Carney Formally Abandons Trudeau's Climate Commitments
Prime Minister Mark Carney formally abandoned on Tuesday — the day before Canada Day — a commitment to Justin Trudeau's climate targets he had promised to achieve in the House of Commons as late as Nov. 17, 2025. In response to questioning from Green Party Leader Elizabeth May on that day to secure her support in passing his first budget by a razor-thin margin, Carney said: 'I can confirm to this House that we will respect our Paris commitments for climate change and we’re determined to achieve them.'
Those legal commitments are — or rather were — to reduce Canada’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions to at least 40% below 2005 levels by 2030, at least 45% below 2005 levels by 2035 and to net zero by 2050.
Video Announcement on YouTube
On Tuesday, in a 17-minute video posted on his YouTube channel titled Forward Guidance: Canada’s Energy Future, Carney said: 'The climate plan we inherited from the previous government was well-intentioned and well-suited for the times in which it was designed … but as times have changed we must change our plan to get there.' He added: 'We can’t afford to restrain the growth of an important part of our energy mix — oil and gas — to meet a short-term goal.'
In reality, Trudeau’s targets, part of his $200-billion-plus failed climate strategy, were always nonsense and completely unachievable, even as Trudeau and his environment ministers for years — and up to November, Carney himself — maintained the myth they were real.
Economic Impact and National Unity Concerns
Based on the latest government data, meeting Trudeau’s 2030 target would have required the equivalent of shutting down Canada’s entire oil and gas sector in four years, provoking a massive recession, and still coming up short. On Tuesday, Carney said sticking to Trudeau’s climate targets — without mentioning him by name — would damage the Canadian economy and hinted it could lead to a national unity crisis, citing Pierre Trudeau’s national energy plan in the 1980s that alienated Alberta.
While insisting he’s still committed to reducing emissions, Carney has been backing away from Trudeau’s plan for months in his public statements and through such actions as scrapping Trudeau’s consumer carbon tax. On Tuesday, he finally acknowledged the painfully obvious, the day before Canada Day, a perfect illustration of how ill-served we are by a government that misled us for a decade.
