Canadians chose Mark Carney, a former central banker and UN climate envoy who leads the ruling Liberal Party, as their prime minister in Monday’s election, rejecting the anti-climate action Conservative Party of Pierre Poilievre.
The election result means that the climate policies of the world’s 12th-biggest emitter will be broadly unchanged, as the Liberals – under Justin Trudeau and now Carney – have governed the North American nation since 2015. At the time of publication, it was still unclear whether the centre-left party had won a majority of seats in Canada’s parliament.
Poilievre’s Conservative Party had promised to scrap climate polices like a carbon tax on industry and to boost oil and gas production and exports.
Meghan Fandrich, who survived a devastating wildfire driven by climate change in her village of Lytton, said there was “some comfort in knowing that Canada has rejected the Conservative leader – someone who voted against climate policies over 400 times, planned to accelerate fossil fuel production, and whose platform would have driven emissions higher, fuelling even more climate disasters”.
Canada’s new leader culls carbon tax seen as burden on voters
A Carbon Brief analysis suggests that a Conservative victory would have led to a rise in Canada’s emissions, whereas a Liberal government would keep emissions falling – although not fast enough to meet its own climate targets.
Trump drives Carney comeback
Climate change did not play a major role in the election, particularly as Carney scrapped an unpopular carbon tax on consumers soon after taking over from Trudeau in March.
Polls had suggested that the Conservatives were on course for a huge victory until January, when Trudeau resigned and US President Donald Trump charged big tariffs on Canadian exports and threatened to annex the country, causing many voters to back Carney over Poilievre, who is more ideologically aligned with Trump.
Carney is an ex-banker with a long history of climate action. As governor of the Bank of England, he called on investors to take their money out of fossil fuel companies.
After leaving the bank, he promoted carbon offsets through the Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets and helped launch a coalition of financial institutions trying to reduce emissions called the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero.
Ana Toni, the Brazilian CEO of this year’s COP30 UN climate summit, said it was “very positive to have Mark Carney who has a deep knowledge of climate change and economics at the helm in Canada, and knows that the best path ahead is through the energy transition”.
After Trudeau announced in January that he would resign, Carney won the Liberal Party contest to take over from him as prime minister in March and has now won a general election, giving him a mandate to rule the country for up to four years.
Pick a lane on energy
Caroline Brouillette, head of Climate Action Network Canada, said Carney now had the chance to prove his climate credentials as Canada’s leader: “With the election over, Prime Minister Carney has the opportunity to practice what he has preached for years, and kickstart a green transformation that will build our country’s resilience for decades to come.”
But, she said, that means “picking a lane with regard to energy: no more flirting with fossil fuel expansion and new pipelines, which would come with staggering costs to our wallets and our planet”.
Trump throws lifeline to Canadian deep-sea miner, setting scene for international clash
Under pressure from Conservatives labelling him “Carbon Tax Carney”, the prime minister scrapped the controversial tax on consumers – which had been his party’s signature climate policy since 2019 – this March.
The tax, which a March poll showed two-thirds of Canadians wanted to get rid of, was paid by some drivers filling up their cars with gasoline or diesel and by people buying heating oil for their homes.
Carney said he would replace the tax with measures to retrofit homes for energy efficiency and install heat pumps, saying the changes “will make a difference to hard-pressed Canadians” and “ensure that we fight against climate change”.
Carbon tax on industry stays
But he did maintain the carbon price on big industries, which the Conservatives had promised to scrap. Analysis from the Canadian Climate Institute suggested that, while the consumer carbon price grabbed the headlines, the industrial price was expected to drive three times more emissions reductions by 2030.
At energy security talks, US pushes gas and derides renewables
Carney’s election manifesto also promises to boost electric vehicle production and use, as well as infrastructure to transmit electricity across the country and carbon removal and storage technology.
The Conservative manifesto pledged to “unleash Canadian resources”, by scrapping the emissions cap on oil and gas production, enabling construction of gas export terminals on Canada’s west coast and approving oil exports from Arctic ports.
Canada this year holds the G7 presidency and will host a leaders summit for the group of big, wealthy countries in the oil-rich province of Alberta in June.
Harjeet Singh, director of the Satat Sampada Climate Foundation in India, said that, as the G7 chair, Carney “must summon the political courage to champion bold global climate action – starting at home by rejecting new oil and gas projects and urging other G7 nations to dramatically scale up public climate finance to support developing countries in deploying renewable energy and addressing escalating climate impacts”.
The post Canada votes to keep Carney as leader, over anti-climate Conservatives appeared first on Climate Home News.
Canada votes to keep Carney as leader, over anti-climate Conservatives
Climate Change
After a week of plenty of activity and drama for Greenpeace at sea, I felt like writing to you on a much quieter theme…
Do you have a favourite book, poem or story about the ocean?
When I was very small, it was the TimeLife book of The Fishes, by F. D. Ommanney, which I remember endlessly poring over, my child’s mind gripped, in total fascination. The cover illustration showed a shoal of barracuda, mid-water and heading upwards, lit up as an iridescent blue by a column of sunlight. Oddly, it is only the cover and the illustrations of the deep sea creatures which I now remember—but I loved that book, as the weakened spine, blunted pages and dog-eared corners attested.
The Fishes has been on my mind recently, because I’ve been working with some dear friends on our own illustrated oceans book, to be published by Upswell Publishing. The book is called Scott Reef: Like Nowhere Else on Earth, and I want to share with you a bit of the story behind its creation.
Scott Reef is absolutely magnificent: Australia’s largest freestanding oceanic reef, brimming with life, including rare and threatened species such as a genetically distinct population of green sea turtles, pygmy blue whales and the wonderfully elegant dusky sea snake. But Scott Reef isn’t near our capital cities; it is way off the north-west coast of WA. And it is threatened with devastation by Woodside, which wants to drill up to 57 toxic wells at the Reef for its vast, dirty Browse gas project.
One of the main challenges in the fight to save Scott Reef from being turned into an industrialised gas zone by Woodside is bringing this incredible location to life for people who haven’t actually experienced it first hand. Because despite its ecological significance and dazzling beauty, ‘Scott Reef’ is also—at least not yet—exactly a household name.
To help get over this barrier, Greenpeace has enabled a number of photographers to travel to Scott Reef by boat (including the Rainbow Warrior) to document its astonishing diversity of colour and life. We then brought these images together in a remarkable photobook, produced by our talented in-house team, which we’ve been putting into the hands of as many leaders as possible—including the MPs whose decisions can determine the Reef’s future.
Back in June this year, I was sharing a copy of our in-house book at a business gathering in Perth when someone pulled me aside. Had we thought about publishing the book commercially? Apart from anything else, he wanted to buy a copy himself! He had a point. We were proud of what we’d created, but a commercially published version could reach a much wider audience and have even greater campaign impact. I immediately turned to my dear friend, Terri-ann White, who runs Upswell Publishing in WA, for advice.
Terri-ann has a huge heart and terrific vision. So many wonderful things in WA owe their existence to her doings, and, true to form, she was immediately encouraging and enthusiastic. “But,” she said, “it would add a whole new dimension if we had some words to accompany the incredible pictures.”
Fair enough, I thought. I could ask a few authors.
“And when would you like it published?” she asked.
“Ideally November,” I answered sheepishly.
Now, in publishing terms, nobody goes from idea to finished work, beautifully produced by a commercial publisher, in just four months. It. Just. Doesn’t. Happen. A book of this scale would ordinarily take nine months, I was told. But Terri-ann was undeterred. “If you can get a rapid turnaround on the writing, I will give it a shot.”
Over the following few days, I sent out 24 emails to prospective writers. To my joy and surprise 23 of them responded almost immediately with an enthusiastic yes!
Terri-ann was somewhat alarmed and perplexed when I told her the good news… we’d discussed a few authors, not more than twenty! “Impossible,” she texted. “Editing is important and you are talking about thousands of words!” But I also know Terri-ann. She does the impossible. And so, here we are… Terri-ann is going to hit that improbable deadline. Scott Reef: Like Nowhere Else on Earth will be on shelves in November.
The contributors are a wonderfully diverse bunch, united by their enthusiasm for Scott Reef — and their extraordinary speed!
It’s a brilliant mix. The book brings together national icons like Peter Garrett, Tim Winton, Mick Dodson, Janet Holmes à Court and Fiona Stanley; the intellectual heft of professors Frank Bongiorno, Jessica Meeuwig, Rick Steiner and Samantha Hepburn; the poetic vision of Prema Arasu, Berndt Sellheim and Saadiah Freeman; the field expertise and passionate first hand witnessing of Imogen Zethoven, Tooni Mahto, Ben Fitzpatrick, Geoff Bice, Olaf Meynecke, Paul Gamblin, Sarah Gittoes and Hayley Baillie; and the determination of emerging activist voices Jackson Reid and Emma Sangalli.
Their elegant words wrap themselves around the sheer wonder of the underwater world, brought to life by the work of the photographers — of whom one, Wendy Mitchell, has also contributed a wonderful essay.
Terri-ann showed me the full physical proofs this week and they are breathtaking. This book contains some of my absolute favourite images of wildlife beneath the waves -– and believe me, after almost 20 years at Greenpeace, I’ve been privileged enough to see some remarkable shots! The essays bring a whole new depth and richness to the story of Scott Reef.
If I am being honest, and maybe a bit sentimental, I hope that a four or five-year-old child somewhere in Australia will spend part of their summer holidays turning the pages of this book, wide-eyed with curiosity and awe at the beauty and strangeness of the creatures that call our oceans home.
Our shared commitment is to make sure that, as those children grow up, the wonders of Scott Reef will exist not just in the pages of the book, but out there in the wild waters off north-western Australia—alive, thriving, and every bit as extraordinary as they are today; a living wonder beneath the waves.
Pre-orders of Scott Reef: Like Nowhere Else on Earth are available here.
Q & A
Sometimes you get asked a question so often that you decide to produce a report to answer it!
We know there is strong public opposition to voter opposition to gas drilling at Scott Reef and fracking in the Kimberley in Western Australia. But I am frequently asked whether, even if people don’t want it, more gas drilling is a necessary evil to sustain WA’s prosperity?
The short answer is an unequivocal ‘No’. The longer answer is our new report, From Gas to Green: Building Western Australia’s Future State, which makes the comprehensive case that Asia’s gas market is declining — while WA has an enormous untapped opportunity to become a global leader in green industries and exports, helping drive the region’s shift away from fossil fuels. The faster that WA embarks on a decisive shift away from gas—and that includes no fracking in the Kimberley, or drilling at Scott Reef — so much the better for the state’s people, ecology and economy.
For the first time, new-energy vehicles (NEVs) made up 67% of new car sales in China in September, according to the latest data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).
The figures show that NEVs, which include battery electric cars and plug-in hybrids, captured a record share of sales, even though fewer were sold than last year.
This is because sales of combustion-engine cars are falling steeply, a trend that the CPCA has attributed to rising petrol prices following the start of the Hormuz crisis.
Indeed, sales of fuel-only cars were down 31% year-on-year in the first nine months of 2026, with plug-in hybrid sales down 26% – whereas battery EV sales were only down 4%.
One analyst tells Carbon Brief that China’s rapidly growing EV fleet has offset demand for 143m barrels of oil since the start of the Hormuz crisis.
Another says that the crisis is “reinforcing China’s electrification of road transport”.
Meanwhile, amid slowing domestic sales, Chinese carmakers’ exports of NEVs more than doubled [in 2026 to date / in September] from a year earlier.
NEV record
A record two out of every three cars sold in September in China were NEVs, according to CPCA data, as shown in the figure below.
(NEVs predominantly include battery electric vehicles – BEVs – and plug-in hybrids – PHEVs. BEVs only run on electricity, whereas PHEVs also have a combustion engine.)
This marks a rapid rise for NEVs from just 6% of new car sales in 2020 up to 58% in 2026 to date – and a record 67% in the month of September.
This year, NEVs’ share of sales has also bounced back from a low of 39% in January, after the full purchase tax exemption that had been in place for more than a decade came to an end in December 2025.
The gain in NEV share in 2026 has come amid a slowdown across the wider domestic passenger-car market, which has hit sales of combustion-engine vehicles particularly hard.
This September, passenger-car retail sales across all categories declined, with overall sales volumes falling 28% year-on-year.
The contraction was led by combustion-engine vehicles, which saw sales fall 43% year-on-year in September and 31% in 2026 to date.
However, sales of PHEVs also fell by 36% year-on-year in September and by 26% in 2026 to date. By comparison, BEVs performed better, although sales still declined 8.5% from a year earlier in September and 4% in 2026 to date.
As a result, NEV sales overall fell by 17% in September and 13% in 2026 to date.
While the market changes in 2026 to date were particularly dramatic, they reflect a broad continuation of trends seen over the past decade.
Indeed, sales of combustion-engine cars in China peaked in 2017 and they have been declining ever since, shown in the figure below.
Impact of Hormuz
Part of the reason for the advance of NEVs in 2026, said Chinese technology news outlet OFweek, was petrol cars “giving up market share” as they were outperformed by electric alternatives.
Cui Dongshu, secretary-general of the CPCA, cited higher petrol prices as an explanation for September’s weak combustion-car sales, in comments to financial news outlet National Business Daily.
Imports of oil into China in January-September have fallen 15% compared to 2025, equivalent to 470m barrels, as ongoing conflict tightened supply and drove up prices.
China’s passenger-car NEV fleet has displaced 143m barrels of oil so far during the strait of Hormuz crisis, Euan Graham, senior energy analyst at thinktank Ember, tells Carbon Brief.
EVs “accounted for 12% of the decrease in China’s oil use post-Hormuz”, according to an estimate provided to thinktank the Brookings Institute by an unnamed analyst.