Is Mark Carney a Climate Radical?

The rhythm of the work has always been perfect to report the story of the climate, and it is now doubled after Mark Carney has become the new Prime Minister of Canada. Initial reports are focused on Carney to replace Justin Trudeau as the leader of the liberal party and the Prime Minister appointed to the effects of the Canadian trade war with the United States, as President Donald Trump repeated on Tuesday his increasingly aggressive threats to enjoy the United States neighbor, saying that the only way to avoid Trump’s tariff “is to become the country” is “.

What has not yet obtained a lot of press attention is Carney’s views on climate change and fossil fuel, which are based on praise in science but carrying radical political and economic effects. Over the past decade, Carney has repeatedly mentioned that the vast majority of the remaining earth reserves of oil, gas and coal should be left on the ground – because burning them will risk increasing the disastrous temperature of the planet. Climate scientists in the world have said exactly with increased urgency for years. But leaving most fossil fuels on the ground represents tremendous practical challenges for Canada, one of the most prominent producers and oil exporters in the world. It can also be another flash point between Canada and the United States, which is now led by an administration that enhances the denial of climate change.

With the expectation of new elections very soon in Canada, this development in the climate story screams for new reports. The opposition parties in Canada will call for a vote without confidence when Parliament resumes on March 24; If voting passes, the Canadians will return to the polls, Perhaps by early May. While Carney faces voters, correspondents may be well asked if he still believes that most fossil fuel should be left unbearable. And if so, how is it planning to follow this vision when fossil fuels are a large part of Canada’s economy?

In a historic speech delivered as President of the England Bank in 2015, Carney warned that excessive investment in fossil fuels threatened to repeat the 2008 global collapse. The International Energy Agency recently concluded that about a third of the remaining oil, gas and coal reserves in the world can be burned without paying a temperature until 2 degrees Celsius, at a time when the accepted catastrophe is reduced to avoid Disasters. Financial, this would make two -thirds of the remaining reserves all the assets that have no value. But fossil fuel companies counted these reserves as a real wealth, as well as insurance companies, banks and pension funds that invested in those companies. This was the incompatibility of the carbon bubble, similar to the housing bubble that sparked the 2008 financial collapse.

To keep this carbon bubble from the explosion, Carney continued to order British banks to undergo climate stress tests – format exercises to verify whether the banks can remain a solvent if most fossil fuels become a way that they are separated. The practical effect was to encourage the shift from fossil fuels. Carney has continued this approach in recent years as the United Nations Special Envoy for Climate Work and Finance. With the temperature goal now tightened to 1.5 ° C, he supported a report on the Energy Transport Committee in November 2023, which concluded that “65 % of all oil and gas reserves and 90 % of all coal reserves should be left on the ground …. There is no need for any exploration of new oil and gas fields.”

On the campaign path, Carney responded to the attacks of the Conservative Party by promising to “end the carbon consumer tax” carried out by Trudeau, “and this means that the Canadians no longer pay a tax when they fill gasoline tanks or heat their homes. Instead, the burden will turn into corporate pollutants. Times London mentioned. How will such a policy affect the greatest scientific necessity of leaving fossil fuels on the ground unclear. However, unlike many world leaders, Carney frankly takes climate science very seriously and has been strongly thought about how to direct politics. How the previous central bank explains his vision of voters in Canada during the upcoming election campaign, and perhaps again because the Prime Minister is a story not only for environmental reporters but for their colleagues in the field of business, politics and international affairs as well.