HAS MARK CARNEY ABANDONED HIS CLIMATE GOALS? – THE FACTS

Contributed by Robert Lyman © 2025. Robert Lyman’s bio can be read here.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The departure of Steven Guilbeault, former Minister of Environment and Climate Change from political office has given rise to several media comments about what this means for Prime Minister Mark Carney’s commitment to the climate policy long embraced by his predecessor, Justin Trudeau. In this article, I compare what actually has changed and not changed between the Trudeau and Carney climate policies.

The Carney government removed the federal fuel charge (generally known as the consumer carbon tax) effective June 1, 2025. The government did not change the “other” consumer carbon tax, known as the Clean Fuel Regulations (CFR). The Carney government also left in place the industrial carbon tax. The rate of the industrial carbon tax was subsequently raised to $95 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2eq) in 2026 and will increase by annually set amounts until it reaches $130 per tonne in 2035 and $140 in 2040.

This marks a reduction in the rate of the tax, which had previously been scheduled to rise to at least $170 per tonne in 2030. It does not change the rationale for the tax, which is to force industrial producers to reduce their hydrocarbons consumption, nor does it change the ultimate goal of the tax.

The federal government previously proposed to implement by regulation an oil and gas greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions cap on the upstream oil and gas industry. In a December 2025 Memorandum of Understanding, the federal and Alberta governments later agreed to eliminate this specific cap conditional upon several other provisions of the MOU being met. Whether or not this represents a moderation of federal climate policies thus depends largely on whether the other provisions of the MOU will be met. The removal of the cap on GHG emissions from the oil and gas industry simply means that the federal government will place increased reliance on other instruments to achieve the same objectives.

The federal government previously imposed a series of mandates on light duty vehicle manufacturers requiring them to meet a series of increasingly stringent goals in terms of the percentage of zero-emission vehicles they sold, rising to the point at which 100% of new car sales would have to be zero-emission by 2035. Contrary to public perception, however, one regulatory standard has simply been replaced by another one, a stricter set of outcome-based GHG emissions tailpipe standards designed to make 75% of new cars electric by 2035. This really means that in 2035 – less than 10 years from today – when the only vehicles which conform to the new standard are EVs, that will be all that consumers can buy.

There is a long list of barriers to the successful regulatory approval, financing and building of a new oil pipeline from Alberta to the Northwest coast of British Columbia. The Carney government has given no commitments to removing these barriers.

It has long been part of climate activists’ public relations campaigns to claim that emissions reduction measures will promote economic development rather than stifle it. I describe here flawed assumptions underlying the thesis that Canada or the world can quickly and affordably decarbonize the electrical energy system.

Nor can Canada realistically gain a competitive advantage in the production and export of green technologies. The central reality of the global market for production and sale of green technologies is that China has an overwhelming competitive advantage due to its massive state-backed industrial strategies, unparalleled industrial scale, and dominance over critical mineral supply chains.

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