For the first few months During Mark Carney's tenure as prime minister, Canada's climate community of advocacy groups, think tanks, journalists and scientists has held its judgment and its breath. The former UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance was now running the country; of course it was good. But once he took office, he stopped talking about emissions. Where exactly did this happen?
“Give him a minute,” was the thought. Consider the political landscape. Canadians chose Carney to confront US President Donald Trump over climate change, and rightfully so. If rising temperatures were a malignant tumor, then America's sudden hostility was a swift bullet. First things first.
So we got our first clue (or was it a red flag?): The Canada Build Act, which passed the spring session of Parliament and became law two months after Carney's victory. The law provided for an independent Canada to break free from dependence on the United States. Industrial megaprojects “in the national interest” will be expedited for implementation through the Major Projects Authority.
From a climate perspective, it was all like a national Rorschach blot taking shape before our eyes: Those who wanted to believe in Climate Carney could focus on the wind, nuclear and critical minerals projects that were among the first to be announced in September; others saw the expansion of fossil fuels in the form of increased liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports and the growing drumbeat of an oil pipeline to British Columbia's north coast. The pattern was repeated in November, when Carney announced a second tranche of major projects.
Yes, it's confusing, but not that surprising yet. Carney promised to make Canada “an energy superpower, both clean and conventional.” [i.e., fossil fuel] “Energy” after the election campaign in April. He outlined this in his speech from the throne. But what does this mean for emissions, the currency of climate policy? Should investment in carbon-free energy somehow offset the concurrent expansion of the fossil fuel sector? Will carbon capture save the day? Or could cuts in emissions in other parts of the economy – say, housing or transport – offset increased production in the oil region?
These questions were partially answered in the “climate competitiveness strategy” buried in Carney's November budget. That's when we learned that Carney had put all his climate chips on two bets: an industrial carbon price (which charges large emitters for carbon emissions) and methane regulation (aimed at cutting methane emissions from oil and gas production by 75 percent from 2012 levels).
This strategy has caused a lot of discontent in the climate community; Many other elements of Canada's climate policy have been abandoned. Billions of dollars in cuts to various climate programs, from the federal tree planting program to the Greener Homes Grant. The federal mandate for electric vehicles remains suspended. Instead of money for clean energy, the budget included tax breaks for both fossil fuels and renewable energy sources.
Despite this, enough people spoke in favor of the new climate policy that the collective jury remained in doubt. Reducing methane emissions (which is almost thirty times more potent than carbon dioxide) would have great influence. An aggressive price on industrial carbon is a powerful climate policy: the EU version has cut emissions from power plants and industry by almost half since its launch in 2005. Convincing Ottawa to take these two rules seriously has been a top priority among climate advocates for years.
Even Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May came to the conclusion when she reluctantly voted for Carney's budget on November 17th. She did this because Carney promised her and Canadians that same day that Canada “will respect our Paris climate change commitments, and we are committed to achieving them.” How exactly remains unclear. But a promise is a promise, right?
May's anguished support (you could see her wrestling with her conscience throughout the press conference as she announced her vote) seemed to reflect the spirit of the climate community. “The Liberals cannot expect me to vote again for confidence in the government without following through on the words I heard,” she said, and many of us did the same internally.
But less than two weeks later, on November 27, Ottawa's memorandum of understanding with Alberta destroyed any remaining doubts. This was not so much the final straw as it was a cannonball fired straight into the body of climate science. Ten days after he won the confidence of the House of Representatives, he lost ours.
Stephen Guilbeault, a longtime Liberal Party climate flag bearer, has resigned from cabinet with immediate effect. May said she made the wrong decision when voting on the budget. Groups that had been cautiously supportive of Carney's climate strategy, such as the Pembina Institute and the Canadian Climate Institute, have changed their positions. Two of Canada's most prominent climate advocates, Simon Donner and Catherine Abreu, have left the federal net-zero emissions advisory body in strong words of protest. “There is no doubt that the current government will reverse Canada's hard-won trend toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Abreu wrote in her resignation letter. “Canada will miss its international commitment to reduce emissions by 40 to 45 per cent by 2030 by such a large margin that meeting the 2035 milestone is highly unlikely. It will not be possible to achieve net zero by 2050 if these milestones are missed.”
This memorandum of understanding crystallized Carney's new political position: he was not simply pretending to appease the oil sector, as many had suspected or hoped. He sincerely wanted a million-barrel-a-day oil pipeline to reach the coast of British Columbia and devoted all the resources of the federal government to its construction. According to the Memorandum of Understanding, emissions from the pipeline would be counteracted by the Pathways Alliance carbon capture project, whose fate is now tied to the pipeline. As the document states, “the two projects… are interdependent.”
But according to Pathways' own data, the project will capture less than one-tenth of the carbon that the new pipeline will release. This is a perfect illustration of the moral hazard of carbon capture: by explicitly tying it to increased oil production, carbon capture literally increases emissions.
I can't believe Carney doesn't know all this. Yet, as part of his trade campaign, he has used phrases such as “decarbonized oil” to suggest otherwise. Such statements cut deeper than any political betrayal. It is one thing to make compromises in times of national crisis; This distortion of mathematics and meaning borders on misinformation.
At least now we know: Carney is not playing climate chess. There will be no effort to limit fossil fuel production in Canada, which is by far the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions for both the country and the planet. The question is no longer what he is doing, but why? Why did Carney trade support for climate progressives for support for the oil region? Money is one of the answers, no doubt. But politics is different.
Canadians are getting used to tariffs and Trump, whose talk of the “fifty-first state” has died down. Carney can't rely on his anti-Trump credentials to win the next election. The Conservatives won more than 41 per cent of the vote in April – often enough to form a majority government in any regular election that might take place at any time. And, sadly from a climate perspective, polls show a majority of Canadians support a new pipeline. Including residents of British Columbia.
By signing pipeline contracts, promoting LNG and developing an unprecedented friendship with Alberta, Carney has cornered federal opposition. Two Conservative MPs crossed the floor to join the Liberals. The two most powerful Conservative premiers – Alberta's Daniel Smith and Ontario's Doug Ford – now have better relationships with Carney than with federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.
The Memorandum of Understanding cemented this state of affairs. The Léger poll, conducted within three days of its release, showed the Liberals with a significant lead over the Conservatives, 43 to 36 percent. Carney's personal accomplishments had an approval rating of 51 percent, compared to Poilievre's 31 percent. Canadians don't seem to be as concerned about climate change as they used to be, or maybe they're just more I'm afraid of other things. Or are they just tired of being afraid?
Whatever it was, Carney's success was a lesson for everyone: The man never looks troubled. His positivity and confidence are contagious. When he first took office, many wondered whether he understood politics as well as he understood economics. It turns out that he understands them too well.
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