And now there’s a new element in the mix: the seaweed belt is changing shape. The most significant patch, known as the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt, was first detected in 2011 and now measures as much as 8,800 kilometres long. It can be found from West Africa to the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. By the end of last year, it weighed 38 million metric tons, a 40% increase from its last record in 2022.

Why so much seaweed? There isn’t a single reason that scientists can point to, but rather a variety of shifting factors. “The climate is having a very significant effect on this bloom, but there are many underlying drivers of climate change,” Brian Lapointe, principal investigator at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute at Florida Atlantic University, told The New York Times in 2025: “everything from high temperature, extreme rainfall, droughts and rainfall events, and winds.” Meanwhile, a northern patch located in the Sargasso Sea, in the North Atlantic between Nova Scotia and Bermuda, has dwindled by some 90% since 2015, because of warmer water.

The Atlantic seaweed situation is evolving so rapidly that scientists have enlisted NASA to track the bloom from space. The sensitive instruments on their satellites can detect the sargassum signature as it moves across oceans, helping to predict where it is headed and which ecosystems might be more at risk of being overwhelmed by the vegetation.

Natalie Alcoba is a Buenos Aires-based journalist and senior editor at Corporate Knights.

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While it’s tempting to imagine the majestic Ents stalking Middle Earth in The Lord of the Rings, this migration is the more subtle result of seeds dispersing by way of wind, animals and water. Indeed, the movement of tree species echoes other migratory patterns that are also influenced by a warming planet.  

The movement of trees is not new. Scientists have long tracked how these shifts occur, describing them as proof of the resilience of species. But they are happening more quickly because of temperature changes in the planet. One pattern observed is the move away from heat. Some move to higher altitudes, others to areas with more moisture. A new study published in the International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation paints a more nuanced picture, finding that both climate and anthropogenic factors have to do with tree movement. Between 2000 and 2020, 42% of treelines shifted upslope, while 25% shifted downslope. “The rate of treeline shifts was strongly influenced by anthropogenic disturbances,” the study found, in particular from fires.  

Unsurprisingly, trees are short on speed. They simply may not be able to migrate quickly enough to keep up with the pace of environmental changes. Some scientists are calling for “assisted migration” as a way to help smooth out the adaptation process. In Canada, the practice is taking root. The provinces of British Columbia and Alberta have extended seed transfer zones 200 metres higher for most species, and in B.C., planting of the western larch is now permitted outside of its previous range.  

Assisted migration is not without risks or controversy, and some scientists consider it another example of human meddling. New species may become invasive in a new ecosystem, or they may be ill-equipped to adapt to local soil conditions and sun exposure. “The idea that humans can help fill the gap between the ability of species to migrate and the rate of change in climate conditions is increasingly being considered and debated as a possible management option,” Canada’s Ministry of Natural Resources stated in a 2025 briefing note.  

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New findings from the popular tourism website Booking.com released in April show that more people – nearly three-quarters – factor in extreme weather, in particular heat, when choosing where to visit. The findings are based on a survey of 32,500 people living in 35 countries or territories that include North and South America, Asia, Africa and Europe. Some 55% of the respondents said that certain destinations had become too hot to travel to when they wanted to visit them.  

The toll of recent dramatic summer heat waves in Europe is lodged in our memory. There were more than 47,000 heat-related deaths in Europe in 2023. Rising temperatures are the main engine behind the so-hot coolcation trend.

Hotter summers are also linked to other environmental consequences that are affecting tourism, such as wildfires, drought and water shortages. Parts of Europe are in the midst of historic wildfires this summer. Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate in Spain and France, which has been described as one of the biggest evacuations since the Second World War. And another heat wave is expected to set in this week, making the work of tamping down the blaze all the more fraught. Officials in Europe are warning that the wildfire season could stretch into October and November. Wildfires are also raging in Canada, with nearly four million hectares burned so far this year.  

Even before the grim season got underway, Norway was outright marketing its coolcation potential – noting its “lush, green forests” and “crisp, fresh air.” But other Nordic and northern countries have also become magnets.

A 2024 survey by Virtuoso, a luxury travel website, found that travel to northern Europe and Canada went up 44% that summer, while Italy, Greece and France dipped by half a percent. For the typically warmer locales in the northern hemisphere, data from the European Travel Commission show that while the summer months still are the favourite – with 25% of European travellers picking July and August to take a trip – September is a close second, at 22%. 

The coolcation is often billed as a more sustainable form of travel, because it takes the pressure off the typical hot spots and does not strain certain kinds of energy consumption, such as air conditioners. However, the distance travelled is another factor to consider in that calculation.  

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“To see all these young folks from all around the world working together in a shared way, with shared objectives and passion,” he says today, “it really shaped the course of my life.”

Another turning point for Guilbeault unfolded this spring in Ottawa, as the well-known and controversial former environment minister took a bow from federal politics, marking a clear split from the Mark Carney government on environmental and energy policies.

On May 27, Guilbeault, 56, announced his retirement as a member of Parliament, a few months after resigning from Carney’s cabinet. It capped off a heady and influential four years at the helm of one of the most sensitive government portfolios in the country. He served as minister of environment and climate change from 2021 to 2025, with stints as minister of heritage, minister of Canadian identity and culture and minister responsible for official languages before and after.

Upon his announcement, environmental groups heralded his integrity and work, with the David Suzuki Foundation celebrating his “vital contribution to the fight against climate change” and Environmental Defence calling on more MPs to “publicly reject the government’s assault on climate, nature and Canada’s economic and social future.”

“If I had to do it all again, I would,” Guilbeault says of his political career, on a recent morning bike commute from his home in Montreal. “I would fight for the same policies.”

For the first time in recent memory, he has “no plans” – aside from going on a voyage to the Arctic with the non-profit Students on Ice, alongside 40 Canadian youth. He is staying on as MP for a few more weeks to complete projects in his urban Montreal riding of Laurier–Sainte-Marie, such as a youth theatre and a new hub for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.

“I have greatly enjoyed politics. It’s very demanding,” he says, acknowledging the stark challenges from growing populism, online hate and the harmful effects of social media. “The political arena . . . has become more difficult, but it’s also incredibly rewarding.”

At its annual gala on June 24, 2026, Corporate Knights recognized Guilbeault with its Award of Distinction, an honour that has previously gone to Ken Dryden, Tom Mulcair, Kathy Bardswick and Vicky Sharpe, among others.

Politics with conviction

Guilbeault’s list of achievements is long. Born in rural Quebec, he co-founded Équiterre, an acclaimed Quebec-based non-profit environmental and sustainable agricultural organization in 1993 (originally known as Action for Solidarity, Equality, Environment and Development). He worked as an environmental activist for many years, notably with Greenpeace, and engaged in direct actions designed to strike a nerve and raise awareness. In 2001, he scaled the CN Tower with fellow Greenpeace activist Chris Holden to unfurl a banner that read “Canada and Bush – climate killers” as a way to criticize a lack of government action on the Kyoto Protocol. He was subsequently arrested and convicted of mischief.

It was that brand of conviction that drew the attention of Justin Trudeau, who recruited him to his Liberal ranks. In a recent podcast with political strategist David Herle, Guilbeault described how the then-prime minister introduced his environment minister to former U.S. president Joe Biden – as a “real activist” who had been arrested four times. Trudeau, he said, was looking for someone who would bring a “jolt” to the environment file. And in many ways, that’s what Guilbeault did.

As a Liberal, he has been steadfast in his convictions, defending and expanding the Trudeau policy of carbon pricing, publishing Canada’s Clean Electricity Regulations, draft regulations capping oil and gas pollution, single-use plastic prohibitions, and 2035 emissions targets. He was a leading voice brokering the landmark Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity agreement in which 196 countries agreed to restore at least 30% of degraded terrestrial, inland-water, and coastal and marine ecosystems.

“We’ve shown that using public policy you can have an impact. For the first time in our history, emissions were going down while the economy was going up,” he says.

Navigating criticism

But Guilbeault was a target for the Conservative Party – which linked some of his policies to his “radical” past – and particularly for Canadians furious over carbon pricing. “There are things I would do differently,” he says. “I think we were very slow to respond to the anti-carbon-tax campaign from the Conservatives.”

He also navigated fierce criticism from environmentalists when he approved the Bay du Nord deep-sea offshore oil project off the coast of Newfoundland in 2022, which the government said met strict environmental standards but which environmentalists said exposed “Canada’s climate hypocrisy.” Modelling showed that Canada was making progress but falling short of hitting its 2030 emissions targets while Guilbeault was environment minister, and it has slipped further behind under the current government.

Guilbeault has made no secret of his view that the Carney government is headed in the wrong direction on climate policies. He first resigned from cabinet last year in protest of a memorandum of understanding Carney signed with Alberta that paves the way for a new oil pipeline to the B.C. coast. Environmental groups have criticized the MOU for key concessions to the oil-producing province that lower federal targets for the price on carbon. “We need an effective carbon-pricing system,” Guilbeault says. “With the agreement we’ve signed with Alberta, we’ve just delayed by 10 years the implementation of carbon pricing.”

He understands the pressure of tariffs from the United States and the wider shifting geopolitical landscape, but some fundamentals will not change, he says: “We can try to ignore climate change, [but] climate change won’t ignore us. We’ll likely have the mother of all El Niños coming up in the coming months, wreaking havoc in North America [and] around the world. We’re seeing Pakistan with more than 59°C daytime temperatures.”

Climate change has already displaced tens of thousands of Canadians, he points out – a far greater toll than other geopolitical challenges. “Unfortunately, you don’t hear anyone in the government talk about this.”

He says the tools are in place for better action, such as the national adaptation strategy that maps out what needs to be done for Canadians to be better prepared for climate change. “Where are we with the implementation of that?” he asks.

A ‘radical pragmatist’

Mark Calzavara, a prominent environmental campaigner in Canada, says he understands why Guilbeault decided to quit. The pair have known each other for decades, hatching numerous Greenpeace campaigns, including one that saw Guilbeault climb onto a massive piece of bitumen-refining equipment during a freezing Alberta winter, to stall it from being driven from Edmonton to the oil sands. “Nobody was calling in on our side,” Calzavara recalls of the talk-show interviews Guilbeault did at the time. “They were all ‘I hope you guys get shot, or somebody should take you out.’ Steven was remarkable, under difficult conditions, to talk to people and meet them where they’re at.”

While Guilbeault “did as good or better a job as anyone” as environment minister, Calzavara says that his tenure shows the limits of what is possible within the political system. “The power is so centralized in the prime minister’s office, and if the prime minister is not a fan of the ideas you’re promoting, you go backwards.”

For his part, Guilbeault still holds on to a descriptor offered by a friend many years ago that he is “a radical pragmatist.”

Still, the Conservatives continued their criticism as he exited the political arena. During Guilbeault’s departure announcement in the House of Commons in May, Conservative Calgary MP Shuvaloy Majumdar offered a restrained nod to his “deep convictions” while stressing that “his policies caused so much hardship for so many families across this country.”

Bloc Québécois Patrick Bonin, MP for the riding of Repentigny, called him “by far the best environment minister that this country has ever known” during that same farewell session. And Guilbeault’s friend Elizabeth May, former leader of the Green Party, said it was an honour to work with him. “Courage should be respected, regardless of views,” she said in Parliament, her voice cracking. “What we are dealing with is a crisis.”

Of that, there should be little doubt. But like any effective politician, Guilbeault chooses to focus on the positives and the progress that has been made, and on a record of activism and improbabilities that can inspire hope.

“If [you] told 25-year-old Steven Guilbeault who was at COP1 in Berlin,” he says, having reached his destination and parked his bike, that “one day he would be environment minister of a G7 country, working with others to achieve all those things, I’m not sure he would have believed you.”

Natalie Alcoba is a Buenos Aires-based journalist and senior editor at Corporate Knights.

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Vibrio bacteria are invasive pathogens that thrive in brackish and warmer water. They have been recorded in areas that used to be too cold for their taste, including the northeastern coast of the United States. Vibrio causes an infection called vibriosis, whose symptoms commonly include diarrhea, vomiting and fever. But an aggressive “flesh-eating strain” can be deadly, causing severe infections within days when coming into contact with open wounds.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, 3,743 cases of vibriosis were reported in 2024, including 222 cases of the particularly dangerous Vibrio vulnificus. Atlantic Coast states accounted for the largest share of infections. The CDC cautions that these figures likely underestimate the true toll because many infections are never diagnosed or reported. Not to mention that these numbers are only growing as the warming of oceans continues.

Scientists have long warned about the numerous consequences of warming oceans. Water has a remarkable capacity to absorb heat, but that buffering effect comes at a cost.

According to NASA, about 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases over the past century has accumulated in the ocean, making ocean heat content one of the clearest indicators of climate change.

Vibrio bacteria are particularly sensitive to these changing conditions. Naturally found in coastal waters around the world, they multiply rapidly as temperatures rise and salinity levels shift. Researchers have increasingly documented the appearance of Vibrio bacteria in places once considered inhospitable. In a landmark 2012 study published in Nature Climate Change, scientists linked unusually warm conditions in the Baltic Sea to the emergence of Vibrio infections at higher latitudes and warned that continued warming could expand the pathogen’s range even further.

A growing body of research suggests Vibrio may serve as a blueprint for understanding how climate change can reshape the spread of infectious diseases more broadly. A 2024 review in PLOS Pathogens argues that the Vibrio bacteria can be used as a model organism to illustrate the complex ways in which environmental change, ocean warming, pathogens and diseases, as well as human health more broadly, intersect.

The oceans’ ability to absorb humanity’s excess carbon and heat has slowed the pace of atmospheric warming. Yet the same process is transforming marine environments in ways that can have immediate consequences for human health. The appearance of Vibrio bacteria in new waters raises difficult questions for health authorities: how to recognize emerging threats early, communicate risk without causing alarm and protect populations that may no longer be as insulated from these infections as they once were.

Natalie Alcoba is a Buenos Aires-based journalist and senior editor at Corporate Knights. Alexandre Paquet is a Toronto-based researcher writing about video games and culture industries.

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But climate change has turned this transient phenomenon into a moving target. Tokyo’s sakura peak this year was around March 19, which is up to a week earlier than usual. Early arrivals between 2021 and 2023 in Kyoto smashed 1,200-year-old records. The main culprit is rising temperatures, but erratic winters may also threaten a tree’s ability to bloom at all. Research suggests that under a medium emissions scenario, peak bloom may move up another week by 2100.

“To me, the cherry blossom record really captures how extreme these changes are,” Elizabeth Wolkovich, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia who studies plant communities and climate change, told National Geographic.

The study of recurring biological events such as flowering and leaf emergence, known as phenology, has arguably become one of the most powerful tools for understanding climate change. Studies by Wolkovich show that rising temperatures are advancing spring biological events across the globe, with plant phenology shifting by roughly four to six days for every degree Celsius of warming. Her research has also found that experimental studies often underestimate how rapidly plants respond to warming compared with long-term observational records.

For more than 1,200 years, Kyoto’s cherry blossoms have been documented in imperial court diaries, temple records, aristocratic journals and historical chronicles, creating one of the world’s longest continuous phenological datasets. Yasuyuki Aono and Shizuka Saito, two researchers affiliated with Osaka Metropolitan University and Fujicco Co. Ltd., have reconstructed temperatures of medieval Kyoto by “gap-filling” cherry blossom records beginning in 812 CE. Their research suggests that peak bloom dates remained relatively stable around mid-April throughout the medieval period, making the recent string of record-breaking early blooms especially striking against a millennium of historical precedent.

This shift is changing how people experience one of Japan’s most important seasonal traditions. Hanami, the centuries-old practice of gathering under blooming cherry trees, is traditionally timed around the short window of peak cherry blossom, often coordinated through workplace outings, school calendars and travel itineraries. As flowering now arrives earlier and with greater variability, these social rhythms are increasingly strained. Visitors and locals alike rely on increasingly precise forecasts, yet even small temperature fluctuations can shift peak bloom by days, compressing or displacing long-planned gatherings. What emerges is a subtle reordering of seasonal life: a cultural calendar once anchored in predictable natural cycles is now being recalibrated in real time to a climate that is less stable, making hanami not only a ritual of appreciation, but also one of adaptation.

If current warming trends continue, the timing of cherry blossoms may keep shifting beyond familiar seasonal boundaries, leaving a tradition once anchored in predictability to unfold within an increasingly uncertain climate future.

Natalie Alcoba is a Buenos Aires-based journalist and senior editor at Corporate Knights. Alexandre Paquet is a Toronto-based researcher writing about video games and culture industries.

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Since then, funerals have been held for other glaciers in Switzerland and the United States, with eulogies and dirges performed by flute and string quartets. And the stream of tourists flocking to catch a glimpse of the disappearing frozen giants has also broadened. Known as “last-chance tourism,” this trend occupies the space between loss and celebration, as people navigate growing strains of ecological grief.

A 2026 study out of Rice University in Texas noted that some 14 million people visit the most popular glaciers on the planet every year. The university also keeps a “global glacier casualty list” to “remember their names and tell their stories.” Since 2000, thousands of glaciers of varying size have disappeared.

“Most people on Earth will never be able to visit a glacier, and that fact becomes truer every day as they disappear,” said Rice University anthropologist Cymene Howe, who co-authored the study. “But the desire is there. To be near these giant bodies of ice is a powerful experience because they are unique natural wonders that move, creak, whisper and invite reflection.”

The desire to be near to glaciers as they melt and fade away is a double-edged sword. As Howe notes, the tourism draw may end up harming the glaciers, not just directly from increased traffic, but also indirectly from the emissions caused by the travel required to get to them. Emmanuel Salim, a mountaineer and geography professor at the University of Toulouse in southern France, suggested in a paper that tourists risked “loving glaciers to death.”

Natalie Alcoba is a Buenos Aires-based journalist and senior editor of Corporate Knights.

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The Pacific Ocean has become a particularly important backdrop. For months now, the United States Coast Guard has been aggressively tracking and intercepting high-speed boats allegedly carrying thousands of pounds of cocaine across choppy international waters. One operation alone nabbed US$133-million worth of illicit drugs in January. Further afield, near the Philippines and Japan, China has deployed various aircraft carrier strike groups, testing the geopolitically sensitive region. Not to be outdone (or outgunned), the United States has significantly increased military exercises in the region, including large-scale drills in the Philippines and Japan that involve thousands of troops from various nations, along with air and maritime exercises.  

But arguably the most disruptive force in the Pacific is just pulling up. Forces of nature are gathering to create what some are predicting will be another “Super El Niño” season. In April, a typhoon flipped a U.S.-flagged cargo ship in the Pacific, near Guam, killing at least one crewmember and another five are still missing.  

El Niño and La Niña are two sides of the same meteorological coin, known as ENSO – or the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. The WMO says its impact on rainfall, drought and extreme events give it the ability to “reshape global weather.” 

El Niño comprises warm sea-surface temperatures in the central Pacific that extend all the way to South America. Super El Niño, a more extreme weather pattern, increases the chances of drought and damage to food crops in various parts of the world. For nations most dependent on agriculture, it can have a serious impact on livelihoods. The WMO does not use the “Super” moniker because it is not part of standardized classification. The term emerged in 2003 when Australia’s national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, used it to describe events where the Niño 3.4 index – a measure of sea-surface temperature anomalies in the central equatorial Pacific – exceeded 3°C. Yale Climate Connections notes that the term has been used more liberally, and informally, by the media and commentators.  

La Niña operates in an opposite way, pushing warm water toward Asia and cooler water toward the Americas. This can still lead to drought in places like the southern United States and heavy rains and flooding in the Pacific Northwest. Winter is warmer than normal in the south during La Niña and cooler than normal in the north.  

According to the WMO, forecasts point to above-normal temperatures across nearly the entire world this summer. There is an 82% chance of El Niño taking shape in May through July, according to a May 14 outlook from the National Weather Service Prediction Center. Scientists have found that the combination of ENSO and a warming climate make for more extreme weather events.  

So far, 2026 paints a grim picture. The World Weather Attribution, a global climate research collaboration, compiled a long list of already worrisome events, including record-low levels of Arctic sea ice, the hottest winters ever for a number of U.S. states, record rain in Spain (just a few years after record dry spells), and temperatures as high as 46°C in India. Combined with El Niño, the planet could be headed toward “an unprecedented year of global fire and record-breaking weather events,” the organization said in a statement.  

Countries are bracing. International organizations such as the WMO have been pushing for vital early-warning systems to help nations and communities plan. The UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) notes that El Niño effects will feel harshest in places with preexisting structural vulnerabilities. The U.S.–Israel war in Iran and its impact on the Strait of Hormuz have triggered “the most severe energy crisis in history,” according to Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency – one that will have wide-reaching effects beyond the shipment of goods.  

“Together, these pressures leave governments and households less able to absorb climate shocks than during previous El Niño cycles,” ESCAP said.  

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As an industrial powerhouse, it has more recently turned into an example of Chinese green transformation, boasting the world’s first smart and zero-carbon port that is 100% electricity driven and green-energy backed. Onsite industrial-scale wind turbines and solar panels ensure renewable-energy self-sufficiency in the 10th-busiest port in the world, handling more than 20 million shipping containers annually.

It’s perhaps no wonder, then, that China chose to host last year’s summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Tianjin, on the banks of the Bohai Sea, in yet one more show of growing influence from Beijing. With twice the number of world leaders in attendance since the summit launch in 2001, from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Indian head of state Narendra Modi, Xi Jinping called for an end to the “Cold War mentality” that was triggering “turbulence and transformation” and called for “equal and orderly multipolarization” of the world that could pave the way to a “more just and equitable global governance system.”

The group pledged increased cooperation in energy, infrastructure, green industry, AI and innovation. These are the economic pillars of the present and the future that is being built. And they are the architecture for a new kind of cold war, one over our ecological future, propelled by a growing geopolitical rivalry between the giants of the 21st century.

Great power rivalry

In an article last year in Foreign Policy magazine, the influential historian and futurist Nils Gilman argued that the advent of the “ecological cold war” is upon us, driven by a struggle “over the metabolic basis of modern industrial society.”

“Call it a Green Entente vs an Axis of Petrostates,” he wrote on LinkedIn.

In the wider transition to a low-carbon economy, China needs no introduction. Its influence in the green transition – through supply chain routes and cheap hardware – is plain to see. It has installed more solar and wind than the rest of the world combined, the United Nations has said. Its capacity to drive down the cost of clean technologies has been a boon for reining in the growth of carbon emissions, giving vast swaths of the planet the tools to shift to renewables.

It has also played at least some role in the U.S. decision to retreat from climate policies, with a Trump administration that has made a U-turn to a fossil fuel agenda and adopted protectionist measures in an “America first” attempt to decouple from Chinese economic might. At the same time, the United States has signalled a sharp interest in ridding itself of dependency on China for critical minerals, which are not just key to green tech but intrinsic to military hardware. This year, Trump launched “Project Vault,” which includes loans for domestic mining and a bid to stockpile reserves.

Europe has responded to growing national backlash to climate policies by cooling them down and doubling down on its own protectionist measures. In the midst of all this, emerging economies that could help accelerate the energy transition are running up against roadblocks.

A piece of the green pie

While some observers take issue with Cold War framing, others are mapping out the ripple effects of these geopolitical tensions when it comes to the race to slow down planetary warming. “We are in the midst of a green cold war,” agrees economist Jorge Arbache, a professor at the University of Brasília. “The implications are that China, which is already leading, will probably lead even more because China will keep investing in green production.”

For Arbache, the heart of the struggle has to do with the amount of money that is at stake. Suffice to say, it’s a lot. One 2025 estimate from the Boston Consulting Group pegs the opportunities embedded in four key sectors – critical minerals, green tech manufacturing, green industrial material and green services – as US$11 trillion by 2040. “We are talking about an extremely big business agenda, and of course there is a competition in terms of who will eat what size of the cake,” Arbache says.

Although many developed countries are well positioned to participate in that agenda, it is also true that they do not necessarily have the key elements, such as critical minerals, available clean energy, carbon markets, abundant water and biodiversity. “Geography is back,” Arbache says. That means that developing economies that do have those assets could find themselves better positioned than before. “It gives those economies a bargaining power that they did not have very recently,” he says.

Chaos vs. foresight

But the name of the game, lately at least, has been chaos, driven by its number-one agent, U.S. President Donald Trump. “If I could sum it up, it’s better to govern chaos, because order is too costly,” observes Sabino Vaca Narvaja, a political scientist and former Argentine ambassador to China. “A fragmented society is easier to manipulate.”

China, of course, is steeped in contradiction, pouring money into coal projects, and facing accusations of human rights violations. It also has a different logic to its movements, Vaca Narvaja notes, one that bets on the long term. And so far, it has paid off.

The Chinese incursion into the green market was not about business at the outset, Arbache notes; it was about domestic security. Beijing registered, decades ago, the vulnerability it could face when it came to power supply. A desire to become energy self-sufficient shifted it into green-tech development, which has positioned it as a leader in renewables development. It now has a stranglehold on a huge chunk of the critical-minerals market, controlling 50% of global production and 87% of processing and refining.

China’s formula also relies on the rest of the world, Vaca Narvaja notes. It needs the world to buy its products. And it is. “China’s cleantech products are going basically everywhere in the world,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, non-resident senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s China Climate Hub, in a conversation held last year on China’s climate path amid trade tensions.

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For all major cleantech products except batteries, “the Global South, broadly understood, has overtaken the old developed world as the larger destination,” Myllyvirta said. There are countries with impressive uptake in solar, such as Pakistan, South Africa and Middle Eastern countries, but it’s the broad-based nature of the boom that’s sending the biggest signal. “From one side, there is the cost competitiveness of Chinese supply, and from the other side, there is a massive diversity of drivers,” he said.

Electrification is everywhere. Cities are turning to electric buses. Drivers are turning to electric vehicles. Governments and individuals alike are turning to solar power in the Middle East and Africa. Clean-energy sectors continued to drive growth in China in 2025, doubling in value from 2022 to US$2.1 trillion – which is equal to the economies of Brazil or Canada, according to an analysis from the think tank Carbon Brief.

At the same time, a glut in solar panel production is leading to uncertainty. Beijing set its 2026 growth target between 4.5% and 5%, the lowest level in 35 years, noting a “grave and complex” landscape.

“I don’t think we will be talking about renewable energy the way we are if it wasn’t for what China has been able to accomplish in the last decade,” says Jai Asundi, executive director of the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy, in Bangalore, India. “Taking a technology that has been developed somewhere else, and driving the price down. A classic capitalistic efficiency market. That is, if you are more efficient in the way you use a resource, then the capital flows to you.”

Emerging economies demand protagonism

The flip side of that efficient flow of capital, of course, is that it can make it difficult for other economies to compete. Take a place like India, where attempts to jump-start domestic green-energy device production have stalled. “Energy prices are very high in India. So to produce something is already very costly. And some of these technologies are very energy intensive,” Asundi says.

India, which represents 17% of the world’s population, is a prescient case study for wide swaths of the world that are trying to shrink a yawning inequality gap by raising gross domestic product, without contributing to global warming. The developed world built its industrialized wealth at the expense of the environment. That is no longer an option.

“What we are struggling with is this notion of how we work as an ecosystem,” Asundi says. “How do we work as a global society as opposed to a country-driven society? Because after all, climate change is not a country phenomenon; it is a global phenomenon.”

Chen Yu, senior policy officer at the non-profit Global Witness, agrees. “U.S.–China competition may continue, and the global energy landscape seems to be becoming more regionalized and multipolar, but this does not necessarily mean inevitable confrontation,” she says. “The key question is whether competition preserves space for cooperation and allows for fairer rules and resource distribution, rather than creating exclusive blocs.”

Whatever the mix, what matters, she stresses, is that the process of reducing emissions is not delayed.

The rise of ‘powershoring’

Unfortunately, the current moves and countermoves of nations trying to bolster national economies, and respond to electorate demands, is proving detrimental. Arbache says there are alliances available now using today’s technology that could speed up decarbonization, but they are being squandered. The Brazilian economist, who is also the former vice president of the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean, coined the term “powershoring” to describe the strategic relocation of energy-intensive industries to countries that have clean, abundant and secure energy. To produce one tonne of aluminum using coal-fired electricity results in 20 to 22 tonnes of carbon dioxide, Arbache says. But if you produce that same aluminum in Iceland, which runs on nearly 100% renewable power, the carbon output drops to 2 to 3.5 tonnes.

Countries like Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay also offer abundant green grids for manufacturing. But they are not attracting as many powershoring projects as anticipated from places like Europe, Arbache says. “Although they need new allies and friends to solve their problems, they are still very skeptical because of this very notion of protectionism,” he says. “In the end, they are harming their own economies and they are also harming our economies.”

Canada’s balancing act

Canada, with three-quarters of its exports going to the United States, is also navigating tricky terrain. The shifting sands of Trump tariffs has led the government to overhaul how it approaches trade and put it in hot pursuit of new partners – or increasing the strength of existing ones.

Prime Minister Mark Carney said as much in his headline-grabbing speech at Davos this year, where he warned middle powers that if “we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.” The phrase carried added weight because it came on the heels of an announcement to expand trade with China, and, crucially, allow at first up to 24,500 Chinese EVs annually into the Canadian market. Carney has since signed agreements with India to export uranium for its fleet of nuclear reactors, critical minerals, and oil and gas. The government also announced a split from the United States over auto policy, revitalizing incentives for EV production and purchase, and the intention of customizing new tailpipe emissions rules, rather than defaulting to the U.S. ones.

The divergence from U.S. policy is significant, says Rick Smith, president of the Canadian Climate Institute. “All we get from the Trump administration is this drumbeat that fossil fuels are the future. It’s very easy to let that overwhelm us as Canadians – to assume that that’s correct, and it’s not,” he says. “The actual economic opportunity is in decarbonization.”

While there are inherent challenges to decarbonization for an oil- and gas-producing country that other nations do not have, Smith says Canada is in a privileged position to move in on the booming battery market. “We’ve got all the elements of a very significant battery supply chain in Canada. And very few countries can say that,” he says. “In a grand contest between China and the United States, should we just be happy that China’s winning on the decarbonization front? No. We should also be getting our elbows up and trying to compete.”

Natalie Alcoba is a Buenos Aires-based journalist and senior editor of Corporate Knights.

The post The race for low-carbon energy is turning into a green cold war  appeared first on Corporate Knights.

Cubans have been navigating chronic blackouts for years. A routine built around flickering light has created a sort of collective muscle memory for the country’s inhabitants. “They turn the electricity on at 7 a.m., and they turn it off at 1 p.m.,” says Ramon, a vegetable delivery worker who lives in Güira de Melena, 50 kilometres from Havana. “They turn it back on until 10 p.m… It’s a fixed cycle.”  

This power-supply free fall has also expedited the energy transition. In the midst of a crisis, the renewables lifeline appears, albeit incrementally.

The stranglehold on oil shipments has placed renewed emphasis on a plan to transition to renewable energy. At the start of 2025, just 4% of Cuba’s electricity came from renewables. By the end of this year, that is supposed to jump to 17%, according to Ramses Montes, director of national energy policy and strategy at the Cuban Ministry of Energy and Mines. China has been donating thousands of solar panels to Cuba, as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. Brazil sent 300 solar panel kits in 2025, and a new activist-led campaign is raising funds to install the equipment in schools. 

In March, Cuba’s Communist Party announced via Granma, its official newspaper, that it would soon begin installing 5,000 panels donated by China, following another major blackout that plunged two-thirds of the country into darkness. Half of the panels will head to maternity homes, seniors’ centres, hospitals, banks, radio stations and other public infrastructure.  

There are about 30 solar fields in operation now on the island, with plans to add 92 more by 2028 with the help of China. But for the average Cuban, who earns around $16 a month if employed by the state, the options are slim. Many people rely on coal or firewood to cook and stay warm. Most Cubans can’t afford to install solar panels, which can cost thousands of dollars. Electric power generators that run on fuel are a more affordable option, but they are noisy and still cost-prohibitive. A 4,600-watt generator uses about 15 litres of gasoline every 12 hours, with each litre of gas costing as much as US$8 on the informal market.  

Christa Hernández is among the privileged few who were able to install solar panels last year. At that point, the scheduled blackouts were between two and six hours in Havana. But Hernández, who owns the hostel Kerida and the Cimarrón dance school, could see that the power situation was going to make or break her business. Gasoline generators were too loud. She looked into buying solar panels on Amazon, but her credit card kept getting blocked. Finally, she connected with a friend living in the United States who purchased the panels for her, and then she hired a company in Miami that packed them up and delivered them to her doorstep in Cuba. All the equipment, including batteries and shipping, cost US$12,000.  

Our workers come in from their homes already tired, because they weren’t able to sleep, because there is no electricity, there is no water, there is nothing.

— Christa Hernández, business owner in Havana

“We made the switch just in time, because soon after, travel agencies stopped working with hostels that did not have that safety net,” Hernández says. “We’re one of the few privileged people who can invest in this,” she adds. If you don’t have a business, or family who live outside the country, it’s impossible to make the investment.  

“The neighbourhood is very dark. When you look outside, you see how few people have light,” she says. “Life is not the same. You go out into a darkened Cuba, where the cost of everything goes up and there is suffering.”  

“Our workers come in from their homes already tired, because they weren’t able to sleep, because there is no electricity, there is no water, there is nothing.”  

Natalie Alcoba is a Buenos Aires–based journalist and senior editor at Corporate Knights. Berta Reventós is a Buenos Aires-based Latin America correspondent who works for Spanish media and reported from Cuba.

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