Canada’s Carney Dismantles Climate Plan, Betraying Activists: Analysis

Casual international observers might assume Canada is in the hands of a climate champion, given Prime Minister Mark Carney’s past warnings about climate risks as Bank of England governor, his role as UN special envoy for climate action and finance, and his 2022 book highlighting the existential threat of climate change, writes Canadian climate writer and activist Seth Klein.

Next to U.S. President Donald Trump, Carney appears debonair, thoughtful and calm – a lifeline of stability in a volatile new world, Klein acknowledges.

Many within Canada recently shared that view, with hundreds of climate activists joining the Liberal Party to elect Carney as Justin Trudeau’s successor, and hundreds of thousands of climate-concerned voters supporting him as prime minister, Klein notes.

However, a very different reality is emerging as plank after plank of Canada’s climate strategy is dismantled, leaving climate-anxious voters with buyer’s remorse and disoriented by the dissonance between their expectations and a climate plan now in complete shambles, Klein writes.

Carney almost never talks about the climate crisis anymore, contributing to the virtual disappearance of the topic from mainstream conversation and reinforcing the isolation felt by the silent majority of climate-anxious people, Klein says, citing a dynamic previously reported by The Guardian.

Among his first acts as prime minister, Carney – who previously advocated market-based solutions – scrapped Canada’s consumer carbon price, Klein notes.

Carney’s new Climate Competitiveness Strategy embraces an approach “based on driving investment, not on prohibitions,” and his government has repealed or weakened virtually every climate mandate introduced by his predecessor, including weakened and delayed methane regulations, significantly delayed clean electricity regulations to 2050 that reopen the door to new gas-powered electricity plants, Klein writes.

A planned oil and gas emissions cap has been scrapped, anti-greenwashing legislation flagged for rollback, and zero-emission vehicle mandates significantly delayed and weakened, contributing to a dramatic drop-off in EV sales in Canada, Klein reports.

Carney has also gone all-in on supporting new fossil fuel infrastructure, exempting projects deemed “nation-building” from some environmental laws, fast-tracking major new LNG facilities and pipeline projects that will likely be federally subsidized, with LNG already granted new tax credits, Klein says.

He has doubled down on tax credits for carbon capture and storage and extended subsidies for enhanced oil recovery – making credits available for projects using captured carbon to frack more oil – and announced a new federal sovereign wealth fund that will likely use public money to subsidize new fossil fuel infrastructure, mirroring Norway’s fund in reverse, Klein writes.

All while steadfastly refusing to entertain a windfall profits tax on oil and gas companies poised to earn record profits in the wake of the Iran war, Klein notes.

Earlier this month, pent-up feelings of grief and betrayal surfaced when Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced a new energy agreement to pave the way for another bitumen pipeline and weaken Alberta’s industrial carbon price, with Climate Action Network Canada calling the deal “a sledgehammer to one of the last remaining pillars of Canada’s climate plan,” Klein reports.

While Canada’s industrial carbon price was to reach $170 a tonne by 2030, under this latest capitulation Alberta’s price will reach only $130 by 2040, rendering the tool virtually irrelevant, Klein says, adding that Carney promised to strengthen the industrial carbon price after eliminating the consumer price but has chosen to do the opposite.

Even the staid Canadian Climate Institute, normally patient with federal incrementalism, declared the new federal-Alberta agreement “puts Canada’s commitment to net zero emissions by 2050 firmly out of reach,” Klein writes.

Some give Carney a pass, contending with a sizable separatist movement in Alberta, which remains a minority of roughly a quarter of Albertans but is noisy, with Carney’s defenders claiming concessions are necessary to appease Alberta and “make the case for a united Canada,” Klein notes.

But the track record of this rationale reinforces all the usual risks of appeasement, with the same logic justifying previous Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s $34 billion Trans Mountain pipeline expansion with no political reward, Klein argues.

Some still hold that Carney is engaged in a deeply clever game of four-dimensional chess to confound the oil patch while laying groundwork for a great transition absent Trudeau’s performative nonsense, Klein writes.

But one year in, Klein says he is letting go of that hope, asserting there is no scenario in which these policy shifts do not increase Canada’s domestic emissions and downstream carbon pollution through expanded oil and gas exports.

Klein apologizes for the bad news, asks readers to shed a tear for Canada, then return to the fight, noting the Canadian climate movement is regaining its bearings, with no assurance that new fossil fuel projects will find investors and buyers, and numerous Indigenous nations vowing to block them, while much of the world moves on from fossil fuels.

Seth Klein is a Canadian climate writer and activist, author of the book “A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency,” and former team lead of the Climate Emergency Unit; his newsletter can be found here.