Mark Carney’s victory in Canada’s federal election on Monday means two big North American countries have elected leaders with deep green credentials: Carney and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, an energy engineering Ph.D. and past contributor to United Nations climate science reports.
Before he took over from former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as head of Canada’s Liberal Party, Carney spent five years as the United Nations’ Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance. He helped found GFANZ, a global initiative to mobilize capital to decarbonize the economy, which he co-chaired with Bloomberg LP founder Michael Bloomberg. (He also served as chair of Bloomberg Inc.)
During a breakneck five-week campaign, neither Carney nor his closest competitor, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, spent much time on climate policy as both instead dedicated speeches to vociferously rejecting any notion that Canada would ever be the 51st state (in defiance of Trump). The candidates also condemned Trump’s tariff war.
Read more: Canada’s Carney Treads Fine Line on Climate in Tight Race
But Carney, a former governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, did launch a broad-strokes climate platform that included bolstering carbon markets, developing a carbon border adjustment mechanism and speeding up approvals of clean energy projects. Under political pressure, he said he’d scrap a deeply unpopular consumer carbon tax, but promised to replace it with green consumer incentives that will be as effective. He said he wouldn’t repeal what Conservatives have called a major impediment to pipeline construction, Bill C-69, the Impact Assessment Act.
During his victory speech in Ottawa, Carney said it was “time to build Canada into an energy superpower in both clean and conventional energy.”