Globe Climate: As backyards disappear, urban planners still want to bring nature to our doorstep

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Good afternoon, and welcome to Globe Climate, a newsletter about climate change, environment and resources in Canada.

August is — whether we like it or not — on its last lap and with the end of the month comes the end of a particularly eventful summer, a bit too eventful, I think.

In July, a torrential rainstorm flooded the basement where I live, destroying the skirting boards, door frames and anything I was foolish enough to leave on the ground. Pippa Norman, the other basement-dwelling reporter who writes this newsletter, suffered the same fate — but twice, in one summer, the second hitting just after the repairs from the first were finally finished. Pippa and I therefore join a chorus of Canadians who have contended with extreme weather this summer, from Toronto’s floods to Calgary’s hailstorms, to Montreal’s Hurricane Debby and, of course, Jasper’s wildfires.

These cross-country catastrophes are showing up in the earnings for insurance companies, writes The Globe’s Investor Reporter, Clare O’Hara.

Canada’s largest property and casualty insurer — Intact Financial Corp. — announced this week estimates for total catastrophe losses in the third quarter are approximately $1.1-billion. Intact’s initial estimate was $900-million for the entire year.

The reports are in line with decades-long trends. Canadian insurers are contending with disaster claims that have quadrupled over the past 15 years, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada. In 2023, claims accounted for $3.1-billion of insured losses in 2023. In 2008, they equaled $400-million,

Analysts say this year’s catastrophe price tag will not impact Intact’s 2024 earnings outlook.

Simultaneously, according to Statistics Canada, the property and casualty insurance industry has raised home and mortgage insurance rates by 36 per cent from 2013 to 2023.

Now, let’s catch you up on other news.

Noteworthy reporting this week:

1. B.C. landslide blocks Chilco sockeye access to spawning ground, threatening the hearty ‘superfish’
2. Fire-restoration companies work to bring Jasper homes back to life after surviving wildfires
3. Power-sector lobby steps up criticism of Ottawa’s Clean Electricity Regulations
4. Imperial Oil fined $50,000 over oil sands leak
5. For Armstrong Fluid Technology, reinventing a line of heat pumps illustrates the value of institutional curiosity
6. Halifax’s firefighters ill-prepared and equipped for wildfires: report

A deeper dive

Urban backyards are disappearing. Can we be happy without them?

“A private yard in the country’s largest cities is becoming the wealthy family’s swimming pool of the past,” wrote Globe reporter, Erin Anderssen, in a feature on Canada’s disappearing urban backyard.

According to Statistics Canada, the fastest growing building type between 2016 and 2021 was high-rise buildings — the kind of homes without backyards. Boxes in the sky, in other words, are coming to replace the post-war single-family housing. However, it isn’t just private green space that is disappearing. Another Statistics Canada survey found that between 2000 and 2023, large urban centres, on average, lost one-tenth of their public and private green space, for example parks, trees, yards and grass.

In her feature, Erin questioned the purpose and value of both private and public greenspace. What do we lose when we lose the private yard? Can a house be a home without barbecue reunions, garden weddings, and parties under the patio lanterns? Or is this a privilege that should not be prioritized above providing housing? Or is greenspace vs. density a false binary? Can we have both?

The Globe reached out to readers to hear their personal perspectives. Here are some of my favorites:

My backyard is my oasis in the middle of a large city. The birds and animals that I share my trees and yard with serve to maintain my connection with nature and remind me that I am NOT just another cog in the machine. - Ron Baugh, Red Deer, Alta.

I live in a downtown neighbourhood and my yard is more important to me than my house. I think almost everyone needs a little patch of outdoor space, it fills their soul. - Michelle Purchase, Kitchener, Ont.

I live in central Montreal, where many of the apartment plexes don’t have a backyard. It’s common to have three or four birthday parties in the public parks when the weather is nice. Giving up a private backyard isn’t a huge sacrifice, as long as we can have access to good shared green space – it’s probably well worth it to live in an animated and walkable community - Mara Bender, Montreal

I grew up in a small city in rural Alberta and my family home was a single-detached house with a large wraparound backyard. I have fond memories of my parents hosting BBQs and birthday parties a couple times a year. I have since moved to a larger city in B.C. and live in an apartment building with no backyard. However, my apartment has a waterfront green space open for public use. My partner and I often go down to this green space, which provides a great opportunity to meet our neighbours. I loved my backyard growing up, but if the choice is to provide housing for others or have a private green space, I would choose the former. - Sarah Greer, Victoria, B.C.

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What else you missed

• ‘Definitely dissuasive’: Skyrocketing farmland prices a struggle for young farmers
• Montreal-area mayors say Quebec government has not delivered on promised flood relief
• Going gracefully energy efficient in a 170-year-old stone home
• Nature Conservancy of Canada acquires Acadian seaside forest for new reserve in N.B.

Opinion and analysis

Peter Singer: Will we survive the next 100 years?

Na’im Merchant: Canada needs to double down on carbon removal and must set a target for doing so

Konrad Yakabuski: Steven Guilbeault is on a collision course with Quebec over caribou-protection measures. Will he blink?

Green Investing

Agnico, New Gold, Iamgold seen as possible buyers for shuttered Eagle Gold mine

An Ontario judge placed Toronto-based Victoria Gold Corp. in receivership last week and its management was ejected and shareholders wiped out because it wasn’t moving with sufficient urgency and lacked enough funding to remediate a serious cyanide spill in central Yukon, reports Globe mining reporter Niall McGee.

Stakeholders are therefore searching for a restart of the contaminated Eagle gold mine, but analysts say getting a buyer isn’t a sure thing, and creditors are probably going to shoulder a major haircut regardless of the outcome.

• Robert Hinchcliffe keeps buying Galway Metals shares
• Cobalt supply tsunami hits the market of last resort

The Climate Exchange

Check out our new digital hub where you can ask your most pressing questions about climate change. It’s a place where we hope to help by answering your questions, big and small, about the continuing changes and challenges around climate change. Along the way, we’ll aim to highlight the people, communities and companies working toward climate solutions and innovations.

For the record: While RBC supports the initiative financially, the company has no say in what questions get asked or how The Globe answers them.

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Guides and Explainers

• Want to learn to invest sustainably? We have a class for that: Green Investing 101 newsletter course for the climate-conscious investor. Not sure you need help? Take our quiz to challenge your knowledge.
• We’ve rounded up our reporters’ content to help you learn what a carbon tax is, what happened at COP28 and just generally how Canada will change because of climate change.
• There are ways to make your travelling more sustainable. Here are some books to help the environmentalist in you grow, as well as a downloadable e-book of Micro Skills – Little Steps to Big Change.

Catch up on Globe Climate

• Tracing the burn scars
• Water scarcity in Western Canada
• What does a Team Canada meteorologist do?
• In the wake of Jasper’s wildfire
• Suspense builds around water quality in the Seine

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