Mark Carney arrived at Canada's top job wrapped in climate credentials that seemed almost too good to be true. The former Bank of England governor had delivered a landmark 2015 speech on climate financial risk. He served as UN special envoy on climate action. His book declared climate change an existential threat. Next to Donald Trump, he looked like the grown-up in the room.
Hundreds of thousands of climate-conscious Canadians bought it. They joined the Liberal party to help elect him. They voted for him as prime minister. One year later, they are discovering they backed the wrong horse.
The pivot has been swift and sweeping. Carney's new Climate Competitiveness Strategy abandons the carbon pricing that once defined Canadian climate policy. The consumer carbon price he eliminated immediately upon taking office was just the beginning. What follows is a systematic dismantling of nearly every climate mandate his predecessor put in place.
Methane regulations have been weakened and delayed. Clean electricity standards originally designed to eliminate fossil fuels from Canada's grid by 2035 have been pushed back to 2050 and reopened to new gas-powered plants. A planned oil and gas emissions cap that took years to develop has been scrapped. Zero-emission vehicle mandates have been gutted, triggering a sharp drop in EV sales.
The government is now actively accelerating fossil fuel expansion. Major liquefied natural gas facilities and pipeline projects are being fast-tracked and will likely receive federal subsidies. Tax credits for carbon capture and storage have been doubled down, including support for using captured carbon to extract more oil through enhanced recovery. A new federal sovereign wealth fund is being announced, expected to funnel public money into fossil fuel infrastructure.
Most striking is Carney's refusal to implement a windfall profits tax on oil and gas companies poised to earn record returns from global instability.
The breaking point came earlier this month when Carney and Alberta premier Danielle Smith announced a deal that further clears the way for bitumen pipeline expansion while dramatically weakening Alberta's industrial carbon price. The province's price will now reach only $130 per tonne by 2040, down from the planned $170 by 2030. Climate Action Network Canada called it a sledgehammer to Canada's climate plan.
Even the typically patient Canadian Climate Institute declared the new federal-Alberta agreement puts Canada's net-zero emissions target by 2050 out of reach.
Some defend Carney as a hostage to Alberta's separatist movement, a Trump-backed minority representing roughly a quarter of the province but wielding outsized political power. The argument goes that these concessions are necessary to keep Canada united. That logic has a history. The previous prime minister spent $34 billion on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion to carry Alberta bitumen to the Pacific, earning nothing in return.
There are those still willing to believe Carney is playing a deeper game, quietly laying groundwork for a great transition. That bet looks increasingly hollow. One year in, the pattern is unmistakable. Every policy shift accelerates Canada's domestic emissions and expands oil and gas exports that increase global carbon pollution.
The climate movement in Canada is regrouping. There is no guarantee these new fossil fuel projects will find the investors and buyers they require. Indigenous nations have pledged to block their development. And while Canada clings to petroleum, much of the world is moving past it.
Author James Rodriguez: "Carney's climate credentials have proven to be just window dressing for a government determined to turbocharge fossil fuel exports."
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