Latest news with #ClimateActionNetworkCanada
National Observer
02-07-2025
- Politics
- National Observer
On Carney's agenda, climate is nowhere and everywhere
Throughout Mark Carney's whirlwind first months on the job, two words have remained conspicuously absent from the prime minister's messaging: 'climate change.' That's been a major disappointment for many in the climate community, who expected a more vocal advocacy from the former UN special envoy on climate action and finance. 'The G7 Leaders' Summit was a test of Canada's climate leadership, and Prime Minister Carney failed,' wrote Caroline Brouillette, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada, in an emblematic statement following the Kananaskis summit. Brouillete was responding to the G7's avoidance of climate change, including in a joint communique on the rising danger of wildfires. 'It's a serious omission, and that's being very polite,' wildfire expert Mike Flannigan told Canada's National Observer at the time. So what happened? Where's the guy who dedicated two entire chapters of his book, Values, to the climate crisis? Why is the same person who used his platform as governor of the Bank of England to warn the world's financial elites about the risk of stranded assets and carbon bubbles now flirting with new pipelines under C-5 and invoking oil-industry jargon like 'decarbonized oil'? Is it just his language that's changed, or has the new job pushed climate change off his radar? All policy is climate policy Not everyone in the climate community feels betrayed — at least, not yet. The new prime minister doesn't lecture on climate like the old one. Does that mean he's forgotten about the climate crisis? 'It feels like we're still in a wait-and-see moment,' says Dale Beugin, executive vice president at the Canadian Climate Institute. 'I get the priority to go after nation-building projects. I get the priority to move on some of these big economic issues. Because that's where the moment is right now. I think that's pretty defensible. The trick will be to make sure that they can deliver on those shorter-term economic imperatives, while not losing the climate ones.' Another word for 'shorter-term economic imperatives,' in today's Ottawa parlance, is 'Bill C-5.' As most of Canada is aware, Carney rushed that bill into law in record time entirely in the name of responding to the economic crisis posed by Trump's tariffs. And in order to get the votes needed to pass Bill C-5, Carney and his senior officials have had to find common cause with traditional adversaries — from prairie premiers like Danielle Smith to the federal Conservatives sitting opposite in the House of Commons. 'He's clearly balancing a number of delicate issues, including Alberta's concerns,' allows Rachel Samson, vice president of research at the Institute for Research on Public Policy. For Samson, the fact that Carney isn't lecturing Canadians about climate change the way his predecessor did doesn't mean he's stopped thinking about it. 'He's spent a lot of his career thinking about climate change and action on climate change. And fundamentally, I think the way that we're going to get action on climate change done is not by having big policy announcements and big claims of targets. It's going to be about embedding it into everything.' By 'everything,' Samson means things like housing (where modular home building and green financing have the potential for a massive impact on Canada's emissions), defense spending (which Carney has said will include huge sums for critical mineral supply chains needed for clean energy), and wildfire protection (named by Carney as a top priority at the G7 he just hosted in Kananaskis – albeit without any mention of climate change.) 'To say climate change is only one thing, I think misses the broader context that it's really going to encompass every policy issue,' Samson says. 'So I don't personally have a problem with it being embedded within the conversation of other policy priorities.' Samson allows that tradeoffs are inevitable, and that Canadians may have to brace themselves for a new pipeline or two. ' It seems like he will have to compromise on certain things and that may involve an oil pipeline; it may involve more LNG projects and, and so that certainly will disappoint people who are looking to reduce fossil fuel production,' she says. But Samson remains 'cautiously optimistic' that Carney's overall focus is still fixed on the energy transition. 'If some fossil fuel production is a way to get to that – is a way to raise the revenue and get the buy-in to accomplish those things and build out the infrastructure – with that long term goal in mind, I think I can get behind it.' But those with a long memory may recall that is precisely the reasoning Justin Trudeau provided for expanding the Trans Mountain pipeline. 'The TMX project is a significant investment in Canadians and in Canada's future that will … fund the clean energy solutions that Canada needs to stay competitive on the global stage,' Trudeau said in announcing the purchase in 2019. So the question under Carney becomes: when, exactly, does he mean what he says? Pipeline promises The reason Carney was able to rush Bill C-5 through the House of Commons so quickly was that he secured Conservative support. And one major reason Conservatives supported it was that they hoped it would usher in a new wave of 'conventional energy' pipelines. If Carney had explicitly promised to exclude fossil fuel from the legislation — if he'd framed it as being designed to accelerate Canada's energy transition — the process would likely have been far slower. Conservatives were certainly delighted by Tim Hodgson, a fellow banker and the new minister of energy and natural resources, when he visited Calgary in May to speak with the oil patch. During that visit, Hodgson, who has previously sat on the board of oil sands producer MEG energy, promised federal support for new oil and gas pipelines, though he didn't get into specifics. 'It's very encouraging. This is exactly what we need,' Rich Kruger, CEO of Suncor (one of the biggest producers in the oil sands) told the Calgary Herald after Hodgson's talk. But will Carney actually deliver the pipelines he and Hodgson have been dangling in front of the oil patch? 'I've been paying really close attention to what he's said about certain topics, like 'nation-building,'' says Chris Severson-Baker, the executive director of the Pembina Institute, an environmental think tank based in Alberta. 'What is he actually saying about an oil pipeline, versus the words that others are putting in his mouth?' 'When talking about so-called 'conventional energy,'' — the industry term for fossil fuels — 'I've noticed that he's very careful to say that the scheme would have to make sense, or only a sensible project would be considered,' Severson-Baker says. He also had a very different takeaway from Tim Hodgson's May visit to Calgary. 'Hodgson came in and said to a bunch of oil and gas executives exactly what they wanted to hear,' he said. It wasn't that Hodgson was trying to deceive his audience; rather, Severson-Baker described him as 'a brand new [natural resources]NR-Can minister who hasn't been briefed by his own department yet. I don't actually have a lot of confidence that he knows what he's talking about when he made those statements.' Meanwhile, the things Carney has said must be weighed against the things he hasn't. On Bill C-5 and elsewhere, the prime minister has floated climate-friendly projects like a national energy grid, a huge offshore wind-power project in Nova Scotia, and high-speed rail connecting Windsor to Quebec. Shortly before the G7 summit, he published the list of priorities he wanted to discuss (the host leader gets to set the agenda). In addition to wildfires, Carney named 'energy security' as a top concern – but nowhere did 'conventional energy' get mentioned; instead, he named 'critical mineral supply chains,' an unambiguous reference to clean energy. That emphasis extends to Carney's recent commitment in Brussels to massively increase Canada's defense spending, to five per cent of the national GDP — some $150 billion per year —– by 2035. In subsequent news conferences, Carney was quick to point out that a third of that spending would go to securing critical minerals and associated infrastructure, like ports and electricity grids. He may not have mentioned climate change, but he didn't express any support for fossil fuels, either. That leaves a lot of room for everyone to hear what they want. The PMO didn't respond to a request for comment on this story, though the ministry of environment and climate change did provide a statement: 'Climate action remains a core priority of this government and a defining pillar of Canada's economic future. As we build the strongest economy in the G7, we know climate action is central to our plan for a strong, secure, and competitive country.' That sounds more like something Carney's predecessor would say than Carney himself. But the sentiment may not be too far off. As Rachel Samson put it, advancing climate policy – however that looks, or sounds, 'isn't about a moral highground or anything. It's just smart policy.'
National Observer
06-06-2025
- Politics
- National Observer
Bill to fast-track projects gets instant pushback from climate groups and First Nations
The federal government's new bill to fast-track projects 'in the national interest' sparked immediate concerns from the Assembly of First Nations and Canada's largest network of labour unions, climate, environmental and faith groups and Indigenous organizations. If it becomes law, the federal government will essentially be able to approve certain projects before federal regulatory processes take place. Environmental and other concerns will no longer be able to stop these projects, but mechanisms will be put in place to mitigate any harms. 'Green-lighting major projects up front, before asking how they would affect communities, is nonsensical,' Alex Cool-Fergus, national policy manager at Climate Action Network Canada said in a press release. 'Bypassing democratic norms under the pretext of a 'crisis' is a tactic as old as time. This government must do better.' Bill C-5 has already prompted the Assembly of First Nations to call an emergency meeting. 'The Assembly of First Nations remains deeply concerned about the lack of time and appropriate process to carry out the Crown's consultation and consent obligations, especially given the potentially massive impact on the rights of First Nations,' AFN National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak said in a statement. At a press conference Friday afternoon, Prime Minister Mark Carney clarified that the federal government 'will not impose a project on a province.' 'Bypassing democratic norms under the pretext of a 'crisis' is a tactic as old as time," Alex Cool-Fergus, national policy manager at Climate Action Network Canada said of the federal government's new legislation to fast-track major projects. 'We need consensus behind these projects and we need the participation of Indigenous peoples,' Carney said at a press conference on Friday. This week, BC Premier David Eby said he will not support Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's vision of building a new oil pipeline to BC's north coast. Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre said caucus will discuss whether to support the legislation (which also enacts the Free Trade and Labour Mobility in Canada Act, intended to reduce interprovincial trade barriers). Poilievre said it's 'troubling' Carney is giving provinces veto power when Eby has said no to 'the most promising pipeline.' Asked why provinces shouldn't be able to say no, Poilievre said they 'need to start saying 'Yes.'' The bill, tabled in the House of Commons by Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc, would give Ottawa the authority to draw up a list of large projects it wants to prioritize and expedite their federal approval. When a project is deemed in the national interest and added to the list, it will be considered to be conditionally approved from the outset. The project will go through existing review processes such as the federal Impact Assessment Act, but the focus will be on 'how' instead of 'whether' it can be built. The bill sets out several criteria to evaluate whether a project is in the national interest. These criteria include whether a project strengthens Canada's autonomy, resilience and security; provides economic or other benefits to Canada; has a high likelihood of successful execution; advances the interests of Indigenous Peoples; and contributes to clean growth and to Canada's objectives with respect to climate change. In a background press briefing a government official said these are considerations, not a checklist, and other factors can also be considered. What it means for a project to 'contribute to clean growth and to Canada's objectives with respect to climate change' is not defined in the legislation. The cabinet and the governor in council, in consultation with provinces, territories and Indigenous Peoples, will have the discretion to define that, according to a government official. Consultation with Indigenous Peoples would happen before a project is listed. After that, staff in a new federal major projects office will help coordinate the federal review processes that determine what conditions the project must meet. This means public consultation and comment will take place after a project has already received a 'yes.' Projects will have to be at a certain state of readiness to be listed for fast-tracking, a government official explained on background. The process for how proponents can submit projects is separate from the legislation and will require consultation with Indigenous Peoples, provinces and territories. Details will be shared 'over the summer,' the official said. The federal government's goal to get projects through in no more than two years means the clock will start when a project gets listed (approved and designated for fast tracking) and end when the regulatory processes have been completed and conditions set. This goal is political, not legislated. 'Those two years are consulting with Indigenous Peoples understanding impacts on rights, specific measures to accommodate them, understanding specific interactions with the environment," a government official said, adding it takes two years to properly develop the conditions. Responding to the new legislation, Environmental Defence said projects that should be deemed in the national interest include things like a resilient electricity grid with new east-west interties and with access for solar, wind and storage; scaled-up public transportation; building millions of green, energy-efficient and affordable homes and more.
Politico
28-05-2025
- Business
- Politico
Annex this: Canada chases energy superpowerdom
Canada hopes to shake off its dependence on the United States by becoming an energy 'superpower.' But the new government's pursuit of dominance through both fossil fuels and clean power could ultimately undermine its climate goals. Newly elected Prime Minister Mark Carney built his campaign around opposition to U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to annex Canada. He also entered office with a fair amount of climate cred: the former central banker once served as the United Nations' special envoy on climate action and finance and has long promoted a clean energy transition. But his Liberal government is now pledging to battle a brewing trade war with the U.S. by boosting exports of oil and natural gas, burning more fossil fuels domestically, and easing barriers to east-west flows of fuel and electricity. That message was driven home on Tuesday, when King Charles III opened the Canadian Parliament with a speech that left climate activists disillusioned, writes Sara Schonhardt. Charles' address, which was written by members of Carney's government, emphasized both clean and 'conventional' energy and heralded a new effort to speed up permitting for major projects. Caroline Brouillette, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada, said Charles missed an opportunity to clarify Canada's energy future. 'Fighting climate change and becoming a renewables superpower, or doubling down on volatile fossil fuels?' Brouillette told Sara. 'We can't do both.' Next-door neighbors The United States' and Canada's energy fortunes are entwined. Canada is the largest source of U.S. energy imports, and the U.S. is by far Canada's largest buyer. With Trump's threat of increasingly severe tariffs, Canada wants to build out its energy infrastructure to enable it to more easily export to other countries. To be competitive, Canada's oil has to be 'produced responsibly,' the country's new energy minister, Tim Hodgson, said during a speech last week. He has proposed building carbon capture systems for the nation's oil sands. But climate activists say now is not the time to invest even more in carbon-polluting infrastructure. Canada is already lagging in meeting its climate target for 2030. The country set a new goal for 2035, but analysts say the target is too weak to comply with the Paris Agreement. Charles' speech still drew a major distinction between the Canadian government and the United States by mentioning the need to combat climate change. Trump has called climate change a hoax and moved to dismantle major parts of the U.S. government tasked with tackling it. The king's address — the first time the Crown has opened Parliament in decades — left the door open to future climate actions, emphasizing the creation of more national parks, marine protected areas and other conservation initiatives. It's Wednesday — thank you for tuning in to POLITICO's Power Switch. I'm your host, Arianna Skibell. Power Switch is brought to you by the journalists behind E&E News and POLITICO Energy. Send your tips, comments, questions to askibell@ Today in POLITICO Energy's podcast: Catherine Morehouse breaks down Trump's four executive orders aimed at boosting America's nuclear industry. Power Centers What exactly is Trump's energy council doing?It has been more than three since months since Trump launched a council to promote U.S. energy supremacy, write Carlos Anchondo and Ian M. Stevenson. While some Trump supporters credit the group with a variety of achievements — from lowering gasoline prices to expanding critical mineral mining — how it operates, when it convenes and even who its members are remain a mystery. Montana lawmakers blunt group's historic court winClimate activists scored a pair of landmark legal victories in Montana over the past two years, giving momentum to similar youth-led efforts across the globe, writes Lesley Clark. Now state lawmakers have responded by targeting the underlying law that helped propel the young activists to a courtroom win after they argued their constitutional right to a healthy environment had been violated. BLM official escorted out after dissentingA senior leader at the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management was escorted out its headquarters Tuesday after POLITICO reported that he opposed staffing directions from a former 'Department of Government Efficiency' appointee, writes Ben Lefebvre. The removal of Mike Nedd, BLM's deputy director for administration and programs, is the latest personnel upheaval at the bureau that oversees oil, natural gas and mineral production on federal land and is considered key for the Trump administration's goal of increasing fossil fuel production. In Other News Legal blow: A German court threw out a Peruvian farmer's climate lawsuit against one of the country's energy giants. Heat risk alert: Global temperatures could break heat records in the next five years. Subscriber Zone A showcase of some of our best subscriber content. Los Angeles residents whose homes were destroyed by wildfires in January have received hundreds of millions of dollars in additional aid after a little-noticed federal policy shift in 2023. The EU is 'well on track' to reach its 2030 goal to cut 55 percent of planet-warming emissions, according to new findings released Wednesday. One of the largest casualties of Republicans' megabill may be the build-out of a U.S. 'green' hydrogen industry — killing the industry before it gets started. That's it for today, folks! Thanks for reading.
National Observer
25-04-2025
- Politics
- National Observer
Can we really reduce carbon emissions by sending LNG to India?
This article is part of the Reality Check series by Canada's National Observer. Have a question for us? Reach out at [email protected]. Claim: By sending our LNG to India, Canada could reduce emissions by 2.5 billion tonnes. This is a talking point that Pierre Poilievre has brought up several times over the campaign. His party's platform pledges a 'one and done' rule for new resource projects, and he's talked about approving 10 long-standing energy projects, including Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) expansion in British Columbia, uranium mining in Saskatchewan, and a nickel-cobalt mine in Ontario. During the English-language leaders debate last week, Poilievre was asked how he balances the priorities of fighting climate change and expanding energy projects. Poilievre said his government would 'bring home' jobs while also 'bringing down emissions around the world.' He explained that by approving natural gas liquefaction and export, and then sending Canadian gas to India, 'to displace half of their demand for electricity, we could reduce emissions by 2.5 billion tonnes, which is three times the total emissions of Canada.' The official party platform also mentions exporting LNG by utilizing Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. The party would 'Use Article 6 of the Paris Agreement to dramatically reduce global emissions and fight climate change by exporting cleaner Canadian resources and technologies' and 'Use Article 6 of the Paris Agreement to bring home jobs while exporting cleaner resources like Canadian liquified natural gas (LNG) and technologies to help lower global emissions.' Verdict: False Pierre Poilievre has made the claim several times during the campaign, so we looked into it in our latest fact check. There are a few aspects of this to debunk here. Let's start with Poilievre's promise to fast-track approvals on energy projects, like the LNG terminal in BC. As The Tyee reports, there's one major issue with that: It's already approved. It got the provincial permits stamped in 2015 and federal approval in 2016. What we're now waiting on is LNG Canada Phase 2. As we have reported, that would be an expansion to the already existing terminal. According to John Young, LNG senior strategist with Climate Action Network Canada, it's not federal approvals standing in the way of the terminal moving forward. It's money. 'It just doesn't add up very well for somebody who wants to be prime minister to be so factually incorrect,' Young said. Public funds were used to get the project past the first round of approvals. But in order to move forward, Young told The Tyee that further funds are needed from investors like Shell, Mitsubishi, and PetroChina. And they might need new assurances since the market is in a very different state than it was in 2016. (Girl, the tariffs.) After Poilievre announced he would approve the LNG terminal at a campaign stop in Terrace, B.C., Sven Biggs, oil and gas program director for an environmental group, released a statement, saying 'The fact is, Phase Two of LNG Canada has all the permits it needs. It isn't being built yet because Shell and the other big oil companies that own it need another handout from Ottawa to make this project viable.' But what about his claims that by shipping gas off to India, we could lower global emissions — and use the Paris Agreement to do it? That's not how any of that works. First, Poilievre is claiming that LNG is a better fuel to use over coal because it 'burns cleaner,' which is the ' bridge fuel ' argument put forward by the fossil fuel industry. But we now know better. It seems previous studies had not factored in the emissions produced during the liquefaction process. Rather than being better for the environment, LNG is actually significantly worse than coal. In 2023, 170 climate scientists signed a letter urging then-US President Joe Biden to reject plans for more LNG terminals. So, it's not true that if India swapped half of its coal for Canadian natural gas, global emissions would drop. But where does the Paris Agreement come into this? Article 6 of the Paris Agreement lays out how countries can cooperate with each other and transfer carbon credits, ostensibly in the name of meeting targets. For example, if Indonesia puts mechanisms in place that protect national forests, which absorb carbon emissions, they might be credited for those emissions. They could then sell those credits to Japan to meet its reduction targets. But to avoid double dipping, Indonesia would no longer be credited for those reductions if it sold the credit to another country. As Canada's National Observer's Natasha Bulowski reported this week, the Conservative goal seems to be to change the international framework for counting greenhouse gas emissions so that Canada can get credit for India reducing emissions by burning Canadian LNG instead of coal. That's not how the carbon credit system works. The country that makes the fuel swap — in this case, India — gets credit for lowering emissions, regardless of where that fuel was produced. And at the end of the day, carbon emissions are carbon emissions, no matter where they are released. India has committed to reach net-zero by 2070 and it's not going to achieve that goal if it gives other countries credit for its emission reductions. Using Article 6 in this way has been a dream of other Canadian politicians. In 2023, Canada's National Observer reported that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith was advocating for the same goal in meetings with then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. At the time, one expert said that if Canada brought the idea up with other United Nations countries, they would be 'laughed out of the room.'
