Inayat Singh

Inayat Singh reports on climate change, energy and the environment for CBC News, with a focus on how science, policy and money intersect in the transition away from fossil fuels. His stories track the consequences of major energy and climate decisions for emissions, ecosystems and everyday institutions. He works in an explanatory style, grounding coverage in new studies, regulatory reports and climate risk analysis.

Energy transition and fossil fuel projects

Singh covers the politics and economics of the energy transition through concrete cases in oil, gas and electricity. He reports on pipeline agreements from Alberta that promise access to new overseas markets, asking whether countries that are ramping up electric vehicle adoption will still want Canadian oil. He examines proposals to expand liquefied natural gas infrastructure, including efforts to fast-track projects in British Columbia, and how those plans sit against stated climate targets and the pace of decarbonization.

His coverage of the Pathways Alliance carbon capture project in the oilsands focuses on who pays for large-scale infrastructure, the role of public funds and what that means for near-term emissions reductions.

He regularly draws on formal outlooks and scenario work to frame these stories.

His reporting on regulatory projections that oil production could peak in net-zero scenarios connects long-term forecasts to current investment decisions and government policy. He covers emerging nuclear strategy, including plans to build multiple new plants and the involvement of pension funds in financing them, as a climate and risk story rather than a purely technology one.

Singh also follows the evolution of the power sector, highlighting reports that point to wind and solar as the future backbone of electricity and tracing what that shift means for grids, utilities and consumers.

His work situates domestic decisions in a wider geopolitical context. In a feature on China’s rise as an “electrostate,” he looks at how dominance in solar, batteries and electric vehicles reshapes global power relations and affects climate efforts elsewhere.

Across these pieces, he distinguishes himself by tying physical infrastructure projects and energy policy debates directly to emissions pathways, investor behavior and the credibility of climate commitments.

Peatlands, wildlife and climate impacts

Singh devotes recurring attention to how climate change and land use affect peatlands, wildlife and ecosystems.

He reports on research showing that paths carved into boreal peatlands for oil and gas exploration can accelerate the release of carbon, turning industrial access routes into a climate risk in their own right. In a related piece on wildfire emissions, he highlights new modelling work that quantifies how much carbon is coming from fires and how current tallies often overlook vast peatland areas, underscoring the gap between reported and actual emissions.

His coverage extends to species facing stress from warming and habitat loss. A story on Blanchard’s cricket frog follows conservationists confronting the local disappearance of a tiny amphibian, linking its decline to broader pressures on wetlands and biodiversity. In Antarctica, his reporting on penguins shifting their breeding season in response to warming conditions uses behavioral change as a measure of climate impacts on polar ecosystems.

He also writes about climate change making ski slopes harder to maintain, connecting temperature trends, snow reliability and costs for resorts as a tangible example of how warming alters familiar landscapes.

Singh brings the same physical science lens to extreme weather. His reporting on Hurricane Melissa examines how rising ocean temperatures fuel storms that threaten to break historical records, and what that implies for communities in their path. Across these pieces, he anchors environmental stories in mechanisms like heat, moisture, soil carbon and species behavior, distinguishing his work from more general environment coverage that stays at the level of broad impacts.

Money, risk and clean technology

A defining strand in Singh’s work is the focus on finance, investment and climate solutions. He covers investment summits aimed at mobilizing capital for clean technology, using events like Mark Carney’s gathering of institutional investors to examine whether announced commitments translate into funding for wind, solar, storage and other technologies.

His reporting on nuclear build-out and pension funds probes how long-lived assets and retirement savings intersect with climate risk, regulatory oversight and public expectations.

He treats climate think-tank report cards on national performance as accountability tools, explaining the metrics, the gaps they identify and the implications for policy. In pieces on the future of electricity and clean energy, Singh highlights where capital is flowing, what barriers remain and how financing structures can either accelerate or slow the deployment of climate solutions. Even in stories centered on fossil fuel projects, he returns to questions of who bears cost and risk, whether investors are aligned with net-zero pathways and how financial decisions shape the feasibility of climate plans.

This attention to money and governance gives his climate reporting a distinct angle: major studies and reports are not just sources of data, but windows into how governments, companies and institutions are responding to climate constraints.

Data-driven and explanatory climate coverage

Singh draws on a background in data-driven and investigative work to structure his climate reporting. He makes repeated use of detailed models, technical studies and regulatory documents, translating their findings into clear, accessible narratives while keeping the underlying numbers and assumptions close to the surface. His articles often revolve around a single pressing question - who pays, who benefits, who is at risk - and build out from that point using evidence rather than opinion or personal voice.

Earlier in his career, he has worked on data-heavy national projects and covered complex beats such as policing and labour during the COVID-19 pandemic. That experience shows in how he approaches environmental subjects: he treats climate change as a systems story, connecting energy infrastructure, financial flows, regulatory frameworks and on-the-ground impacts. For communications teams, this means his interest lies in substantive detail - credible studies, clear policy decisions, investment structures and real-world consequences - rather than broad messaging alone.