Statement: PM Carney’s Carbon Pricing Capitulation Deals a Massive Blow to Canada’s Climate Ambition
Statement by Aly Hyder Ali, Senior Program Manager, Oil and Gas, Environmental Defence
Ottawa | Traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg People – If Prime Minister Carney proceeds to gut the industrial carbon pricing, as reporting indicates, he will have put the final nail in Canada’s climate action coffin.
By agreeing to let Alberta reach a minimum effective industrial carbon price of $130/tonne by 2040, PM Carney will turn the industrial carbon pricing into a permission slip to pollute for another decade and a half, while Canadians deal with the devastating consequences.
The point of the industrial carbon pricing is to create a credible, near-term incentive for the country’s biggest polluters to cut emissions and invest in clean solutions. Pushing the price out to 2040 does the opposite. It delays action, protects polluters, and leaves Canada completely off track from our climate targets.
The Alberta-Canada Memorandum of Understanding was supposed to be a “grand bargain”, exchanging all of our hard-fought climate protections for stronger industrial carbon pricing. This is not a grand bargain. It is capitulation to Alberta and multinational oil and gas CEOs. PM Carney doesn’t need Alberta’s permission to enforce strong industrial carbon pricing.
Despite claiming that addressing climate change is a moral obligation, PM Carney has cancelled the consumer carbon price, scrapped the planned oil and gas pollution cap, repealed the electric vehicle mandate and may abandon clean electricity rules. Now, by weakening the industrial carbon pricing, he is taking a wrecking ball to what remains of Canada’s climate framework. Copying President Trump’s short-sighted and destructive playbook will cement Canada’s position as a global climate laggard; meanwhile, countries around the world are making the strategic choice to pursue clean energy pathways.
PM Carney can’t address the largest source of Canada’s emissions, the oil and gas industry, by delaying emissions cuts, expanding oil and gas production, and clearing the path for another pipeline. If this agreement goes ahead, then there is only one conclusion: Net-zero is dead, and PM Carney is the one who killed it.
Additional Analysis:
- Paying $130/tonne by 2030 is entirely realistic for an industry that is expected to see nearly $100 billion in profits this year. A price of $130/tonne by 2030 would cost peanuts in comparison; roughly 50 cents per barrel on average.
- It is clear this government has no plans to meet its climate targets, and is not even interested in modelling how its policies are increasing pollution levels. However, recent analysis from the Canadian Climate Institute found that reaching $130 per tonne by 2035 would actually increase Canada’s national emissions, over current policies, by 22 MT by 2040 and 40 MT by 2050. When compared with reaching $130 per tonne by 2030, a 2035 timeline, would result in 55 MT more pollution by 2040. A further five year delay, to 2040, would lead to substantially higher levels of pollution.
- Canada is the only G7 nation whose emissions have increased since 1990, and according to an independent assessment, is actively moving away from its 2030 Emissions Reduction Targets. Further, a recently published study from the House Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, states, “The government has not treated emissions reduction with the seriousness it demands…[and] the government’s decisions are not aligned with its stated commitments.”
ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE (environmentaldefence.ca): Environmental Defence is a leading Canadian environmental advocacy organization that works with government, industry and individuals to defend clean water, a safe climate and healthy communities.
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Midhat Moini, Environmental Defence, media@environmentaldefence.ca
