Editor’s Edition: Is Canada’s ‘green recovery’ for real?

Canada seems to be turning a corner in the COVID-19 pandemic. Provinces are hitting reopening targets, travel restrictions are easing, and Ottawa says we will have enough doses to fully vaccinate every eligible person by the end of July.

At the start of the crisis, Canada’s leaders and their global peers envisioned a “green recovery” from the economic slump caused by the virus. With life inching back towards normal, are there signs of meaningful climate-friendly change taking hold?

Tom Rand, the author of the book Climate Capitalism, notes that global emissions are quickly jumping back to pre-pandemic levels. He says the “enormous” uptick in corporate and institutional investor interest in climate change has been far more compelling than government efforts to build back better.

“It’s really been in the last 18 months. These enormous funds have spun up that are investing in climate tech. They were never here before,” he told Yahoo Finance Canada’s Editor’s Edition. “The climate nerds don’t run the show. Now, there’s a whole bunch of Wall Street warriors and Bay Street warriors who are coming in.”

Rand also discusses the climate impacts of the work-from-home and urban exodus trends that have emerged during the pandemic, as well as the European Union's plan to impose the world's first carbon boarder tax policy.

Jeff Lagerquist is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jefflagerquist.

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