I just assumed that since the US government has been such an overwhelming shitshow, it was distracting us from the better job being done in the nation to our north. The prime minister is Mark Carney, who leads the liberal party, so he must be doing good things. Maybe not.
A University of Toronto professor, Laura Tozer, teaches a grad level course in climate and climate policy. She has a few complaints for Carney to address.
“Every single semester, a student raises their hand in my class and asks: ‘Professor, is there any hope on climate change?’ How about this year when the new semester starts in January, you get to look them in the eye and answer,” she wrote in her letter, posted on LinkedIn, which also rattles off the laundry list of climate rollbacks under Carney.
X Suspended Canada’s Clean Electricity Regulations in AlbertaX Weakened methane regulations
X Scrapped the Oil & Gas Sector Emissions Cap
X Abandoned Canada’s consumer carbon pricing system
X Ended Canada Greener Homes retrofit program to electrify and improve household efficiency
X Ended Canada Greener Homes Loan Program to electrify and improve household efficiency
X Ended the Electric Vehicles (iZEV) program
X Delayed Canada’s Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate
X Passed bill C5 ‘Building Canada Act’ to allow government to override 12 laws and 7 regulations, including the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, for designated projects
X Committed to clawing back Canada’s anti-greenwashing legislation
> Announced plans to eliminate a tax on private jets and yachts
X Weakened the Alberta industrial carbon price from the $170/tonne it should have been (if the federal government enforced its own policies) to $130/tonne
Whoa. I’ve been ignoring Canada (forgive me, you know we Americans kind of have our hands full), but apparently the Canadian government has been fucking up, too. It sounds like Carney has been fully captured by the oil interests and is giving up on conservation efforts.
How is he doing on health policy and vaccination? Is he planning to take over Greenland? I’m afraid to look.
Carney is basically Canadian Starmer. Won because of the opposition and then tacking hard right despite what the people who voted for him want.
No.
The long term goal of the climate change accords was 1.5 degrees C.
We are there and CO2 levels and global temperatures are still going up rapidly.
1.5 C is gone.
Simultaneously with running past 1.5 C, global oil production set yet again another record high.
So we have CO2 levels still going up rapidly, the Global temperature going up rapidly, and fossil fuel production setting records every year.
There is no scenario in sight for halting global warming.
raven @#2
“There is no scenario in sight…”
Giant meteor. : )
Canada is being led by a Carney, and the USA is being run by a clown car cabinet. It’s a great day for the circus.
Canada’s election was also one of picking the lesser evil, and in Canada’s case, we chose Carney. The alternative would’ve been Pierre “Maple MAGA” Poilievre, who was much more interested in aping Trump than in fighting him. His political history wasn’t much better either. Canada’s trade and economy would be much, much closer to America’s mess if Poilievre was voted in.
Canada’s realignment with Asia and Europe could help out though. Canada rose tariffs against China to 100 at the same time that the US did during Trump’s first term, and like the US, our canola shipments were stopped as a result. Now that trade and relations between Canada and China are picking up, I’m hoping that’ll mean EV companies such as BYD being let into Canada. BYD is already based in many other parts of the world, where automotive assembly has been moved to as well. Canada already has plenty of rare minerals, critical to EV manufacturers, to help bring them into Canada’s marketplace. I see EV support to likely increase here after Tesla becomes much less dominant on Canada’s roadways.
Australia under a Labor (supposedly left-wing) government is doing just as badly.
Poilievre got personally humiliated (which is good, because he’s a mean, populist demagogue) , but the Conservative party had a strong showing resulting in a minority government for the Liberals. They’re doing kinda what the Democrats do: moving to the right because who else is the left going to vote for. Everyone thinks our left-wing party, the NDP, is unelectable, and it’s very frustrating to be a progressive up here, too.
As an American with Canadian experience, keep these two points in mind:
Canada is way better than the USA on any number of things
It’s a very low bar on those things.
Canada esp falls down on mining/extraction and on First Nations rights. Note the two are often intertwined.
The Overton Window (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window) has taken a huge lurch to the right worldwide over the last decade. Consequently although “leftist” politicians have been voted in they are more what would normally be called centre-right. They’re only left leaning in comparison to the barking mad neo-fascists they are up against.
Why the Overton window has lurched right could be the subject of multiple essays. Suffice to say, it didn’t slide that way on its own but was deliberately pushed. Hard.
@9 YES!
if the powers that be won’t let us fight the petrols through legal means, like voting, you know what that leaves, right? and every new climate disaster inches is closer to getting individuals motivated enough to take those actions.
and we’re having multiple climate change fueled disasters every year now! my own town has been grappling with unprecedented flooding. imagine a gun fondling homeowner whose house was flooded, who didn’t have flood insurance.
the only thing he has left to his name is a truck full of guns, and climate change has an all-too fragile human face. target-shaped, one might say.
these sellout politicians need to start running this fucking math or start running for their lives.