Share
The following is a re-print of the July 2026 edition of Shift Storm, the CCPA’s monthly newsletter which focuses on the intersection of work and climate change. Click here to subscribe to Shift Storm and get the latest updates straight to your inbox as soon as they come out.
Natural variations in ocean temperatures cause periodic El Niño events, in which sea surface temperatures rise significantly for months at a time, causing disruptions to weather systems around the world. While El Niño events occur regularly, they are hard to predict. Climate change is making El Niño cycles even more frequent, as well as more powerful when they do occur.
Climate scientists have been wringing their hands about a “super” El Niño event since the start of this year, and those fears are now coming to fruition. Average sea surface temperatures are two degrees hotter than normal right now, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with some undersea regions as much as 10 degrees above baseline. There is a 90 per cent chance that a super El Niño materializes later this year.
The strongest El Niño in recorded history occurred in 1877-1878 and caused a global famine that killed three per cent of the human population. The 2026 El Niño is on track to be even stronger. Whether it is allowed to become a humanitarian disaster has more to do with policy than with weather, but there is little doubt that this will be a challenging fall and winter for many parts of the world.
Incidentally, lingering ocean heat will almost assuredly make 2027 the hottest year in recorded history, with all of the other costs that entails. As the latest Indicators of Global Climate Change report explains, the hottest days of the year are now almost two degrees warmer than pre-industrial levels, sea levels continue to rise by 4mm per year, and so on. In Canada, of course, we continue to endure one of the worst wildfire seasons in history.
I won’t dwell on these impacts for the sake of our collective end-of-summer mental health. But, for those of us in the climate fight, it is important to periodically remind ourselves what we’re actually fighting about. Sometimes, we are so focused on the economics of renewables or the design of emissions regulations or what have you that we forget this is a battle for the habitability of the planet. The stakes have never been higher.
It’s a short issue this month as I return from some time off. Let’s get into it.
Storm surge: this month’s key reads
Oil industry war profiteering is exactly as outrageous as we expected
Since the U.S.-led war on Iran began in early March, many, including myself, have warned of oil industry profiteering and the need for an excess profits tax. Now that second quarter financial reports are in, we can see just how extreme those profits are.
The four largest Canadian oil companies reported combined Q2 profits of $13 billion, as Jim Stanford writes for the Centre for Future Work. Throw in a couple other big producers and the total was more than $15 billion, as reported by the Narwhal. My own estimates, which take a broader view of the industry, total $19 billion in operating profits over this period, and a running total of $34 billion in profits since the war began. That amounts to a $20 billion windfall above pre-war expectations.
Globally, oil companies raked in US$93 billion in the second quarter alone, according to the Guardian, so this problem is hardly unique to Canada. However, some other countries, such as the UK, Poland and India, are actually implementing excess profits taxes in some form. That’s a conversation we’re still not having in Canada.
Instead, we’re talking about publicly subsidizing a new oil pipeline to the tune of $35-44 billion.
Research radar: the latest developments in work and climate
Yes, climate change is responsible for bigger, more frequent wildfires in Canada. World Weather Attribution published an initial analysis of Canada’s summer wildfire season, concluding that the massive fires in Ontario and the Northwest Territories were made twice as likely by climate change. Based on current policies, which put the earth on track for 2.8 degrees of warming by 2100, wildfires like these could become twice as frequent again.
Everything you need to know about energy policy in the provinces. The University of British Columbia has published a series of reports that break down the energy policy landscape in eight Canadian provinces. Each report gets into the weeds of things like siting authorities and energy regulators, which are helpful bits of context that can be tedious to pull together. A useful set of citations for researchers.
Industrial carbon pricing poses little threat to oil sands production. A report from the C.D. Howe Institute, Buckets of Oil and Barrels of Steam, calculates that Canada’s revised industrial carbon pricing system will add almost nothing to the cost of producing oil from the oil sands in the short term and no more than $5 per barrel by 2050. Hopes and fears that the pricing system might curtail oil production (and thus emissions) remain misplaced.
Workforce Alliances present a new opportunity for industrial strategy in Canada. The federal government is creating six new coordination bodies focused on different industrial sectors. The CCPA has published a compendium, A hinge moment for unions in Canada’s new industrial era, with insights from unionists and labour researchers about how these new Workforce Alliances could bring lasting benefits to workers and the broader economy. To this newsletter’s chagrin, there is scarce mention of either climate change or AI, but there are still important lessons here for building a worker-first economy.
Trump killed the U.S. wind industry and workers are paying the price. Inside Climate News published a long, sad investigation into the many American workers whose economic futures have been dashed by the U.S. reversal on wind power. For five years, unions and local governments geared up for an offshore wind boom only to have projects halted by the Trump administration on ideological grounds. Many fear those jobs are lost forever.
Uruguay and Namibia among the unsung heroes of the renewables revolution. An analysis by the World Resources Institute identifies the ten countries scaling up solar and wind the fastest. Denmark and the Netherlands are, unsurprisingly, among the leaders, but I was pleased to see how many other countries are going all in on clean power. In just five years, Uruguay went from one per cent of its electricity mix coming from wind and solar all the way to 32 per cent. Namibia went from 6 per cent to 39 per cent. El Salvador from zero percent to 26 per cent. Other standouts include Lithuania, Chile, Greece, Hungary and Jordan. The key drivers, according to WRI, are the falling costs and increased energy security associated with solar and wind versus fossil fuels.
A just transition requires a legal foundation. The United Nations Environment Programme published No Transition Without Justice, which explores the relationship between the idea of a just transition—often understood as an economic and social shift toward sustainability—and the authority of environmental law. Without a legal commitment to justice, “just” transition policies may actually exacerbate inequality. Between the Sustainable Jobs Act and Net Zero Act, Canada is further ahead than many countries in this regard. But what happens when the government ignores those laws?
Two new academic publications on workers and climate. The European Review of Labour and Research published a special issue on workers as climate actors, with a variety of interesting articles about labour organizing in different countries. And a new academic book, Designing the Just Transition, moves beyond policy to ask how a just transition for workers and communities can be realized materially and locally. Lots of interesting fodder for just transition researchers.
AI is helping fossil fuels more than it’s helping renewables. To no one’s great surprise, the alleged productivity gains associated with AI adoption, which can theoretically improve energy efficiency and renewables deployment, are more than offset by the increased emissions associated with AI, as a new article in the journal Nature explains. The big problem is that renewables are not the only theoretical winners from increased productivity. So are fossil fuels. And based on current global policies, AI is more likely to “reinforce fossil fuel incumbency” than it is to fundamentally change the energy system.
About the author
Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood
Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood (he/him) is a senior researcher and political economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. His work focuses on federal economic, social and environmental policy, especially in the areas of climate change, artificial intelligence and industrial strategy. Hadrian edits the monthly Shift Storm newsletter on climate and labour.
