MONTREAL, Canada — The European Union and Canada have agreed to build the closest possible relationship. Over the next six months, they will have to define what that means — and whether Canada can become the EU’s first, and perhaps only, associate member.
A summit in Montreal last week highlighted the urgency behind the budding relationship. Both sides say their partnership is positive and not directed against any country. But it is also driven by mutual need: to shore up supply chains, pool expertise and reduce reliance on the United States and China.
Mark Carney told POLITICO in an interview straight after the summit that the two sides should not be tailoring their partnership to cope with the potential reactions of other powers. “We’re not adjusting [based on] what the U.S. might think, what China might think, what … Russia might think,” he said. The goal, the Canadian prime minister explained, is to help both sides “withstand shocks” and prevent rivals from exploiting critical dependencies.
The test of that plan comes in six months, when the European Commission will meet with the Canadian government to see what progress has been made. One diplomat involved in the talks, granted anonymity to speak freely, said the meeting, which will be held in March before next year’s EU-Canada summit in Brussels, should make clear how far the relationship can develop and whether Ottawa is really on track for associate membership.
In the months ahead, there will be plenty of issues that could distract EU leaders. Governments must negotiate the bloc’s next seven-year budget, amid deep divisions over its size and spending priorities. Plus, a series of elections in some of the EU’s biggest countries, including Spain, France, Italy and Poland, will make concentrating on Canada a tall order.
The joint declaration signed in Montreal commits both sides to defining the concept of “associate membership” by their 2027 summit. In the meantime, they have a slate of agreements and work plans to put into practice.
That includes a digital trade agreement and a competition deal signed in Montreal, plus Canada’s participation in the EU’s high-performance computing partnership. They also agreed on a new framework for cooperation between EU border force Frontex and the Canada Border Services Agency. Ottawa said it intends to join the EU’s Ukraine Support Loan facility.
The declaration sets out further work on critical raw materials and energy, including a feasibility study into long-term liquefied natural gas exports to Europe and exploring ways to jointly stockpile strategic resources. It also calls for cooperation on subsea cables, artificial intelligence and research, closer financial links, Arctic security, and disaster response. Canada and the EU will begin talks on deeper Canadian participation in Erasmus+, the EU’s education and youth program.
The summit also saw the launch of the Alliance for the Future, a broader partnership plan that could eventually include Japan, South Korea and Australia. It aims to build resilient supply chains and coordinate on economic security, so partner nations do not inadvertently harm one another with trade measures as they respond to Chinese overcapacity and U.S. tariffs.
But that could be easier said than done, with both Europe and Canada keen to avoid breaching World Trade Organization rules with their arrangements.
That concern is already visible in the debate over “Buy Canadian” and the EU’s proposed “Made in Europe” rules, both of which seek to favor homegrown suppliers. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in Montreal that Brussels intends to ensure Canada is not disadvantaged by the EU’s Industrial Accelerator Act — proposed legislation encouraging European businesses to go greener through subsidies and payment schemes. The ball is now in Carney’s court to offer similar assurances to European businesses under Buy Canadian.
The summit’s biggest political snag came down to two words.
Von der Leyen opened the door to Canada becoming the EU’s first “associate member” in her State of the Union speech in September. But Germany blocked the term from being included in the joint declaration, saying the concept is vague and undefined. Other EU capitals said they also wanted to know what the arrangement would entail before fully committing to it.
The wrangle over the label overshadowed the substance of the summit and visibly frustrated both Carney and the European contingent. Asked about Germany’s objections, Carney told POLITICO it was “a very internal European issue.”
The dispute highlights Ottawa’s challenge: even if the Canadian government and the Commission agree on a plan, any formal arrangement must navigate 27 EU governments with their own concerns, pet industries and foibles.
The real reason for Berlin’s opposition remains unclear, with one EU diplomat describing the kerfuffle as an “embarrassment.”
One theory among senior EU officials and diplomats is that Germany was smarting because it wanted the term to be used for Ukraine earlier this year — only for other EU countries and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself to reject the idea.
The EU-Canada partnership is meant to rest on shared, centrist values. But what happens if political shifts in the EU’s two largest countries change what underpins the friendship?
The French presidential election in April could bring Marine Le Pen to power, while the Alternative for Germany has made gains in successive regional elections.
Carney told POLITICO he would work with whichever leaders voters choose, while drawing a line between cooperation and agreement. “My responsibility is to work with, whether it’s provincial premiers or leaders of other countries, in the best interest of Canada,” he said. But he added that “working with and having agreement on are two different things.”
Carney said democratic outcomes could change Europe’s priorities, but argued that cooperation could still deepen.
The six-month stocktake will show whether that confidence holds.
YEREVAN, Armenia — Scorching wildfires, disastrous floods and the looming mass extinction of species weren’t enough to convince wealthy nations to unlock crucial funds needed to halt biodiversity loss at a global nature summit this week.
As countries around the world race against the clock to protect what’s left of the Earth’s collapsing ecosystems, global talks aimed at speeding up nature protection efforts yielded underwhelming results.
The United Nations COP17 on biodiversity ended on Saturday with a renewed promise from countries to speed up global efforts to protect nature and restore depleted ecosystems by 2030.
But behind that grand gesture, governments are still struggling to unlock the hundreds of billions needed to meet global biodiversity protection targets. The reason? A profound and unresolved disagreement over where that money should come from.
“If we’re mutually unhappy that’s probably the closest we can get to on these very delicate compromises,” said a member of the Swiss delegation just before the text was adopted.
After two weeks of negotiations over how to speed up efforts to protect ecosystems, nearly 200 countries secured a hard-fought agreement to “accelerate the implementation” of the global biodiversity framework “including by increased ambition in addressing the gaps, challenges and barriers related to implementation,” according to a draft of the text, the final version of which was not immediately available.
Armenian Environment Minister Hambardzum Matevosyan, who presided over the summit, said negotiators had “achieved more than we could have expected.”
But in the end, governments could not agree on how to increase the number of countries currently contributing to biodiversity finance, instead only stating the obvious: that more funds would be better.
The summit exposed a growing chasm between nations over who should be held financially responsible for funding conservation measures worldwide: historically wealthy countries whose economies have caused immense damage to the environment, or newly rich states whose economies have grown exponentially in the last three decades.
“This COP was always going to be difficult,” said Steven Guilbeault, former environment minister for Canada, adding that “COP17’s real legacy will be decided far beyond these walls, when words need to translate to action.”
Negotiators are leaving Yerevan with many issues left to resolve between now and the next COP in 2028 in Ecuador, including on how to attract more companies that benefit from nature to fund conservation projects via the Cali Fund, a landmark vehicle aimed at mobilizing private finance into nature established in 2024.
Governments know they are running out of time. At COP17, scientific experts reiterated that a million species are at risk of extinction, and the U.N. has identified an annual biodiversity financing gap of $700 billion.
“We’re not on track to stop and reverse the biodiversity loss by 2030,” said Monique Barbut, France’s environment minister, during a COP17 plenary session on Wednesday. The world needs to “mobilize all international funding sources” to make it happen, she insisted.
The talks also ran long due to disagreements over language related to the involvement of Indigenous peoples in a key decision-making body of the Convention.
The U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity relies on the consensus that rich countries should pay more to protect nature because of the pressure their societies and economies exert on global ecosystems.
Since its ratification in the 1990s, a group of wealthy countries including Canada, Australia, Japan, the U.K., Switzerland, Norway and some EU members have been funding efforts to implement the Convention.
Now, those countries want other high-income nations to chip in more. “We all know that we need more resources to ensure the effective implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework,” said Jessika Roswall, the EU’s environment commissioner.
But during the negotiations, non-donor countries — which include China, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Argentina — pushed back against any kind of income-related criteria to determine who should or shouldn’t be paying.
The deadlock angered some nations set to benefit from a larger donor base. “Are you telling me that rich petro-states who are in many cases wealthier than some of the original list of donors and responsible for a ton of emissions and harmful practices that directly affect biodiversity shouldn’t contribute to the fund?” said Juan Carlos Navarro, Environment Minister for Panama on Wednesday, as negotiations were ongoing.
The countries “don’t want to have the same obligations as developed countries on this issue [and] bring up the argument of ecological responsibilities,” said Juliette Landry, a senior research fellow at the think tank IDDRI.
In the end, countries agreed simply to state that “contributions from more Parties
would improve the mobilization of biodiversity finance” and invited others to contribute voluntarily, the draft text shows.
Despite the divisions, many hailed the final agreement as a win for green multilateralism as governments remain committed to the overarching goal of protecting 30% of Earth’s land and sea areas and increase financing for biodiversity to $200 billion annually by 2030.
“In Yerevan, we saw environmental multilateralism prevail once again. Countries came together, found the spirit of compromise and allowed us to agree important decisions that will support real progress for people and for planet,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UN Environment Programme.
After two weeks of endless meetings, panels and plenary sessions, negotiators agreed to strengthen the role of cities and local governments in implementing biodiversity goals, and improve how biodiversity funding reaches them. They also adopted decisions to support capacity-building and scientific cooperation, and agreed that more needs to be done to protect marine ecosystems.
Countries also recognized the need to reduce subsidies funding economic activities that harm nature and create incentives for activities that protect it. “Incentive reform has moved from the margins to the mainstream of the biodiversity agenda,” said Eva zabey, CEO of the Business for Nature coalition.
Some governments including Germany, Iceland, Uzbekistan and Spain made fresh financial commitments totalling $1.8 billion to the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund and the Global Environment Facility, the funding structures set up to implement the Convention. Under the GBF, countries have pledged to mobilize $200 billion annually by 2030.
The U.N. Environment Programme also published a report showing that nature restoration is underway at an “unprecedented scale” with over 250 million hectares of land under restoration worldwide.
Still, countries remain off track on meeting their 2030 targets.
In Yerevan, green groups welcomed the agreement but criticized its lack of ambition key issues.
“Political promises made in Yerevan set good intentions, but won’t remove major roadblocks to implementation such as insufficient finance, fiscal and debt constraints, the nearly empty coffers of the Cali Fund and urgent reform of harmful subsidies,” said An Lambrechts, a biodiversity politics expert with Greenpeace International.
Governments have struggled to stay the course since inking the Global Biodiversity Framework in 2022. Though many countries have adopted national biodiversity strategies, financial flows to conservation projects are nowhere near where they ought to be. Geopolitical shifts and economic crises have also made it harder for governments — including the 27 EU member countries — to prioritize environmental protection.
Countries agreed to renew talks to implement the objectives of the convention in Ecuador.
BRUSSELS — The European Union and Canada have agreed a framework to invest more European money in Canadian critical minerals, as part of a broader agreement to boost raw material and energy trade between the two jurisdictions.
The EU confirmed Friday it had concluded negotiations that would “facilitate European investments in critical Canadian resources, in particular in critical raw materials,” following talks between senior EU officials and the Canadian government in Montreal. The investments would be made through the European Investment Bank, the EU’s lending arm.
The two jurisdictions will also carry out a “long-term feasibility study” on exporting Canadian liquified natural gas to Europe. Canada is rich in gas but currently doesn’t have infrastructure to liquefy and export it from its east coast.
The commitments are part of a much broader effort to deepen the relationship between the EU and Canada, who see themselves as likeminded democracies in a world that is increasingly pulling away from the international rules-based order that has dominated since World War II.
“[W]e will accelerate collaboration to support investment in critical raw materials projects, both in Canada and in the EU, along the value chain, including extraction, processing, refining, manufacturing and recycling activities,” the EU and Canada said in a joint statement.
They also said they would “explore cooperation opportunities on raw materials projects in third countries identified as projects of common interest.”
The joint statement, which aims to build “an even closer association between Canada and the EU,” also covered security, trade, tech and artificial intelligence, competition policy, financial services and cultural exchange.
MONTREAL — Prime Minister Mark Carney wanted the landmark EU-Canada summit to be about much more than “nomenclature.” He got what he craved.
Over a whirlwind 48 hours in Montreal, top officials from Brussels and Ottawa huddled to pursue agreements on critical minerals, super computers and defense cooperation.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President António Costa and Carney gathered as U.S. President Donald Trump continues to upend the global order and Chinese dominance of critical markets squeezes middle powers.
Those challenges have pushed the EU and Canada into a rapidly developing partnership that eclipses anything attempted by Brussels with a non-member country since the bloc was formed.
Here are all the key things POLITICO learned during the EU-Canada meetings.
Initially reluctant, the Canadian prime minister came around by the end of the summit to endorse von der Leyen’s controversial label for the global alliance the EU and Canada are building.
Carney set a six-month deadline to firm up the ground rules of what “associate membership” is, trialing an induction process that could be a model for other non-European countries.
“With Canada becoming the European Union’s first associate member, in the coming months we will determine the full substance, scale and scope of this new form of membership,” he said Friday.
Carney added he will meet periodically with von der Leyen to track progress, including a return trip for the College of European Commissioners to meet with their Canadian counterparts in March.
Both Canadian and EU officials are walking away from the summit with at least one major win: the framework agreement signed between the European Investment Bank and Canada that will open up the bloc’s lending arm to Canadian critical minerals crucial for future tech.
That means batteries, circuit boards and semiconductors, which all require lithium, nickel, cobalt and other critical raw materials that, as of now, the EU is largely dependent on China to score.
The deal helps wean the Europeans off a politically volatile critical minerals dealer, for a more reliable Canadian supplier.
The agreement does not immediately unlock funding for specific projects, but it supports pathways for future investments in Canadian mining and helps link the bloc’s supply chains with Canada’s.
Critical minerals aren’t the only Canadian natural resource on the menu for Europeans.
Carney has said he wants to make Canada an “energy superpower” and leverage huge stores of oil and liquefied natural gas in his country for export. The only problem: Most of it is in the western province of Alberta, far from Europe.
But the summit concluded with a commitment by both sides to a “long-term feasibility study” on exporting LNG to Europe via the east coast or Arctic ports closer to the bloc.
“There’s also a huge opportunity in terms of bringing some of the fossils and gas from Canada to the EU,” said a Commission official, who was granted anonymity to talk about sensitive diplomatic negotiations. “The old infrastructure in Canada was built north-south for historical reasons, but now there is talk of starting to build east-west.”
As Europeans and Canadians preached deeper ties, Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) was there doing damage control.
Welch, whose state is a little over an hour’s drive south of Montreal, spent Thursday reassuring business leaders that U.S. relations with Canada and beyond can, some day, get back to normal. When exactly, he couldn’t say for sure.
During his trip, Welch met with Quebec Chief Trade Negotiator Pascal Paradis, tourism industry leaders, businesses and manufacturers nailed by tariffs, and hit up a Eurasia Group lunch.
Tuesday’s U.S. midterm elections could offer a waypoint to warmer relations. But Welch loaded his optimism about Democratic Party fortunes with caveats.
“I think we’ll be successful, but you’ll still have a president who abuses his authority and acts in arbitrary ways,” he said. “It’s not like I can give any assurance that things are going to change.”
Canada and the EU pledged deeper cooperation on pumping more European money into the mining, production and refining of critical minerals, a response to China’s dominance of the global market for those minerals. But the final summit communiqué steers clear of naming specific countries.
Canadian Defense Minister David McGuinty was more candid.
“China has been vacuuming up as many critical minerals as they can throughout the world, particularly in the African continent, cutting deals, usually infrastructure for critical mineral deals. That could be a soccer stadium, for example. It could be a light rail system,” McGuinty told POLITICO at the summit Friday.
“It turns out that Canada’s got a huge amount of critical minerals, and basically all 10 of the 10 critical minerals on the short list for NATO, which the United States is also aware of. We’re going to not only exploit, but we intend to move to transform,” he said.
Outside the summit, many Montrealers were oblivious to the landmark meeting taking place in the city. Inside, the vibe was existential.
The trio of leaders — Carney, von der Leyen and Costa — invoked individual and collective sovereignty as reasons to pursue a closer alliance to weather “new storms” stoked by climate change, challenges to democratic norms and the weaponization of trade. Carney has notably claimed concerns about encroachment on Canada’s sovereignty as a reason to walk away from trade talks with the Trump administration.
“Today is about sovereignty,” Carney said. “We’re building the industries and infrastructure that underwrite our collective security.”
The summit came to Montreal weeks after Quebec — the French-speaking province in Canada that hosted the summit — elected a separatist government. Quebec shares powers with Ottawa and had its own seat in the CETA trade talks with the EU over a decade ago; and it had sought a similar role at this summit.
But Ottawa refused to let new Premier Paul St-Pierre Plamondon address the summit, so he boycotted it, complaining he was being asked to “serve shrimp cocktail.”
Carney accused him of leaving “an empty chair.” It stayed empty, even though six former Quebec premiers came to dinner.
The Europeans did not escape unscathed. The Quebec press panned von der Leyen’s English-only speech on the opening day as a faux pas in Canada’s largest francophone metropolis. Commission Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera did little better, telling Radio-Canada in French that, for Brussels, summits like this are between national governments.
In a town where the original heated rivalry persists between two bagel shops, von der Leyen couldn’t resist picking a side with a photo-op at St-Viateur.
Sorry Fairmount.
MONTREAL — Canada embraced the European Union’s offer of “associate membership” after a two-day summit at which Brussels and Ottawa gave themselves until next June to work out what their new relationship will look like.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s endorsement of the proposal by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen followed weeks of hesitation, a hostile response from U.S. President Donald Trump and pushback from EU heavyweight Germany.
“In the coming months, we will determine the full substance, scale, and scope of this new form of membership,” Carney told a press conference on Friday at the end of the two-day summit at the Port of Montreal.
“Today, we move towards associate membership for Canada,” Carney said, describing it as “the deepest possible partnership short of accession.”
The two sides have set a June 2027 deadline to determine the terms and boundaries of their intensifying relationship — an alliance that comes with a payment schedule. Carney danced around a question pressing him on how much associate membership will cost the Canadian public.
“We don’t view this as paying, personally,” Carney said, stressing the alliance as a “positive” project.
Von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa, standing either side of Carney, presented the experiment as a necessary survival strategy to thrive in an increasingly dangerous world.
“The concept of an associate member is uncharted territory but we have the ambition, trust and creativity to shape it together,” Von der Leyen told reporters. “To be crystal clear, this is not a partnership against anybody, but for our common strength.”
Canadian government officials who spoke to reporters after the press conference confirmed legislation won’t be necessary to legitimize Canada’s EU associate membership status.
“Our relationship is so special that we want to create something new — to go beyond a simple association, everything short of a full EU membership,” said Costa, pitching a new model for non-European countries to integrate more closely with the bloc. “Our association will be the closest, deepest and most unique of its kind.”
Despite the upbeat rhetoric, some longstanding trade disputes remained unresolved after the summit.
Carney told reporters the two sides had reached an agreement on carveouts from a landmark EU anti-deforestation law, but Canadian government officials subsequently walked back his assertion.
The issue remains part of ongoing trade discussions, one official said, noting progress in addressing what Canada views as flaws in the legislation. The officials were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic and trade negotiations.
Another irritant has been whether Canada would qualify for “Made in Europe” status under the EU’s Industrial Accelerator Act, a landmark measure that would seek to channel public procurement spending in sectors ranging from green energy to automotive toward locally produced goods.
Von der Leyen said the regulation proposed earlier this year by the Commission foresaw including Canada as a free-trade partner, but added that it was now subject to review by EU lawmakers and governments.
“The Industrial Accelerator Act has been proposed by the Commission to include all countries with whom we have free-trade agreements. So automatically Canada would be in,” she said in response to a question.
“Of course now the proposal has to go through the co-legislative process. But our proposal is very clear in including Canada.”
Despite months of preparations, the summit itself was chaotic, with agenda details confirmed at short notice and bilateral meetings split between two locations. The informal arrangements were intended to encourage more face time between EU commissioners and Canadian ministers, who are set to see much more of each other.
Canadian ministers have been invited to attend more meetings with their EU counterparts as part of a plan to deepen political alignment. Recent participation by Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand and International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu in informal EU meetings has served as a trial run.
Carney himself is expected in Dublin in two weeks, having accepted Costa’s invitation to join an informal European Council meeting.
A great deal is at stake in next week’s midterm elections. The partisan makeup of the new Congress will shape future spending bills, congressional investigations, and judicial nominations, among other things.
And yet, the most consequential bill of the next 12 months — and the one that speaks most directly to voters’ concerns about the cost-of-living — might well pass before the new Congress is seated.
The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 (BAAJA) could dramatically reshape America’s energy system. And the bill’s supporters plan to pass it during the House and Senate’s lame-duck session — the months between next week’s elections and the new Congress’s arrival.
The bill is long and complex, revising the rules governing everything from how ocean-powered turbines are licensed to what some geothermal plants must pay in royalties.
That said, the legislation’s fundamental aim is simple: to make building all forms of energy infrastructure easier.
The BAAJA has united fossil fuel companies and green energy firms in its favor — while cleaving the climate movement in two.
Some climate hawks contend that the legislation pares back vital environmental regulations, while clearing the way for new gas pipelines and power plants that will drive up America’s emissions. “This is not the permitting deal that we were promised,” Jeremy Symons, president of the Center for Energy and Environmental Analysis, told me, citing its “historic environmental protection rollbacks.”
Others insist that the bill is a net-win for decarbonization. In their account, permitting reforms will do more to facilitate a buildout of green energy than to lock in America’s dependence on fossil fuels.
“Fossil is the incumbent technology and fuel mix,” Jane Flegal, a senior fellow at the center-left Searchlight Institute, said. “A system that makes it easier for everyone to build should advantage the nonincumbent.”
I think Flegal’s side has this right. The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act will likely help renewables erode fossil fuels’ share of the electricity market. By itself, the legislation will not ensure a timely transition to a green electricity system. But it will get us a little further down that road, while also making energy more affordable for US consumers — which might well be the midterm electorate’s top priority.
This said, the current draft of the bill does contain one potentially major — and seemingly, accidental — flaw. Assuming Congress fixes that issue, climate hawks should join hands with Big Oil and push for the BAAJA’s imminent passage.
The climate case for permitting reform begins with a simple observation: If you want to decarbonize America’s energy grid, you need to build a metric fudge-ton of new infrastructure.
Today, low-carbon energy sources provide about 43 percent of our nation’s electricity. Thus, even if America embraced “degrowth” — and froze its electricity consumption at current levels — zeroing out the power sector’s carbon emissions would require constructing a gargantuan number of new wind, solar, battery storage, and geothermal (and/or nuclear) projects.
But of course, America is not actually going to freeze its use of electricity. And mainstream climate hawks don’t even want it to. After all, if every SUV owner replaces their gas guzzler with an EV, then demand for electricity will rise. And decarbonizing home heat or heavy industry will have the same effect. Indeed, to an extent, this basic process is already playing out.
“We’re seeing quite rapid demand growth,” Flegal said. “And that is not only — or even primarily — because of data centers. It’s because of broader structural trends toward electrifying our economy and onshoring manufacturing.”
Taking demand growth into account, a study from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) estimated that getting to a carbon-free electric grid by 2035 would require generating roughly 2,000 gigawatts of wind and solar energy; today, we generate roughly 396 gigawatts.
The challenge appears even more formidable when measured in land. According to Princeton’s 2021 Net Zero America estimate, in a “high electrification” scenario, the US will need wind and solar developments that collectively span nearly 600,000 square kilometers of land — roughly the size of California and Washington state combined.
And even this may undersell the scale of the task. Achieving net zero does not only require constructing immense quantities of wind turbines and solar panels — complemented by battery storage and firm power sources like nuclear or geothermal — but also a vast network of new transmission lines.
America’s transmission infrastructure is already inadequate to our current electricity needs. But a carbon-free grid would demand far more high-voltage lines than today’s. This is because fossil fuel plants are more geographically flexible than renewable ones. Per unit of power generated, gas plants require a small fraction of the land that wind and solar do. And in regions with mature pipeline networks, gas plants can be located in a wide range of places. For these reasons, it’s not that difficult to site carbon power facilities near major population centers or existing transmission lines.
By contrast, wind and solar farms need to be located in areas with both favorable weather conditions and a great deal of affordable land. Such sites are often far from the urban areas where electricity is most needed. Therefore, to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy, America will need a lot more transmission lines. According to NREL, to achieve a 100 percent clean electric grid by 2035 would require building between 1,400 and 10,000 miles of high-capacity transmission lines annually; in 2024, America built just 888 miles.
Given all this, a permitting system that’s biased toward stasis is one that’s biased toward fossil fuels: The harder it is to build new power plants and transmission lines, the longer our electric grids will need to rely on carbon energy.
Alas, the current permitting regime does, in fact, make building power infrastructure really hard.
There are myriad regulatory obstacles to energy development at the state, local, and federal levels. But one major hurdle is the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a law that requires federal agencies to study the ecological consequences of projects before authorizing their construction.
When first enacted, NEPA was not intended to dramatically impede infrastructure development. Indeed, the law does not actually hold proposed projects accountable to any particular environmental standard; it merely requires that a thorough study of the relevant ecological effects be carried out.
But litigators successfully turned NEPA into a tool for obstructing projects — one used by both sincere environmentalists and opportunistic NIMBYs. Such lawyers argued that if the government’s study of a development failed to account for some significant environmental impact, then its authorization was invalid and needed to be redone. When courts started accepting this argument, federal agencies began drafting more and more comprehensive environmental impact statements (EIS), in hopes of preempting legal challenges. In the early 1970s, an EIS could be as short as 10 pages; by the 2010s, the average statement had ballooned to 661.
Such extravagant due diligence takes time. As of 2024, the median federal EIS took more than two years to complete. And even so, NEPA lawsuits have continued to flourish.
A Stanford study published in 2023 examining 355 major infrastructure developments found that 28 percent of the projects requiring an EIS ended up facing litigation before construction. And the median NEPA lawsuit takes 19 months to resolve — despite the fact that, in the vast majority of cases, courts ultimately fail to identify any legal flaw requiring a new study, according to an analysis from the Breakthrough Institute. All this doesn’t merely slow projects down; by driving up expected costs, it also prevents many from being pursued in the first place.
A second obstacle to energy development is the exhaustive — yet somewhat anarchic — process for permitting interstate transmission lines. These lines must generally secure approval from authorities in every state whose borders they cross. The federal government already recognizes the impracticality of this arrangement when it comes to natural gas infrastructure: Uncle Sam has claimed the authority to site an interstate natural gas pipeline, in defiance of states’ wishes. But Washington lacks similar powers with respect to transmission projects.
High-voltage lines are further stymied by an absence of procedures for divvying up their costs. Over time, a single transmission project can lower electricity prices across several states. But precisely which jurisdictions will derive the most benefit isn’t always clear ahead of time. And this makes it hard for utilities to agree on how to allocate the lines’ upfront costs, which can nip the developments in the bud.
The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act tackles both of these barriers to energy deployment (along with many others).
To clear the way for new high-voltage lines, the bill empowers the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to overrule states that reject or obstruct new transmission projects. (Technically, FERC already has this authority in certain designated corridors. But current restrictions on this power are so binding that the agency has never actually sited a transmission line over state opposition in practice.)
As importantly, the legislation requires regional grid planners to adopt a common set of methods for estimating which jurisdictions will benefit most from a new transmission line (and thus, how much their respective utilities should chip in for it). This will hopefully foster greater consensus. But if it doesn’t, the bill opens up an alternative path to approval: Developers can go above the regional planners’ heads and ask the federal government to approve the line and impose a cost-allocation scheme.
Meanwhile, the legislation also constrains the reach of NEPA litigation. Under current law, after an environmental review is completed, plaintiffs can file lawsuits over that review’s purported flaws for up to six years. Under the BAAJA, they’d have only 150 days. Plaintiffs would also be required to demonstrate direct harm and show that they raised their objections during the review’s public comment process. Most consequentially, the law forbids judges from freezing projects solely because their environmental impact statements were inadequate. Instead, construction would be allowed to continue while federal agencies corrected their review’s deficiencies.
By reducing our permitting system’s bias toward the status quo, these reforms make the green transition a bit more possible. Renewables are rapidly growing more cost-competitive. And battery technology is steadily advancing. In a world where new energy infrastructure is relatively easy to build, green power has a good chance of dominating grids in the long run.
But there’s also cause for thinking that the BAAJA’s reforms will disproportionately benefit green projects in the near term.
With transmission, the case is simple: When you look at today’s interconnection queue — which is to say, the backlog of projects seeking connection to the grid — you see that wind, solar, and storage (an enabling technology for weather-dependent renewable power) account for nearly 85 percent of pending capacity. Building out transmission infrastructure should reduce such backlogs, primarily benefiting green technologies in the process.
And the NEPA reforms are likely to benefit renewables more than fossil fuels, even in the short run. To see why, consider the following:
For these reasons, carbon energy development probably isn’t as burdened by NEPA as the renewable kind. Gas and coal plants just don’t need as much land in general — and less federally owned western acreage in particular.
According to Daniel Palken, an energy expert at the philanthropy Arnold Ventures, NEPA’s suppressive impact on green development is well-illustrated by any map of wind and solar power in the US. (Disclosure: Vox has received a grant from Arnold Ventures. This story was not funded by that grant, and Vox has full discretion over the content of its reporting.)
“If you look at where the wind and solar congregates, it carefully builds in the negative spaces between where all the federal land is out west,” Palken told me. “Most of the West is de facto off-limits because they just don’t want to go through the process.”
“The NEPA provisions are described as Republican asks,” he added. “But it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that they asymmetrically aid renewables.”
More broadly, the notion that a lax permitting environment can enable a rapid expansion of green energy — and with it, a shift away from carbon power — isn’t just some distant hypothetical. Rather, that scenario has already played out in one of America’s most pro-oil states.
Texas has scant federal or state-owned lands and no NEPA-like environmental review process. “They’re the only state where you don’t need siting permission from either the state or localities to site a large energy project,” Palken said. “And they have had very forward-looking, long-range transmission planning policies.”
Thanks in part to this permitting environment, wind and solar power have flourished in the Lone Star State, rendering its electric grid far less carbon-intensive. In 2003, natural gas and coal generated 86 percent of the power on Texas’s main grid, while wind and solar supplied less than 1 percent. By 2025, renewables’ share had soared to nearly 38 percent, while fossil fuels’ had fallen to 54 percent.
To be sure, Texas is no climate hawk’s idea of utopia. Its permissive regulatory regime has enabled a remarkable green buildout. But by failing to regulate carbon pollution, that regime has also allowed a rise in Texas’s overall emissions, as gains in population, prosperity, and industrial investment have led to higher electricity consumption.
Given this, environmentalists reasonably deem permitting reform inadequate for achieving timely decarbonization.
“Clean energy will not win in the marketplace at the scale and speed needed unless fossil fuels are held accountable for their pollution,” Symons, of the Center for Energy and Environmental Analysis, told me. “Gas and clean energy are growing hand in hand.”
Such concerns animate environmentalists’ objections to the current bill. Two of their complaints warrant attention here — the first because it is widely held but unpersuasive, the second because it is compelling but easily addressed.
Environmentalists’ less convincing objection to the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act goes like this: Democrats have no good reason to accept the current legislation’s trade-offs. After all, the party will almost certainly have more power in the next Congress than it does in today’s. With control of the House — and perhaps also the Senate — Democrats would have more leverage in negotiations. And they could use this clout to secure permitting relief for green energy projects without throwing as many bones to Big Oil.
“A system where you’re allowed to build the most economic energy resources with fewer encumbrances, fewer delays, and fewer restrictions is, almost by definition, a more affordable system.”
Daniel Palken, energy expert
But there are a couple of problems with this reasoning. For one, permitting reform will still require President Donald Trump’s sign-off in 2027, even in Democrats’ rosiest midterm scenario. And it isn’t remotely clear that the White House will feel compelled to offer Democrats a more environmentally friendly permitting reform bill just because the party captured Congress (especially since the Democratic majorities will likely be inundating the administration with subpoenas and corruption investigations).
For another, however imperfect the legislation may be, it still creates a permitting environment that’s more favorable to green development than the status quo. If Congress passes permitting reform now, the green buildout will likely be further along by 2029 — or whenever Democrats next take full control of the government, at which point they can tweak permitting and environmental rules how they see fit.
The more compelling critique of the BAAJA concerns its “project certainty” provisions. Ironically, this part of the bill was actually a Democratic priority. And it was conceived as a response to the Trump administration’s capricious cancellation of renewable energy permits.
Essentially, the “project certainty” section would prohibit federal agencies from revoking or modifying previously issued permits — or “otherwise interfering with the construction or operation” of permitted projects, unless they uncover a violation of existing law.
But some environmental lawyers fear that the bill’s language is vague and broad enough to threaten the EPA’s future rulemaking authorities: If a Democratic administration tightened air pollution standards, that might “interfere with the construction or operation” of a permitted gas plant. Courts might therefore rule that such regulations are unlawful.
This is genuinely concerning. But it would also be easy for legislators to preempt this scenario with a few tweaks to the bill’s wording.
“I think there is a pretty narrow technical fix to be made that ensures the project certainty section is doing what the drafters wanted it to do,” Flegal said, “which was not to prevent future regulatory action but just to make it harder to rescind legally issued permits.”
Assuming the “project certainty” details are ironed out, the BAAJA should be good for the climate. And it’s all-but guaranteed to be beneficial for consumers.
According to one analysis, the legislation’s transmission provisions alone would save US households well over $1.1 billion annually on their electric bills.
Further, even the bill’s most regrettable consequences from a climate perspective — such as its facilitation of new natural gas pipelines — would likely be positive for affordability. In particular, such infrastructure could help ease high home heating costs in colder, energy-scarce states like Maine — an issue that some Democratic candidates are explicitly running on.
“A system where you’re allowed to build the most economic energy resources with fewer encumbrances, fewer delays, and fewer restrictions is, almost by definition, a more affordable system,” Palken said.
Thus, to green America’s grid — and save Americans’ money — Congress needs to cut red tape. They should waste little time in doing so.
LUXEMBOURG — Europe’s energy ministers are running out of ideas to protect citizens from surging energy prices as winter approaches.
But at a summit in Luxembourg on Thursday, they were clear on one thing: Demanding voters cut back on power use is not an option.
European gas prices soared above €100 per megawatt-hour on Wednesday for the first time since 2022, as last-minute panic-buying to fill European gas reserves added to supply pressures linked to the war in the Middle East.
But at the Thursday summit, EU energy ministers broadly acknowledged that both Brussels and national capitals had run out of ideas to contain price pressures.
“We’ve exhausted most of our short-term options,” said one senior European energy official, granted anonymity to offer a candid perspective. “What’s left is really crisis management.”
For the past year, government attempts to cushion price rises with renewables schemes, windfall taxes and costly fuel subsidies have ultimately failed to contain anxieties that have since boiled over into widespread protests across the continent.
“The EU and member states don’t have a magic wand to make the price increases go away,” Irish Energy Minister Darragh O’Brien, whose government holds the EU’s six-month rotating presidency, told reporters. “There’s a lot of measures that have been taken already in the short term. What today is about is actually seeing how we can move to more sustainable measures.”
But even crisis management is proving politically difficult. Despite calls by EU energy chief Dan Jørgensen earlier this year to encourage consumers and businesses to cut energy use, European ministers are reluctant to make such a move official policy.
“I don’t want to see that we will limit people,” said Mika Nykänen, the state secretary to Finland’s energy ministry. Instead, he called for policy designed to “change behavior” and reduce energy consumption less painfully. “Industry does it naturally. Normal households, normal families — they sometimes need encouragement,” he said. “For instance, subsidies to invest in the energy efficiency of houses, windows.”
Demand reduction “has an impact on industry, it has an impact on business, and in a difficult situation, it could be the way to do that. But it does not … solve the long-term,” Polish Secretary of State for Energy Wojciech Wrochna told reporters.
High prices “will regulate demand by itself,” Swedish Energy Minister Ebba Busch told reporters.
Such was the opposition to demand reduction measures on Thursday, Jørgensen — who was at the summit warning of a “difficult” winter of soaring fuel prices ahead — gave up even proposing it, focusing instead on subsidies. He reluctantly accepted that such subsidies could include fossil fuels as well as clean alternatives, but urged that they be “targeted and temporary.”
Since the war started, governments have paid €18 billion for tax relief on fossil fuel products, including a controversial move by Rome earlier this month to reduce the impact of gas prices on electricity costs.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned national leaders against this tendency, urging them at a summit this month to keep policies temporary and targeted to avoid inadvertently increasing fossil fuel demand and distorting the EU single market, according to two EU diplomats familiar with her comments.
That remains a point of contention among EU leaders, with some, including Greece, calling for greater fiscal space to increase energy subsidies while others warn of the dangers of subsidizing fossil fuels.
“Our concern is to make sure that we don’t create conditions where different member states go very far in different national decision-making,” said Lithuanian Energy Minister Lukas Savickas in a separate interview.
Jørgensen did not respond to POLITICO’s question at a subsequent press conference when asked whether new fiscal flexibilities were being considered.
Other ideas have gone by the wayside. Von der Leyen rejected calls by countries to establish an EU-wide tax on windfall profits of oil and gas companies at this month’s summit, the diplomats cited above said even as European oil companies like Shell, TotalEnergies and Repsol rake in their biggest profits since 2022.
Member countries also questioned the value of a Commission proposal to coordinate the purchase of energy supplies. Such a scheme would work in theory but be hard to implement for “big players” with established supply chains, Wrochna said.
Neither has the EU’s commitment to hastening the release of strategic crude oil and diesel reserves earlier this month — in response to what EU officials described as U.S. “blackmail” — done much to ease fuel costs.
Even so, the EU’s commitment will now include over 40 million barrels on top of the 10 million pledged by Paris, France’s economy minister Roland Lescure told reporters on Thursday.
A parallel push to delay methane monitoring requirements — a plank of the EU’s 2024 Green Deal that industry argued was poorly designed and would disrupt supplies — also had no impact on prices.
To be sure, measures designed to lower electricity prices and encourage consumers to switch away from imported fossil fuels are starting to work, with soaring sales of heat pumps and electric vehicles in Europe this year. “There’s no silver bullet, but when you add all of these things up, it can actually matter,” said Jørgensen.
But even longer-term efforts to encourage the switch to cleaner energy are facing backlash as countries resist ceding power to Brussels.
One example is a Commission proposal to make electricity bills more affordable and speed up electrification, including by ensuring electricity is not taxed more heavily than natural gas. Member countries pushed back against the proposal’s taxation provisions on Thursday, arguing that Brussels is overstepping EU treaties requiring that tax changes be approved unanimously, risking higher costs for households and industry.
Busch, the Swedish energy minister, said the proposal’s taxation provisions went too far, warning it would face “a lot of pushback” from countries concerned about EU interference in national tax policy.
Germany and Poland also raised concerns about the proposal’s potential impact on industry and national tax systems, while Italy warned that changing tax rates could make energy more expensive rather than encourage electrification.
The US power sector could release 42 percent more planet-heating carbon dioxide pollution by 2030 than it did in 2025 as it builds out more fossil fuel infrastructure to meet data center electricity demand, according to a new analysis by the Sierra Club. That would essentially wipe out 15 years of greenhouse gas reductions.
CO2 emissions from electricity generation would increase by 618 million tons by the end of the decade if planned AI projects are constructed. That's roughly equivalent to carbon pollution from the electricity use of 128,788,523 homes in a year.
The Sierra Club's estimate is higher than some previous projections
The Sie …
MONTREAL, Canada — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Thursday she aims to bring EU-Canada relations to the “highest level possible,” touting potential associate member status in the bloc for Ottawa despite capitals having rejected the term a day earlier.
Von der Leyen’s overture comes on the eve of a landmark EU-Canada summit in Montreal where she and Prime Minister Mark Carney are due to announce plans for deeper cooperation against a backdrop of rising autocracy globally and unpredictable relations with U.S. President Donald Trump.
“Canada cannot become a full-fledged member of the EU because of geography, but we both want to bring our relationship to the highest level possible,” von der Leyen said in a speech hosted by the C.D. Howe Institute. “This is why we are discussing the idea of Canada becoming the first associate member of the European Union.”
No sooner had von der Leyen finished speaking than German Chancellor Friedrich Merz issued a statement saying that the EU and Canada were establishing an “Alliance for the Future” — without mentioning the associate member status. Germany has led the opposition to using the term, according to EU diplomats.
“We are fighting each other about a few words which von der Leyen pulled out of thin air,” one of those EU diplomats told POLITICO on Wednesday. “It’s a bit silly while we should have ambition and focus on other things. This is not our proudest moment.”
In a speech hours later on the sidelines of the summit, European Council President António Costa sought to bridge the divide by playing down the importance of the term.
“Tomorrow, the European Union and Canada will launch an Alliance for the Future of Europe,” he said in a nod to Merz’s statement and using the term preferred by Carney to describe the relationship.
“President von der Leyen has even put forward the bold idea of making Canada an ‘associate member’ of the European Union,” he said, noting “I share her ambition.”
“Whether that ends up being the term or not, one thing is clear: our partnership will be the closest, deepest and most unique of its kind,” he added.
The Commission president said in her speech that talks about associate membership would focus on deeper cooperation across AI, climate and energy policy, as well as bolstering shared work between the European Commission and the Canadian government as well as “Parliament to Parliament” and “Court to Court,” a reference to the European Court of Justice and Canada’s Supreme Court.
Such a status, she said, would be open “only to our closest partners outside of Europe, who are ready to open a new frontier together — and to chart the course together, to think beyond the terms of our partnership today, toward the most ambitious vision we can build.”
Von der Leyen’s use of the term associate membership — which she first mentioned in September — is likely to rub some EU capitals the wrong way after a group of countries led by Germany objected to including a reference to the term in a joint EU-Canada statement that was seen by POLITICO and is due to be published on Friday.
After days of talks, EU countries opted for softer language to describe the two sides’ future relations, including the “Alliance for the Future” — the term used by the Canadian side — as well as an “even closer association … short of full membership.”
EU diplomats have told POLITICO that while capitals support the broader aim of closer ties with Canada, they are wary of offering a status that has never been proposed before and whose legal contours remain undefined. Berlin had previously floated associate member status for Ukraine, including specific privileges such as observer status in the European Commission, but that effort was rejected.
Reacting to reports that EU countries would drop the “associate member” term, Carney said on Tuesday: “The good news is it doesn’t matter about specific names or nomenclature. What matters is the difference that it will make to the lives of Canadians … and Canada as a whole becoming a more independent, more sovereign nation, so we can live our lives as we choose.”
Both Carney and von der Leyen have cast this week’s summit as part of a broader effort to deepen ties at a time when both Ottawa and Brussels have clashed with the Trump administration, with von der Leyen warning in her speech about “deeper decay in the international order.”
“Alliances and assumptions that have enabled our prosperity and security are changing rapidly, and each nation or region is looking at how to secure its own interests and its own independence,” she said. “We can no longer let ourselves be shackled by the limits of the old-world order.”
This story has been updated. Camille Gijs contributed reporting from Brussels.
Quebec’s separatist premier says that he will boycott the EU-Canada summit that opens in Montreal on Thursday, warning European leaders that deals struck there without his government’s consent may not be applied in the country’s second-biggest province.
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon confirmed his absence late Wednesday in an open letter to the European delegation, which he posted on X. His announcement followed two days of public sparring with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney over Ottawa’s refusal to let him address the summit.
“This dynamic creates uncertainty as to the application of the agreements you could negotiate during the summit,” he wrote in French.
In the letter, St-Pierre Plamondon says Ottawa has “decided to sideline Quebec” from the talks. He says this leaves his government with “neither a chair at the negotiating table nor the opportunity to speak,” even though the summit is on Quebec soil.
Under Canada’s federal system, he argued, the provinces implement international agreements that fall within their powers. Without Quebec’s consent, a deal that runs against its interests “will simply not be implemented,” he wrote. He also accused Ottawa of withholding “critical information” on the negotiations.
He offered to meet European leaders “in the near future, in a more opportune context.” He will send Quebec’s chief diplomat, Pascal Paradis, to the summit in his place.
Carney said Wednesday his office had offered the premier the honor of welcoming the Commission president to Montreal, and a seat at the head table. “I hope he will reconsider,” he said. On Tuesday, the prime minister had accused St-Pierre Plamondon of choosing to “leave an empty chair again.”
The row has soured the upbeat mood around the summit, which Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa have billed as a milestone. Leaders will launch an “Alliance for the Future,” a framework for shared prosperity and economic security.
St-Pierre Plamondon’s letter says many of its topics fall under Quebec’s responsibility, including health, education and natural resources.
The premier has also pursued his own contacts with European leaders.
He spoke by phone with French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday, and said the two had agreed on a possible meeting in France in the coming weeks.
At working level, ties have held so far, and officials describe the relationship as constructive.
Hélène Drainville, Quebec’s delegate general in Brussels, told POLITICO last week that Quebec was in talks with the European Investment Bank and the Commission, and that “all the signals are green.”
Carney, Costa and von der Leyen are due to hold a joint press conference on Friday.
As Europe’s energy ministers meet in Brussels this week, they are weighing legitimate concerns around energy security, affordability, and the pressures facing businesses and households.
The European Commission’s proposal to delay selected EU Methane Regulation requirements for fossil-fuel importers is now moving quickly through the legislative process. Ministers have an opportunity to keep any adjustment tightly focused, while preserving the policy stability that companies and investors need to plan, invest and manage risk over the long term.
Investors need a stable framework against which companies can plan, manage risk and allocate capital with confidence.
For investors, the question is not whether implementation should be practical. It should. The question is whether a response to current pressures becomes a wider change to a framework that companies have already begun to implement.
Sixty investors, representing over €9.5 trillion in assets under management, have called for the EU Methane Regulation to be maintained and implemented as adopted. That statement pre-dated the Commission’s proposed one-year delay. Its central concern, however, is more relevant now: investors need a stable framework against which companies can plan, manage risk and allocate capital with confidence.
The regulation was designed with phased implementation. It gave companies, importers and national authorities time to prepare for stronger measurement, reporting and verification of methane emissions. It has helped bring methane from the margins into boardroom discussions, where it belongs.
Why methane matters to investors
For investors, methane performance can offer a useful view of how a company is run. It is an indicator of operational discipline, process safety and the quality of management oversight. By setting requirements for measurement, reporting and verification, the regulation can also improve the availability, consistency and reliability of methane data. That gives investors a stronger basis to compare companies and assess whether they are managing risks that could affect long-term value. Maintaining the regulation’s core provisions and avoiding any further delay would protect the progress already under way.
The EU’s position as a major oil and gas importer gives the Methane Regulation particular weight. Clear import requirements can improve the quality and comparability of emissions information across global supply chains. They can help create a more level playing field for companies supplying the European market, rather than allowing weak data or weaker controls to become a commercial advantage.
The choice is not between competitiveness, affordability and effective methane management. Europe can support all three.
This matters for competitiveness as well as climate-related financial risk. Energy affordability is a legitimate concern, particularly for businesses and households facing continued market volatility. But well-designed, practical rules can reward operational excellence, support informed investment decisions and give companies a clearer basis on which to plan, while implementation can be managed in ways that preserve market flexibility and limit unnecessary costs for consumers.
The choice is not between competitiveness, affordability and effective methane management. Europe can support all three. A three-year postponement, however, would not serve institutional investors, companies or Europe’s competitiveness.
Methane is often treated as a narrow technical issue. It is not. Reducing emissions from oil and gas operations is one of the quickest and most cost-effective ways to limit near-term warming. For companies, stronger measurement and reporting can also identify avoidable losses, improve operational performance and strengthen confidence among lenders and investors.
Companies and investors have already begun to respond to the direction set by the impending regulation. Investors are looking more closely at the quality of companies’ emissions data and the systems behind it. A predictable regulatory framework supports that work. Repeated changes to the timetable would do the opposite: they would make it harder to judge preparedness, compare performance and distinguish between companies that are acting now and those that are waiting for the rules to move again.
A longer delay would not remove the work needed to implement the regulation. It would postpone it, weaken incentives for companies and suppliers to prepare, and leave investors with less visibility over how methane-related risk will be managed. It could also disadvantage businesses that have already invested in stronger measurement and reporting, while slowing the development of the market for independent verification services needed to support credible implementation. When the requirements eventually return, the adjustment may be sharper and more costly. That uncertainty carries a cost for companies, investors and the wider market.
Practical implementation, not prolonged delay
The practical challenges facing importers are real and should be addressed through consistent implementation. This includes clear guidance from national authorities, practical ways to link relevant methane data to imported fuels, and clear standards for countries outside the EU whose methane rules are recognized as comparable to EU requirements. This approach would preserve market flexibility and help limit unnecessary costs, without weakening the regulation’s purpose.
If a one-year adjustment is judged necessary, ministers should keep it tightly defined, with a clear end date and no reopening of the regulation’s core provisions. They should use the period to provide the guidance that companies, importers and national authorities need to implement the rules consistently.
The choice facing ministers is not whether Europe should address methane emissions, but whether it does so through a stable framework that rewards preparedness and investment. A limited adjustment may be manageable. A prolonged delay risks creating uncertainty, slowing preparation and leaving Europe less competitive.
Stephanie Pfeifer, CEO, Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of all IIGCC members.
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Brussels and Ottawa aim for ambitious upgrade in their relationship while the U.S. president is occupied by the midterms — and before Europe’s political landscape shifts.
By SEBASTIAN STARCEVIC
Illustration by Hèctor Mixed for POLITICO
The EU and Canada are betting they can deepen their partnership while Donald Trump looks inward at the U.S. midterms — and before European elections upend the political calculus.
Their strategy is to push for the broadest possible upgrade and hope Trump is too busy campaigning to respond, four EU officials and two Canadian diplomats familiar with preparations for this week’s summit in Montreal said.
Trump, whose Republican Party is fighting to retain control of Congress in next week’s midterms, has called the EU’s offer of associate membership for Canada “laughable” and threatened “serious tariffs” if the two sides get too close.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa will join Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney for two days of talks on trade, security, energy, education and the Arctic on Thursday.
The summit “is a very strong statement,” said Mark Camilleri, president of the Canada and EU Trade and Investment Association. “I don’t think there’s any feeling that this is going to be some discreet get-together.”
Canada is also looking to move before Europe’s politics shift. Ottawa wants changes to the partnership that will outlast Trump and Marine Le Pen, whose National Rally is polling ahead in France and has criticized the EU-Canada trade pact, CETA, said a Canadian diplomat. All the officials and diplomats in this article were granted anonymity to speak frankly about the summit preparations.
Brussels and Ottawa are pushing to strengthen their relationship, including by cooperating more closely on trade and defense, international engagement and institutional links, according to a draft joint statement obtained by POLITICO.
In her September State of the Union speech, von der Leyen emphasized that the EU-Canada alliance is “not against anyone else.” Yet officials acknowledge that a stronger alliance risks triggering retaliation from Trump.
Von der Leyen, Costa and Carney “are fully aware that the eyes of the world are upon them,” said Camilleri.
The Europeans and Canadians know “the U.S. is watching,” a senior EU official said, adding that the bloc and Canada were nevertheless proceeding with business as usual and pushing for the most expansive possible relationship with Ottawa.
Another possibility is that the summit yields only “nice pictures” and little substance, a third senior official said, making it less likely to “trigger” the president.
European capitals, EU institutions and Canada’s provinces are all waiting to see what von der Leyen and Carney agree on in their meeting, the Canadian diplomat said, adding it was impossible to pre-judge how Trump would react.
For Ottawa, pressure comes from another direction: Europe’s electoral calendar and the rise of the far right.
With Spain, France, Poland and Italy all set to go to the polls in the next year, Canadian officials want to secure concrete gains while EU governments remain receptive to closer cooperation and keep the topic front of mind, before elections across the bloc risk shifting priorities and upsetting the political balance.
When Carney came to Strasbourg to lay out his vision for a closer alliance in September, he was heckled from the gallery by the far-right Alternative for Germany MEP Siegbert Droese, who led chants of “USA!”
But it’s France’s presidential election in April — and the prospect of Le Pen in office — that is causing the most concern, according to a second Canadian diplomat.
“It’s very fortunate we’re doing this summit now and not in six months,” the diplomat said, referring to the French election date.
Canada is pushing for big, bold “structural changes” in its relationship with the EU now that will outlast Trump and Le Pen, the diplomat added. Carney has grasped the moment’s rarity and urgency and will not leave the summit without securing major wins, the first Canadian diplomat said.
Another question is whether Brussels and Ottawa can upgrade their partnership without eventually drawing the U.S. president’s ire. The midterms might buy them some time, but the vote will not keep Trump busy forever.
Trump might be even more dangerous and more likely to take out his anger on the EU and Canada after the election, given that he will retain many of his tariff and foreign policy powers even if the Republicans lose Congress, the second Canadian diplomat warned.
“At the end of the day, his reaction could be anything,” Camilleri said. “We can only control what we can control.”
Mathieu Pollet contributed reporting.
Canada’s prime minister used to be an eco-warrior. Now, not so much.
By BEN MAKUCH
and MIKE BLANCHFIELD
in Brussels
Photo-illustration by Anthony Gerace for POLITICO
Ask European Union leaders what they think of Mark Carney’s climate credentials, and you’ll get a gushing response.
“We see the world with the same eyes: from AI to climate change,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in her State of the Union speech last month, where the Canadian prime minister was the guest of honor.
“Canada and the EU are very, very like-minded,” the bloc’s climate chief, Wopke Hoekstra, told POLITICO in an interview when asked about his hopes for climate collaboration between the two powers ahead of this week’s EU-Canada summit in Montreal.
But this rosy view sidesteps a less comfortable reality: Canada is a major fossil fuel producer whose climate ambitions fall far short of Europe’s.
And under Carney, those ambitions are weakening.
Last year, Canada produced more crude oil than any other country outside the big three producers, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Oil and gas are Canada’s biggest exports by far, and the industry lobby is an influential force in Ottawa.
In his previous life as a central banker, Carney was considered a climate champion. POLITICO even dubbed him an “eco warrior” in 2018. But since taking over as prime minister last year, he has weakened Canada’s climate policies at a rate few predicted, scrapping a national carbon tax and electric vehicle mandate and opening new oil and gas projects.
The list of climate laws Carney has watered down, repealed and canceled makes the EU’s own recent backtracking on green laws look minor. Some environmentalists argue it is comparable to U.S. President Donald Trump’s wholesale dismantling of environmental protections.
“The track the Carney government has taken on climate and environmental regulation has been a decisive move in the direction of the U.S.,” said Tim Gray, executive director of environmental non-profit Environment Defence. Carney, he said, “seems to be all in on fossil fuels.”
Keean Nembhard, a spokesperson for Canada’s Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin, told POLITICO the Carney government is “committed to fighting climate change and reaching net-zero by 2050 by taking a pragmatic and durable approach.”
“This includes building major clean energy projects across the country, driving mass electrification, and making significant investment in the low-carbon economy,” he said.
But Gray argued that Carney’s support for fossil fuels and weakening of environmental standards may complicate Canada’s attempts to forge closer ties with Europe, which has some of the world’s most stringent green laws.
Still, in Europe, Carney’s green image persists.
Last week, Belgian member of the European Parliament Saskia Bricmont gave expression to this faith in Carney’s commitment to climate issues when she called on him to lead a global push to put climate back on the agenda ahead of next month’s U.N. climate summit.
“Mr Carney … relaunch the fight against climate deregulation and for the restoration of biodiversity, and re-mobilize the international community around concrete, coordinated measures,” she said.
Carney’s reputation as a climate champion is well earned. As governor of the Bank of England, he led a push among central bankers to take the economic risks of climate change seriously — memorably captured in his 2015 ‘Tragedy of the Horizon’ speech, in which he warned: “The catastrophic impacts of climate change will be felt beyond the traditional horizons of most actors.”
In 2021, after he’d left the Bank of England, he became a United Nations special envoy on climate action and finance and launched a net-zero financial alliance with some of the world’s biggest banks.
But things changed dramatically when Donald Trump took back the White House, and Carney replaced fellow Liberal Justin Trudeau as Canada’s prime minister in 2025. At the time, Trudeau and his Liberals had been way behind in the polls, battered by Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s attacks on his climate policies — in particular an unpopular consumer carbon tax.
Carney’s first act as prime minister was to scrap that tax.
Following his surprise victory in the elections that April, Carney set about promoting Canada as an “energy superpower.” To the dismay of environmental groups, he supported the “Pacific Link,” an oil pipeline costing tens of billions of dollars, designed to carry Alberta crude to Canada’s Pacific coast for export to Asia.
He then pushed for thawing relations with Beijing in January, a not-so-subtle pitch to find a new crude oil client that isn’t the U.S. Germany, rushing to replace its dependence on Russian energy, signed a long-term agreement in July to buy Canadian liquefied natural gas from a proposed port in British Columbia, despite backlash from environmental and indigenous groups.
He also scrapped laws on electric vehicle adoption, dropped plans for an emissions cap on oil and gas companies, watered down an existing industrial carbon price and introduced legislation to weaken environmental permitting rules for big infrastructure projects, which critics dubbed the “bulldoze nature bill.”
A landmark moment, according to Gray, came in November 2025, when Carney signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of Alberta, Canada’s biggest oil-producing province. That document, which promised to turn Canada into a “global energy superpower,” contained a string of promises to promote oil and gas and water down federal climate laws.
So why the dramatic shift?
Carney, who has repeatedly positioned energy sovereignty as a bulwark against Trump’s economic aggression, offered his realpolitik response at an event in the heart of Alberta’s oil patch earlier this month.
“There’s a structural challenge of energy security and the existential challenge of climate change, and these challenges are forcing countries to think differently about where their energy comes from and on who they can rely on to supply it,” Carney said in Fort McMurray, Alberta on Oct. 1.
“Even under any plausible net zero scenario, the IEA [International Energy Agency] forecasts the world will still need tens of millions of barrels of crude a day. So the question is: who will emerge as the world’s trusted suppliers? It should be us. It must be Canada.”
Carney, to be sure, is no Trump. Unlike the U.S. president, he has retained his pro-climate rhetoric and promised to develop the country’s mining of critical minerals essential for the clean energy transition.
In May, he unveiled a national electricity strategy which aims to double Canada’s largely clean electricity grid by 2050 to meet soaring demand. “The path to net zero is electrification,” Carney said then.
In August, he announced C$10 billion in federal support for the Churchill Falls hydroelectric project in Newfoundland and Labrador, saying it will be the largest clean energy project in North America, capable of generating enough electricity to light up the equivalent of Canada’s three largest cities.
Nembhard, Environment Minster Dabrusin’s spokesperson, also pointed to new electricity transmission lines, electric vehicle subsidies and a C$2 billion plan to retrofit homes with heat pumps.
Canadian climate activist Alex Cool-Fergus said she does not think Carney “believes that oil and gas is the future,” but is simply being pragmatic about Canada’s economic reality.
“The electricity strategy that came out in May was incredibly important, and actually gives us a better idea of what his thinking is for the future,” she said.
Trudeau’s approach to climate change was “very much values-based, and it was about doing the right thing,” said Cool-Fergus. “I think that’s hit its limits. Carney’s approach makes more sense for the world of 2025-2026.”
Hoekstra, the EU’s commissioner for climate, said he wants to deepen ties with Canada. “Given all the complications the world is facing, it is imperative to team up more closely with your closest partners,” he said. But he’s realistic about how far that relationship can go.
Hoekstra has ambitions of cementing the EU into a global network of economies with carbon pricing regimes. While he conceded nothing is “off the table,” he acknowledged linking the EU’s Emissions Trading System with Canada’s “quite different” version, which varies from province to province: “You’re talking about a completely different horizon, and that is not something we would attempt in the very short run.”
There are, however, other ways Hoekstra believes the EU and Canada can closely link on environmental issues.
“Doubling down, tripling down on electrification, on solar, on wind, on nuclear, on batteries,” he said, adding “that is one area that I think is potentially very fruitful for my portfolio.”
Another is critical raw materials, a key focus of this week’s summit.
Brussels is exploring ways for the European Investment Bank, the EU’s lending arm, to help finance the mining of Canadian mineral deposits that could supply the bloc with an alternative to Chinese-produced metals, with a framework agreement expected to be signed during the summit. Lithium, copper, nickel, and other key ingredients for electric vehicle batteries and clean energy technologies essential for decarbonizing Europe are abundant but often undeveloped all over Canada.
This week’s summit will also explore investing in infrastructure on Canada’s east coast to liquefy and ship Canadian gas to Europe, a move that could help the EU diversify its supply away from the U.S., which, along with Norway, has become Europe’s dominant supplier since it cut off Russian gas imports following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Many EU member countries will welcome success on these goals. But Gray warns that closer ties with Canada could lead to deeper penetration by the country’s powerful fossil fuel lobby, which he described as a “major, major force.”
“They’ll be spending time trying to make sure the alignment with the EU is in a direction that favors them,” he said.
The EU’s lack of oil and gas resources — and, by extension, the absence of a powerful fossil fuel lobby — has kept climate policy relatively bipartisan in the EU. Could inviting a fossil fuel “superpower” into the fold as an “associate member” change that?
“That would depend very much on what is an ‘associate member,’” Dutch Climate Minister Stientje van Veldhoven-van der Meer said.
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