• Energy Transfer LP “indefinitely paused” its Lake Charles LNG project in Louisiana after extending its target date to start exports from 2025 to 2031, preferring instead to focus on domestic natural gas pipelines.

“The abrupt halt to an LNG complex whose committed customers included energy giants Chevron Corp. and Shell Plc caps a years-long effort to flip an unused gas import terminal constructed before the advent of the U.S. shale boom,” Bloomberg wrote. “The suspension indicates increasing industry concerns about LNG oversupply and poor returns,” the Gas Outlook industry newsletter added this week.

• China saw its domestic LNG price hit a five-year low late last month after high inventories, mild temperatures, and “a faltering industrial and economic recovery” forced terminal operators to “sell off stockpiles at lower prices,” Bloomberg reported Dec. 23,.

• Norwegian state fossil Equinor delayed completion of its Hammerfest LNG upgrade and announced that the project will run NOK 5.3 billion/US$525 million over budget.

• Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said international sanctions had delayed his country’s plans to triple its annual LNG production by several years, although Bloomberg reported that sanctioned shipments are still making it through to China.

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By Mitchell Beer

Donald Trump’s weekend raid on Venezuela has analysts debating how quickly the country can restore some of its past oil production, how much that activity will benefit Trump’s fossil industry donors and allies, and whether the White House agenda is about extracting more oil or asserting global power in a glutted oil market.

Meanwhile, national leaders from Colombia and Cuba to Canada, Greenland, and Denmark are reacting to a new geopolitical reality as Trump’s agenda for Western Hemisphere domination comes into sharper focus.

Venezuela holds the largest oil reserves in the world, at an estimated 303 billion barrels. At the media conference Saturday where he announced that U.S. forces had kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicólas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, to stand trial in New York, Trump was clear about the plan, though not so much about how he expected to deliver on it.

“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” he told media.

If that happens, it’ll also deliver a financial windfall to Trump’s billionaire supporter Paul Singer, co-CEO of Elliot Investment Management, which indirectly owns Citgo—a U.S.-based subsidiary of Venezuela’s state oil company that in turn owns three refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast, 43 oil terminals, and a network of more than 4,000 independently-held gas stations, Popular Information reported Monday.

A New Balance of Power

Trump’s top-line message ricocheted through North American fossil fuel markets on Monday. Canadian oil sands giants Suncor Energy, Cenovus Energy, and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. initially lost 4% to 7% of their share value before recovering somewhat through the day, CBC reports. That was because “refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast are set up to process heavy crude like that produced in Alberta’s oil sands and in Venezuela,” The Canadian Press explains. “U.S. sanctions on the South American country have meant virtually none of its supplies go to the U.S. market today.”

But “if those restrictions were lifted, then Canada may have more competition right away in terms of Venezuelan oil that now technically can access the U.S. Gulf Coast,” Jackie Forrest, executive director of the ARC Energy Research Institute, told the news agency.

In the U.S., shares in Chevron Corporation, which operates in Venezuela, and ExxonMobil, which did in the past, moved “sharply higher”, The Associated Press writes, with analysts at JPMorgan projecting Monday that the U.S. takeover could “reshape the balance of power in international energy markets.”

And yet, “not much has changed in oil markets near-term and it could be months or even years before the fate of sanctions and Venezuela’s production shakes out,” CP writes, citing Dane Gregoris, managing director of the oil and gas research group with the Enervus analytics platform.

“Political changes happen quickly, but industrial changes happen very slowly,” he said.

Despite many years of international sanctions and poor maintenance of its oilfield infrastructure, “some oil industry analysts believe Venezuela could double or triple its current output of about 1.1 million barrels of oil a day and return the nation to historic production levels relatively quickly,” AP adds. “If or when that would happen, however, is more complex. Many energy analysts see a longer and more difficult road ahead.”

Bloomberg opinion columnist Javier Blas says Trump has set out to build “his very own oil empire,” with political sway over available reserves in the U.S., Latin America, and Canada. “Like it or not, all of them are living under the ‘Donroe Doctrine’—an increasingly belligerent Washington’s sphere of influence over the Americas,” he writes. “Together they account for nearly 40% of the world’s oil output” and 20% of global reserves, giving him “an economic and geopolitical lever no U.S. president has had since Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1940s.”

Citing two sources from outside that sphere of influence, a U.S.-sanctioned Russian oligarch and a Kremlin envoy, Blas opines that “having de facto control of the Western Hemisphere’s petroleum wealth is a geopolitical game changer. For decades, U.S. military adventurism was constrained by the impact of any war on energy costs. Today the White House has primacy over oil-producing allies and adversaries alike—whether it’s Saudi Arabia or Iran, Nigeria or Russia.”

Fossils May Not Play Along

But not all analysts agree that U.S. fossil companies are likely to play along.

“For weeks, Trump has been courting oil companies, promising them a glorious return to Venezuela,” after the country “seized private assets decades ago in its push to nationalize the petroleum industry,” Politico Power Switch writes. The Maduro/Flores kidnapping “comes as a down payment of sorts to the industry—though not necessarily one that the U.S. oil majors are eager to collect.”

U.S. fossils have “longed” to re-establish their operations in petrostate Venezuela, Politico says, and Trump cabinet secretaries Chris Wright and Doug Burgum are now arm-twisting them to do just that. But “rebuilding decayed oil fields in a still socialist-led country amid a global oil glut is few people’s idea of a good time,” the news analysis states. “It’s likewise unclear how the U.S. would guarantee the safety of employees and equipment, how companies would be paid, and whether oil prices will rise enough to make Venezuelan crude profitable.”

Moreover, as the global oil industry “continues to stare down the prospect of a broad transition to renewable energy,” it’s “not obvious that future markets can justify a surge of investment in Venezuela,” says Grist staff writer Jake Bittle. “While there are buyers for additional oil that could be pumped in Venezuela—some of them on the U.S. Gulf Coast—experts say a total revival on the order that Trump is promising may not be in the cards.”

The market for heavy oil from Venezuela (or from Alberta, for that matter) is limited, and while analysts have different ideas about when global oil demand will start to decline, they mostly agree that the peak is coming, Bittle writes. “At that point, there may no longer be sufficient demand to keep exploiting new oil fields, no matter how large. And given that it will take many years just to update the infrastructure that will allow for increased oil production in Venezuela in the first place, investors may decide that the juice is not worth the squeeze.”

‘Northwards of $100 Billion’

On LinkedIn Monday, Patrick Galey, head of fossil fuel investigations at Global Witness, said it would cost “northwards of $100 billion just to get Venezuelan output back up to two million barrels per day (still less than half of Texas’ daily production). And the only player still there, Chevron, is notoriously cost averse these days.”

More likely, Galey adds, “this is a play to boost oil prices at a time when the world faces a 3.8-million-barrel-per-day oversupply (yes, really) of a product, demand for which is in terminal decline and U.S. production productivity of which has been trending downwards for a while now.”

Maria Pastukhova, programme lead, global energy transition at the London- and Brussels-based E3G energy transition think tank, agreed that restoring Venezuela’s oil infrastructure would be “slow, expensive, and risky” at a time when “the global oil market is well supplied, demand growth is fading, and China is signalling an approaching demand peak.” That means “control over Venezuelan oil is less about adding supply and more about geopolitical optionality. A U.S.-aligned Venezuela is unlikely to unleash a wave of new production, but it would significantly reduce access for China, Russia, and Iran, weakening their geopolitical leverage.”

Small wonder that the loss of a key ally had China strongly condemning the U.S. action Saturday. In a foreign ministry statement, Beijing said it was “deeply shocked by and strongly condemns the U.S.’s blatant use of force against a sovereign state,” the Globe and Mail reports. China described the raid and kidnapping as “hegemonic acts” that “threaten peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean region.”

Trump’s Emerging Doctrine: ‘Strike, Then Coerce’

Over the last 72 hours, multiple analysts have cast Trump’s action as tangible proof of a new geopolitical doctrine. The raid in Caracas “capped a month of aggressive military action by Trump that also included targeting alleged extremists in northern Nigeria, attacking Islamic State militants in Syria, and threatening to restrike Iran,” the Wall Street Journal reports—not to mention repeated, controversial air strikes on fishing boats alleged to be carrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea and East Pacific Ocean.

“The flurry of military moves underscored Trump’s reliance on the surprise use of force during his second term,” the WSJ adds, “an emerging doctrine to strike and then coerce that is likely to be sorely tested as the White House seeks to press Venezuela and other countries he targets to comply with his demands.”

Within not many hours, Trump was threatening additional targets, including Colombian President Gustavo Petro, Cuba, Mexico, and Greenland. Over the weekend, he claimed Cuba “is in a lot of trouble,” while the U.S. “needs” Greenland for the sake of national security.

Trump’s statements had Mexican President and former IPCC scientist Claudia Sheinbaum categorically rejecting the U.S. intervention. “Unilateral action and invasion cannot be the basis for international relations in the 21st century,” she said in a three-page statement Monday. “They lead neither to peace nor to development.”

In Copenhagen, Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told Trump to stop threatening a takeover of Greenland, with Frederiksen warning that an attack on the semi-autonomous Danish territory would mean an end to the NATO military alliance.

“If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops,” she told Danish TV Monday. “That is, including our NATO and thus the security that has been provided since the end of the Second World War.”

Canada’s former UN ambassador Bob Rae told CBC there’s “absolutely no room for complacency” in Ottawa’s response to the attack, adding that Trump claiming ownership over the entire Western Hemisphere amounts to “nonsensical” overreach.

“What the hell is this?” he asked. “You can’t unilaterally declare that you have unique jurisdiction over an entire half of the world, and all the people who live in that half of the world just have to put up or shut up.”

But Prime Minister Mark Carney’s statement Saturday was far more cautious, leading with a critique of Maduro’s “brutally oppressive and criminal regime” before calling for a “peaceful, negotiated, and Venezuelan-led transition process” that respects the democratic will of the country.

“In keeping with our long-standing commitment to upholding the rule of law, sovereignty, and human rights, Canada calls on all parties to respect international law,” Carney said. “We stand by the Venezuelan people’s sovereign right to decide and build their own future in a peaceful and democratic society.”

With Carney meeting European and British leaders in Paris to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine, foreign policy experts are urging the countries to “send a strong signal” against Trump’s action, the Globe and Mail reports.

“If we’re seen as condoning this, it’s giving a hunting licence to Putin and quite frankly Xi when it comes to Taiwan,” said Fen Hampson, chancellor’s professor and professor of international affairs at Carleton University. “It is not in our interest to revert to the law of the jungle, and it is not in the interests of the other countries that are meeting in Paris to revert to the law of the jungle. It’s time to send a message to Washington: We don’t like this.”

“There’s safety in numbers” for western leaders to defend “fundamental principles such as sovereignty, international law, and the non-use of force, unless there’s a credible reason, including self-defence, to intervene militarily in another country’s affairs,” agreed international affairs professor Roland Paris, director of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa.

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“If the surveys to find geothermal sources are successful, we will radically change the energy paradigm of Tenerife,” Martínez said, pointing to geothermal’s potential to deliver continuous, weather-independent power.

Tenerife’s move comes amid growing global recognition of geothermal energy’s role in clean energy transitions. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), geothermal generation can provide steady baseload electricity, helping to balance the variability of wind and solar power that increasingly dominate renewable portfolios worldwide. The IEA’s World Energy Outlook and technology briefs have underscored that geothermal’s firm output is a key advantage in grids with high shares of intermittent renewables.

Geothermal: a reliable complement to variable renewables

Unlike solar and wind, geothermal energy is available 24 hours a day and is not subject to weather fluctuations, a feature analysts say is particularly valuable for island grids with limited interconnections. Tenerife officials emphasize that baseload geothermal power could enable the island to integrate more renewable energy while reducing costly fossil-fuel backups.

“The ability to provide consistent capacity is what makes geothermal attractive,” said a renewable energy analyst based in Europe. “It’s one reason why islands and isolated grids are serious about it.”

A 2024 Reuters analysis of global energy strategies noted that several regions with volcanic geology — including parts of East Africa, Iceland and Japan — are advancing geothermal projects as part of efforts to cut carbon emissions and strengthen energy independence. That report highlighted both the promise and challenges of geothermal, noting that high upfront costs and drilling risks remain barriers in many markets.

Local and global industry context

Canadian geothermal developer Eavor Technologies — known for its “closed-loop” technology that conducts heat from rock formations rather than hot water reservoirs — has been expanding its footprint in Europe. Eavor and similar firms are gaining attention as utilities and governments look for dispatchable clean power solutions. Eavor’s project in Germany, for example, are being watched as test cases for scalable geothermal deployment outside traditional hydrothermal regions.

Climate and energy finance analysts also see geothermal as under-leveraged. A 2025 report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) argued that geothermal, along with other firm-power technologies, should play a larger role in decarbonisation strategies. The IEEFA warned, however, that without supportive policy frameworks and risk-reducing incentives, geothermal investment could lag behind its potential.

Economic and environmental implications for Tenerife

For Tenerife, an island heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels, the economic stakes are significant. Geothermal energy could help lower electricity costs over the long-term and insulate the local economy from volatile global fuel prices. Officials also point to the relatively small land footprint of geothermal plants compared with large solar or wind farms, a factor that can ease conflicts over land use on densely populated islands.

Experts note that while the initial surveys are crucial, successful development will require further drilling, permitting and substantial capital investment. Even then, geothermal projects typically take longer to bring online than wind or solar.

Canary Islands aim to lead volcanic renewables

Tenerife’s initiative follows similar moves on La Palma and Gran Canaria, positioning the Canary Islands as a regional hub for geothermal and volcanic-geology renewable innovation. If Tenerife’s surveys confirm a viable resource, the islands could emerge as a testbed for clean energy deployment in volcanic settings — offering a model for other island regions worldwide.

With surveys set to begin in early 2026, Tenerife’s geothermal programme represents a bold step toward energy independence and decarbonisation, reflecting broader global interest in firm, low-carbon power solutions that complement variable renewable sources.

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In its most recent assessment, the IEA estimates that coal demand in 2025 will hit an all-time high of roughly 8.85 billion tonnes, a modest 0.5 per cent increase from 2024 levels. But looking ahead, worldwide coal consumption is projected to plateau through the remainder of the decade and edge modestly downward by 2030 as cleaner energy sources gain market share and emissions policies take hold.

“Looking ahead, we observe that global coal demand plateaus and will start a very slow and gradual decline through the end of the decade,” IEA Director of Energy Markets and Security Keisuke Sadamori said in a press briefing accompanying the report. Coal remains the largest single fuel for electricity generation, making its evolution critical for climate and energy planning.

The analysis shows a nuanced global landscape. China — the world’s largest coal consumer, accounting for more than a third of global use — saw demand roughly flat in 2025 and is expected to see only a slight decline toward 2030 as renewable capacity expands. Smaller declines in advanced economies such as the European Union and the United States contribute to the broader stabilisation and eventual downturn trend.

In contrast, parts of South and Southeast Asia continue to register robust coal consumption tied to rising electricity demand and industrial growth. Regions including Indonesia and Viet Nam are forecast to experience growing coal use as energy demand surges and renewable deployment lags behind.

Meteorological factors played a notable role in mid-year demand patterns. In China and India, weaker electricity demand growth through early 2025 and stronger hydropower output temporarily reduced coal use, while in the United States and European Union, increased coal generation reflected a rebound tied to higher natural-gas prices and subdued wind and hydro output.

The IEA’s forecast deviates from earlier expectations of continued growth. A mid-year update indicated that global coal demand in some scenarios may decline slightly in 2026, bringing consumption close to 2024 levels before longer-term declines set in.

However, analysts and industry watchers caution that the picture is not uniform. A Bloomberg analysis underscored that whether global coal demand has truly peaked depends heavily on developments in China, where electricity growth and renewable integration rates will remain central to shaping future coal consumption trends.

The IEA’s findings come as coal faces intensifying competition from renewables, natural gas and nuclear power. Technologies such as solar and wind are expanding rapidly, pushing down the share of coal in electricity mix in many advanced economies. Renewables contributed a significant portion of energy supply growth in 2024, further eroding coal’s dominance.

The plateau in coal demand also has implications for global emissions targets. Coal combustion remains a major source of carbon dioxide emissions, and a sustained decline — even gradual — is seen as a critical element of long-range climate strategies outlined under the Paris Agreement.

Still, the IEA emphasises that variations in policy, economic growth rates and energy demand could alter the trajectory. If countries accelerate clean energy deployment beyond current policies, coal’s decline could be faster; conversely, slower renewable adoption might sustain higher coal use longer than forecast.

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By Mitchell Beer

A new report suggests future exports of Canadian oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) could deliver major emissions reductions, but its authors acknowledge they didn’t address some of the key sources of emissions in those fuels.

The report, produced by the Ottawa-based Public Policy Forum (PPF) for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, asserts that future Canadian exports “are highly likely to substitute higher-emitting global alternatives and deliver significant climate benefits,” the organizations said in a release last week. They put the emissions savings as high as 40% if Canadian LNG displaced coal-fired power production in Japan, South Korea, China, or India, or 40% if it replaced LNG from the United States.

“This report reinforces what we’ve been saying for years: cleaner energy is Canadian energy,” said Chamber President and CEO Candace Laing. “When our LNG and oil displace higher-emitting alternatives abroad, global emissions go down, not up.”

“This analysis represents a win for the economy, Indigenous reconciliation, and the environment,” said PPF President and CEO Inez Jabalpurwala. “The report’s conclusions counter the simplistic narrative that more oil and gas equals more emissions.”

The Globe and Mail touted the release as “giving fresh support to Canada’s ambition to be an energy superpower as the federal and B.C. governments push for increased exports of liquefied natural gas.”

The report concludes that global emissions would “most likely” fall by 40 to 70 million tonnes per year of carbon dioxide or equivalent if all the LNG plants now under development in British Columbia were eventually built—thanks to low-emitting hydropower used in the liquefaction process, “tight” methane controls, high-quality gas with lower carbon dioxide concentrations, and shorter shipping distances to Asia.

It concludes that heavy oil from Canada’s oil sands would generate an emissions saving of 18 to 51 kilograms per barrel, or more if the proposed Pathways Alliance carbon capture hub is ever built, compared to Venezuela, which (like Canada) produces one of the most emissions-intensive grades of oil anywhere.

The report says the emissions intensity of Canadian oil—the climate pollution released per barrel extracted—has fallen 30% since 2005. The Canadian Climate Institute reported this fall that the downward trend has been stabilizing since 2017.

‘Emissions Intensity’, Higher Emissions

Report co-author and Public Policy Forum Fellow Mark Cameron, a former VP, external relations with the Pathways Alliance, acknowledged in an interview that total emissions would rise if oil and gas production increased faster than emissions intensity fell.

“Obviously, if you simply lower emissions intensity slightly and dramatically increase production, you’re going to get higher emissions overall,” he said. “The question is, how fast will intensity improve and what will happen to global oil demand?”

The sweeping memorandum of understanding signed last month by Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith calls for up to 1.4 million barrels per day of new oil sands production, based on an expansion of the existing Trans Mountain Pipeline and construction of a new line to British Columbia’s environmentally hazardous northwest coast—although questions are beginning to swirl about where and whether there will be demand for those supplies. Cameron said long-term markets for oil sands bitumen might put more emphasis on non-combustion products like asphalt and carbon fibre.

As long as that bitumen is being burned as a fuel, Cameron acknowledged that emissions accounting leaves out the roughly 80% of the carbon in every barrel that fossil fuel producers can’t decarbonize—since it doesn’t go into the atmosphere until it reaches its end user.

“That’s going to be happening no matter where those barrels come from, right?” He said. “If we can produce a lower-emission barrel on the production side, it makes sense for Canada to maximize its share of whatever that market is. The emissions are the responsibility of the country that is the final end user, but from a Canadian economic point of view it’s better if that’s Canadian oil, and from a climate point of view it’s better if it’s as low-emission as possible.”

Other analyses have indicated that Canadian heavy oil is among the highest-polluting, as well as one of the most expensive and inconvenient to process.

Methane Uncertainties

The report cites LNG as “Canada’s largest new export opportunity, with potentially the greatest impact on emissions,” based on B.C.’s “stringent methane controls” and its methods for measuring, monitoring, reporting and verifying (MMRV) methane releases. Those numbers matter because methane is a climate super-pollutant with 84 times the global warming clout of carbon dioxide over the crucial 20-year span when humanity will be scrambling to get climate change under control.

Cameron noted that B.C. met its own deadline for reducing methane emissions 45% from 2012 levels in 2023, two years ahead of schedule, one of three provinces that beat their targets.

But the province is still falling far short of its 2030 emissions target, and the report bases its export and emissions projections on completion of several new LNG projects now under review in B.C. Late last month, an independent review commissioned by the B.C. government warned that those projects threaten to “set back progress” on the province’s emission reductions and “stand to all-but wipe out hard-fought gains in other sectors.”

Study co-author Arash Goishan, policy lead with PPF’s Energy Future Forum, said the emission advantages in the report were based on the (even) less stringent MMRV regime in the United States. Donald Trump’s administration moved to severely weaken those regulations after he returned to the White House earlier this year.

Cameron said Canada has some of the lowest methane emissions in the world based on the emissions companies are measuring. But “we can only look at what we can measure,” he told The Energy Mix.

As recently as June, McGill University researchers found that inactive oil and gas wells in five provinces, including B.C., were emitting seven times more methane than reported, and past research has suggested large quantities of unmeasured methane releases from natural gas fracking operations in the province’s northeast. Although replacing LNG with coal is one of the key strategies in the PPF analysis, a report last year concluded that LNG carries 2.7 times the climate impact because of its “significantly higher” methane emissions.

Decades of Fossil Demand

With a global LNG glut on the near horizon, oil prices headed for a “tailspin”, and fossil companies’ market behaviour signalling those risks, Goishan said the latest projections from the International Energy Agency paint “a more nuanced picture” of future demand.

“In the IEA’s Current Policies Scenario (CPS), which reflects only policies already firmly in place, global demand for both oil and natural gas continues to grow through 2050 and beyond,” he told The Mix in an email.

“Even under the IEA’s more ambitious Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS), incorporating announced policies and targets (which we’re seeing how easily are ditched in real time and in response to other economic and geostrategic priorities), oil demand peaks around 2030 at around 102 mb/d [million barrels per day] before a very gradual decline, while natural gas demand grows into the mid-2030s before leveling off into a prolonged plateau of high demand through 2050,” he added. “Importantly, post-peak, there is no sharp decline projected.”

The IEA’s net-zero scenario shows a more pronounced reduction in demand. But “even in those decline scenarios, we would expect the lowest-emission sources would be privileged, right?” Cameron told The Mix. “So if we do follow the net-zero scenario, that would assume there’s going to be some kind of benefit to being a low-emissions source.”

He said those calculations could translate into three to five decades of “pretty significant demand” for Canadian LNG.

The IEA scenarios were published after months of arm-twisting by U.S. Energy Secretary and former fracking CEO Chris Wright, who openly threatened to pull the U.S. and its funding out of the IEA if the Paris-based agency continued projecting a strong future for renewable energy. For years previously, the IEA had projected that demand for all three fossil fuels will plateau this decade before going into permanent decline, as an Age of Electricity begins to take hold.

A ’Pragmatic Approach’

The two authors recommend new accounting methods and bilateral agreements to maximize the emission savings they see in Canadian oil and gas. But they aren’t suggesting that anyone wait for the paperwork before pushing ahead with new exports.

“A pragmatic approach is essential,” they write. “Canada must not delay leveraging its oil and gas export potential by making such agreements a precondition or waiting for a fully-formed global framework, as this would voluntarily forfeit crucial economic, strategic, and environmental advantages that those products offer to Canada, its allies, and the global fight against climate change.”

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By Stewart Prest

The recently struck memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Canada and Alberta is a high-stakes strategy that risks deepening already deep divides in Canadian politics.

While the MOU touches on a number of issues, at its heart is a shared vision for a new pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia’s protected northern coast.

In effect, the deal offers a quid pro quo: Ottawa agrees to relax a range of federal environmental regulations — including a ban on tanker traffic in B.C.’s north — and to support a pipeline in exchange for a commitment from Alberta to eventually increase the price of carbon on industrial emissions in the province to $130 a tonne.

It’s a vision negotiated without the involvement of either the B.C. government or the Indigenous Peoples affected by the plan. While the agreement calls for consultations with both groups, they are relegated to the status of secondary partners, with concerns to be addressed in the execution of the plan outlined by Ottawa and Alberta.

A policy solution for an identity issue

The deal is clearly meant to bridge the gap between populist voters centred in the Prairie provinces and the rest of the country. But both the content and the process risks widening that gap, even as it deepens divisions elsewhere in the country.

Simply put, Prime Minister Mark Carney is trying to find a policy solution to an identity problem, and doing so by picking sides rather than neutrally facilitating agreement.

It’s part of the polarized, populist identity in Alberta, in particular, to oppose Ottawa and Liberal governments. In fact, when Alberta Premier Danielle Smith referred to the MOU in front of the United Conservative Party (UCP) convention, she was roundly booed. Rather than being hailed as champion who had achieved valuable policy concessions, she was greeted as a traitor to the cause.

Given the rude reception, it’s not surprising that in recent days Alberta has sought ways to limit its environmental commitments.

Read more: How ideology is darkening the future of renewables in Alberta

Playing favourites in the federation

Over the longer term, the agreement risks legitimizing the narrative of “Alberta aggrieved” by treating it as a distinct, sovereign jurisdiction entitled to special treatment.

In fact, the trappings and language of the agreement seem to reinforce the idea that “Alberta” is a natural negotiating partner with “Canada” rather than part of Canada.

The MOU’s signing ceremony in Calgary — not the provincial capital of Edmonton or Ottawa — bore all the hallmarks of international treaty-making, complete with flags and a formal text in both official languages. The symbolism reinforced the image of the deal as a kind of grand bargain between Ottawa and oil country.

While the federal government often strikes deals with provincial governments, this situation is quite different. It’s a deal only with Alberta but it primarily involves British Columbia. The agreement therefore elevates Alberta to the level of a quasi-sovereign jurisdiction to be treated as an equal with Canada. B.C., site of any future hypothetical pipeline terminals, has been rendered a deal-taker, not a deal-maker.

Unfortunately, that’s not how the federation is supposed to work. Just because the federal government has ultimate jurisdiction doesn’t mean other regions don’t get a say. It’s hard to imagine the federal government striking a deal with Ontario about what should happen in Québec without Québec’s involvement.

Read more: Alberta has long accused Ottawa of trying to destroy its oil industry. Here’s why that’s a dangerous myth

B.C. fury

B.C. Premier David Eby was accordingly furious with the federal government’s approach before the deal was announced.

Since then, while pointing out weaknesses in the deal, the NDP premier has also been at pains to show his willingness to work with Alberta on workarounds, including an expanded Transmountain pipeline or another pipeline that would leave the oil tanker moratorium in place on B.C’.s northern coast.

In leaving Eby out of the conversation, the federal Liberals have alienated a natural ally in their pursuit of economic development, forcing the premier to defend B.C.’s status within the federation, the rights of the province’s Indigenous communities and the province’s protected northern coast and Great Bear Rainforest.

Constitutional obligations to consult

Even more telling is the united reaction of First Nations. The Assembly of First Nations has unanimously voted in favour of a motion calling for the MOU to be scrapped. In fact, the federal government may have put itself in legal jeopardy over its failure to consult prior to the MOU.

At some point, it will likely have to explain in court how it could be serious about consulting in good faith with Indigenous Peoples in accordance with its obligations under Section 35 of the Constitution Act when the MOU gives the appearance of approving the project in principle before such conversations even begin.

Offering ownership stakes to Indigenous groups in a project devised without their involvement is not consultation. Simply put, unless governments can show they’re open to amending their plans in light of information they receive during consultations, they risk falling short of their obligations.

Cracks in the Liberal coalition

While polls suggest a majority of Canadians support the idea of a pipeline so far, the Liberals’ own coalition shows some signs of fraying.

Former environment minister Steven Guilbeault’s resignation from cabinet over the deal, along with the resignations of multiple environmental advisers to the Liberal government, suggest the party’s reputation for environmental progress has taken a hit given the slow and fuzzy approach to climate action outlined in the MOU.

Other federal parties sense an opportunity. The Bloc Québecois has strongly denounced the deal and has offered to support B.C. in its campaign to defend the province’s autonomy. The move underscores the sensitivities that remain in Québec around issues of provincial rights.

Even more tellingly, federal Conservatives, perhaps initially dismayed by a deal uniting federal Liberals and Alberta Conservatives, are now putting a motion before the House of Commons asking it to endorse the government’s position on the MOU and make good on its commitments. The Liberals, for their part, have vowed to vote against the motion, arguing that it only endorses part of the MOU.

In effect, the Conservatives are seeking to turn the government’s own MOU into a wedge issue against it. The Conservatives will likely continue to press the issue going forward given how the idea of a pipeline at any cost unites Conservatives and divide Liberals. Liberal MPs in B.C. and Québec, in particular, will also likely feel torn between loyalty to the party and deference to the views of constituents opposed to the deal.

In short, a pipeline intended to unify threatens to throw divisions into even sharper relief — even within the Liberal Party itself.

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