Top candidates talk fossil fuels as climate agenda slips

Like the threat posed by US President Donald Trump at the top of the Canada Federal Electoral Program, the country’s contribution to global warming has been widely overshadowed.

The two main pretenders are pushing for plans for new energy infrastructure while the country seeks to move away from its dependence on the United States.

The Liberals of Mark Carney promise to make Canada a global superpower in conventional and green energy. The conservatives under stone hairy want to invigorate the oil and gas sector and scrape the industrial carbon tax.

It is a big change compared to the 2021 elections, when the environment is at the top of the list of concerns of voters.

In this vote, there was a consensus between the two main parties according to which Canada should quickly move to a green economy, with a law on zero emissions adopted in June of the same year.

This feeling of unity has now left for a long time.

Carney, who became chief of the Liberals and Prime Minister in early March, has a long review of the international champion of climate change.

In addition to being governor of the Bank of England, he was a special United Nations envoy to climate action and finance and was co -chair of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, one of the great results of COP26.

However, his first action as Prime Minister was to repeal the carbon tax of consumers.

The tax – a climate policy signature of the governing liberals – was introduced in 2019 and carried an additional charge on consumers using coal, petroleum or gas products.

It was unpopular and for conservatives, it has become an easy target to blame for the increase in the cost of living in recent years. Hairyre has even sought to paint his rival as “carbon taxes carney”.

Some observers believe that the cancellation of the tax was an intelligent political decision, others think it was a mistake.

“By making one of your first movements of the elimination of the price of carbon, you accept this story that the policy of climate change costs us too much money and is not good for us, when in fact, this is not the case,” said Catherine Abreu, director of the hub of international climate policy and a net zero net advisory member of Canada.

“I think there is a missed opportunity here to define a new narrative frame around this during the elections.”

Carney’s electoral energy on energy consists in transforming Canada into “a leading global superpower in clean and conventional energy”.

He emphasizes his pragmatic approach, and his campaign talks about accelerated green energy projects and encouraging green transport and buildings, without giving too much details. He also called for investments in technologies such as carbon capture.

There are other important factors that have helped to cool some of the Rhetoric of Carney’s climate.

Opinion surveys have indicated that, since the end of 2023, Canadian concerns about the climate have dropped, the concerns of prices, energy and housing costs have appeared.

The war in Ukraine also emphasized the country’s abundant natural resources in oil, gas and critical minerals.

“We had a parade of geopolitical allies who presented themselves at our door saying: we want your rocks, we want Canada to be the supplier of geopolitically secure primary resources, in place of Russia,” said Mark Winfield, professor at the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change at York University in Toronto.

“And that created another kind of dynamic in all of this, which was not present in the previous elections.”

Pierre Hairyvre is the man who seeks to replace Carney as a PM.

He runs cost problems and pleads for more difficult policies on law and order and what he considers “awakened” cultural problems.

Hairy, whose party has a solid electricity base in the country’s rich regions of the country, puts pressure for a major expansion of the oil and gas industries and the suppression of the carbon tax on the industry.

Although he was tight to find out if he supports Canada’s goals to zero net, he argued that it would be better for the world if India and other Asian countries were to replace “dirty coal” with clean Canadian oil and gas.

According to Professor Winfield, conservative proposals aimed at stimulating oil and gas are likely to prove attractive to voters, even if the advantages of the expansion of production do not resist the exam.

He told the BBC that he was more “at the level of the principle in response to Trump, as opposed to any real thought through the implications on the climate, and if this is really economically viable”.

Regardless of the climate or energy, the key question in the minds of the voters of this election is which leader is best placed to treat the combative American president.

This is particularly important with regard to the petroleum and gas industry.

Canada is the largest foreign US oil supplier, with approximately 90% of raw production south of the border, and the impact of energy prices may well be disastrous for jobs and the economy.

“Our relationship with the United States has completely changed,” said Carney last week in the first of the two electoral debates.

“Pipelines are a national security problem for us.”

This concern concerning American dependence has revived interest in pipelines which would move oil and gas from Western provinces, where they are mainly produced, to the east, where they could be exported to new markets abroad.

A previous attempt called The Energy East Pipeline was put aside in 2017 due to a certain number of factors, including fierce opposition from certain regions of the country and regulatory obstacles.

In this campaign, the Liberals and the Conservatives have promised to monitor the “energy corridors”, although Carney Tilted on his support for pipelines, Knowing that they are deeply unpopular with environmentalists.

He tries to make a fine line between the defense of Canada as a nation under the threat of Trump and the action on a warming climate.

The Canada Insurance Bureau said that there were $ 8.5 billion CA ($ 6.1 billion; 4.6 billion pounds sterling) in insured losses linked to bad weather, triple the figure for 2023.

And while the two electoral frontrunners recommend a major role for fossil fuels in the Canada economy, this approach will come up against the country’s climate commitments.

Yves-François Blanchet, chief of Quebec Bloc, a federal party based in Quebec, accused the pair of being in a “situation of denial on climate change”.

“I’m sorry to crush your party guys, but you talk about fairy tales” about clean oil and gas, he said in last week’s debates.

Canada has promised on the international scene to limit carbon emissions from 40 to 45% by 2030 on the basis of the 2005 levels.

In 2023, carbon production dropped only 8.5%.

Whoever wins the election will have a real challenge for Carré this circle.

Canadians went to the polls on April 28.