Last week, Canada's House of Commons voted to ratify the Paris climate change agreement, alongside the European Union and several other countries.
The agreement will enter into force on Nov. 4.
But amid all the abstract talk about international agreements, carbon pricing and emissions targets, researchers and companies are busy coming up with new, tangible technologies to fight climate change.
In B.C., officials recently unveiled the British Columbia Institute of Technology's Energy Oasis project, which it refers to as the "'gas station' of the future."
The project uses solar energy stored in lithium ion battery banks to power electric vehicle charging stations at the school's Burnaby campus. It was funded in part by the federal and provincial governments.
"This project is a demonstration of how clean technology can help reduce emissions, protect the environment and generate employment opportunities," said Minister of Natural Resources Canada James Gordon Carr in a statement.
That's the kind of innovation that UBC researcher Martino Tran has suggested would help electric vehicles break into the transportation market in a meaningful way.
In a 2012 paper in Nature Climate Change, he and his colleagues found that electric vehicles "may only provide a niche market over the next 20 years."
But he concluded that "Policy can assist by providing free charging using renewable energy at publicly accessed parking places."
Other new technologies are being developed around the world, and certainly aren't limited to transportation.
On the other side of the planet, in Australia, Sundrop Farm has just launched a new greenhouse designed to produce 17,000 tonnes of tomatoes per year in the South Australian desert, powered only by sunshine and seawater.
According to an article in New Scientist, the greenhouse uses "no soil, pesticides, fossil fuels or groundwater."
The system pumps seawater two kilometres from the coast to the farm, where the salt is removed in a solar-powered desalination plant. The plants are grown in coconut husks instead of soil.
The company plans to build similar greenhouses in Portugal and the United States.
But when it comes to climate change, education is arguably just as important as technology.
To that end, UBC researchers recently released a video game called Future Delta 2.0 to teach high school students about the dangers of climate change. The game introduces players to a dystopian version of the City of Delta in the year 2100, after the community failed to adequately fight climate change.
The research team has received funding from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council to expand the game, and hopes to launch a mobile app for youth across Canada.
By Maura Forrest, 13 October 2016