From leader to laggard: the Canadian climate change story

This article examines Canada’s climate change record since the early 1990s. Early signs of global leadership soon evaporated and Canada became the worst climate change laggard in the G7. The article maintains that much of this poor record may be understood as a product of rapid growth in Alberta’s oil sands production, one of the world’s most GHG-intensive sources of petroleum. Technological change, federalism, and free trade set the stage for a nearly tenfold increase in oil sands production between 1990 and 2023. Canada’s decentralised federal system gave the government of Alberta the opportunity to promote oil sands growth while turning a blind eye to its impact on greenhouse gas emissions. But the federal government also supported this expansion and has done little to reduce what are now record levels of oil sands emissions. Whether Prime Minister Carney is willing or able to reverse this history is an open question.