While October is usually a time for Canadians to turn their attention to falling leaves, turkey dinners and winter wardrobes, in recent years it has also become a time to take stock of the damage of the recent wildfire season. As of mid-September, nearly 9,000,000 hectares (an area larger than the province of New Brunswick), had burned, making it the second worst wildfire season on record, enough to earn it its own Wikipedia page.
Along with wildfire damage, it is time to take stock of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s track record on climate change, a main driver of devastating wildfires. So far, it has been dismal.
Canada seems to be weakening its climate action
In just a few months, Carney’s government has walked back key federal climate policies, including the consumer carbon price, the electric vehicle mandate, and – alarmingly – Canada’s commitment to its 2030 emissions reduction target. It has also hinted that it might weaken or cancel the proposed oil and gas emissions cap. These aren’t tweaks to our climate plan. They’re reversals. And they send a clear message: climate action is no longer a priority, even as the climate crisis worsens.
Canada’s 2030 target – a 40 to 45 percent reduction in emissions below 2005 levels – isn’t just a political promise. It’s a legal obligation under the Paris Agreement and the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act. According to the Canadian Climate Institute, we won’t meet the target and federal officials are dodging the subject.
The generous view of the climate radio silence is that the federal government is laser focused on the economy, trade war, housing and affordability. But given the PM’s signals to Alberta – in the form of entertaining the prospect of fast-tracking the Pathways carbon capture project (a risky, taxpayer-subsidized proposal to use dubious technologies to capture a fraction of the carbon pollution from the tar sands in exchange for allowing oil companies to pollute more by expanding their operations) and willingness to entertain talks of yet another bitumen pipeline BC doesn’t want – the back tracking could also be taken as a harbinger of climate inaction to come.
Climate change is costing Canadians
Canadians are already feeling the consequences of the climate crisis. Scientists warn that costly – even deadly – wildfires may be the new normal, driven by longer fire seasons and drier landscapes caused by fossil fuel-driven climate change. And it’s just the beginning. Environment Canada is warning that a marine heat wave off B.C.’s coast will bring above-average temperatures and precipitation this fall, increasing the risk of floods and landslides.
Climate disasters are costing Canadians billions. In 2024 alone, insured losses from extreme weather events reached an estimated $9.2 billion. The Canadian Climate Institute estimates that over the last decade, the cost of weather-related climate disasters has risen to the equivalent of 5-6% of annual GDP growth. These major disasters are just the tip of the iceberg, with climate change also driving up Canadians’ day to day food costs, insurance premiums and cost of living in more subtle ways.
Building Canada shouldn’t mean building polluting projects
And yet, instead of doubling down on climate action, Carney’s government is fast-tracking fossil fuel projects under Bill C-5, the Building Canada Act. This legislation gives the federal government sweeping powers to designate “national interest projects” and allow those projects to bypass rules designed to protect the environment, public safety and the climate.
One of the first projects to be fast-tracked? LNG Canada Phase 2. According to analysis by Clean Energy Canada, LNG Canada Phases 1 and 2 will annually cause $22-28 billion CAD in future climate harms.
To be fair, Canadians are facing real and pressing challenges. Tariffs, affordability, and threats to our sovereignty are not abstract concerns, but daily realities. It’s understandable that people want their federal government to act decisively on these issues. But they also want action on climate change. According to a March 2025 Abacus poll, 69% of Canadians expressed concern about climate change.
They’re not wrong to expect action on both the economy and the climate crisis. For starters, the average Canadian household is already losing $700 per year due to climate-related costs. On the other hand, a Climate Institute study found that every dollar invested in climate solutions today will yield $13-$15 in future benefits.
The irony is that there are many projects of national interest – from building a national clean electricity grid to projects to keep us safe from future wildfires, floods and other climate impacts – that could put Canadians to work building a climate-safe future.
Weaker climate action = more political and legal challenges
Fast-tracking projects cannot come at the expense of Canadians’ health and well-being. The Building Canada Act (Bill C-5) may attempt to streamline approvals, but it also risks sidelining the very safeguards that protect communities, ecosystems and the climate. We’ve seen this playbook before – many of the laws Bill C-5 could exempt projects from were put in place after the Harper government’s failed attempt to weaken our environmental laws to help get shovels in the ground. The result? The birth of the Idle No More movement, mass protests, numerous lawsuits, and zero benefit to industry. It’s worth noting that First Nations’ opposition to Bill C-5 is being compared to Idle No More. But what Carney’s government should arguably be even more worried about are the legal risks of failing to meet our climate targets. In July, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a landmark advisory opinion confirming that ambitious climate action is not just a moral imperative, but a legal obligation. According to the Court, countries have a duty to prevent significant harm to the environment, including the climate system, and must act with due diligence to avoid that harm.
It also held that Paris Agreement requirements, including the need to set increasingly ambitious emissions reduction targets in line with a climate-safe world, are not simply commitments, as Canada’s position has been. They are legal obligations. And as with the duty to prevent significant environmental harm, states must exercise due diligence in establishing measures for meeting their targets.
These legal obligations are not toothless, either. According to the ICJ, countries could face legal liability for breaching their climate obligations, including compensation and reparations for loss and damage flowing from their breaches.
These obligations, coupled with the economic reality of climate change, make it clear that rather than abandoning cornerstone climate policies, the federal government should be doubling down on them.
Carney once wrote that “climate change is the most pressing issue of our time.” It’s time to act like it. Canadians deserve a government that meets its climate obligations, not one that gives up on them when they become inconvenient. Anything less is a betrayal – not just of climate policy, but of future generations.