The Topline
- Prime Minister Mark Carney announced last week that the Liberal government may drop its federal oil and gas emissions cap as part of a new climate plan
- Carney said during the 2025 election campaign that would keep the emissions cap , which is not scheduled to take effect until 2030
- Prior to becoming prime minister, Carney had built his reputation as a global climate leader, warning that fossil fuel reserves were “stranded assets”
Talking out both sides of his mouth
There once was a time when Mark Carney lectured the world on “unburnable” carbon , scolding CEOs that fossil fuels were a bad bet in a shifting economic and regulatory landscape.
Well hidey ho, look who’s making carbon a cornerstone of his national projects agenda. It’s not much of a surprise, either. At the end of the day, Carney is a businessman first – the dollar talks, and everything else comes after.
First, he killed the carbon tax, which was terrible optics out of the gate for a climate-friendly political newbie announcing himself as a new prime minister. Killing the consumer carbon price, while a popular move with Canadians, is bad policy. The fuel charge gave individuals a first-hand glimpse of the costs associated. You saw one price on your heating bill, then you saw a rebate cheque roll in. It showed that by cutting personal emissions, you could save money. It was the one mechanism that ordinary Canadians could see working. But now it’s baby, bye bye bye.
Now he’s planning to cut the cap on oil and gas emissions. His predecessor, Justin Trudeau, developed a plan to force the oil patch down 37 per cent by 2030, which is substantial. Now, Carney’s potentially going to drop it if the industry builds carbon capture projects, but there’s currently no word on how that will be managed or demanded.
Then there the pipelines and LNG projects getting a blaring green light, waving through fossil fuel infrastructure that locks in emissions for decades. All in the name of “national interest.”
You know what’s also in the national interest? Ensuring our grandkids are able to breathe the same clean air that we had growing up. You know what else? Sustaining all life on this already-warming planet.
It’s not a great look internationally, especially from a man who staked his claim as a kind of climate hawk on the global stage. The International Court of Justice recently stated that nations could face legal liability for failing to curb fossil production. And Carney’s just approved more of it. Taxpayer money, hard at work.
So what?
It would be one thing if Carney had never claimed to be a climate crusader. But he built his brand on being the adult in the increasingly warming room. People voted for him on that idea alone. So this apparent capitulation to Alberta voters, or the oil and gas lobby, or both, feels like a betrayal to his environmentally conscious supporters. Some crusader.
Concessions are the political reality
The inconvenient truth is that Carney needs to govern a petrostate, Alberta, that runs on oil royalties. The lofty goals pontificated over in Davos are all well and good, but real climate policy is hammered out in Red Deer and Scarborough.
While the consumer carbon tax was good policy, Canadians hated it and the Conservatives feasted on it. Carney scrapped to save the rest of the climate agenda from going down with it. It’s like amputating a limb to save the rest of the body.
Meanwhile , industrial pricing remains in place. By strengthening the tax on large emitters, Carney is shifting the burden off individuals and on to industry, which is where most of the emissions are coming from, anyway.
It’s all a delicate balance – the political reality needs to meet the economic and environmental one. Carney is using the oil and gas cap negotiations as a political bargaining chip, since Alberta’s economy, and by extension, much of Canada’s, still relies heavily on the oil sands. Mandating a 37 per cent cut to emissions without an adequate a transition plan – which Trudeau’s target did not outline – would obliterate jobs, tank investment, and open the current government to frothy, impassioned attacks from the opposition. This issue could win the Conservatives the next election, especially if the economy tanks.
Carney campaigned on a promise to stabilize the Canadian economy, while moving toward a greener one at the same time. Neither will happen overnight, and concessions do need to be made in order to reach the economic sovereignty the Liberals have been talking about lately. The pipelines and LNG projects are part of this – they’re essentially an insurance policy in the face of U.S. tariffs and its weaponization of energy trade. Securing export routes is a national security issue.
In July, Carney’s government released its roadmap for decarbonization of the oil and gas sector – a plan to “protect the planet for future generations and to enhance the short and long-term competitiveness of the industry.” It details measures to improve oil and gas production efficiency, control methane emissions and deploy industry-wide carbon capture technology, among other innovations.
In other words, cleaner fossil exports today buys time to scale renewables tomorrow.
So what?
Carney’s environmental policy is clearly strategic – compromise enough to keep climate policy alive federally, while tightening the screws on industry. A pragmatic approach is necessary, because if this climate plan fails all together, it could be replaced by a climate-denying down the line.
