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The list of climate laws Carney has watered down, repealed and canceled makes the EU’s own recent backtracking on green laws look minor.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 green aura

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.”

Not black and white

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.”

The limits of the partnership

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.

BRUSSELS — Center-right lawmakers in the European Parliament are intensifying efforts to weaken two EU climate laws, a campaign that could undermine the bloc’s push to cut planet-warming emissions.

The European People’s Party, the largest group in Parliament, will this week push for a three-year delay to rules on emissions of the climate pollutant methane, a change the fossil fuel sector and the U.S. government have lobbied hard for.

A growing number of EPP lawmakers now also want to delay — or scrap altogether — a new carbon price on transport and heating, known as ETS2, according to a document obtained by POLITICO. That puts them in line with several EU member countries, including Italy and Poland, which pushed for a delay to the new carbon price at a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels last week.

Both policies are central pillars in the EU’s effort to reduce its planet-warming emissions. A successful repeal of ETS2 in particular would be a blow to EU climate goals, as it covers around 40% of the bloc’s greenhouse gas emissions.

But it would also be a major victory for conservative and pro-business lawmakers and national governments that have been campaigning for less stringent EU climate laws in the name of industrial competitiveness.

Ax the tax

The EU Emissions Trading System, launched in 2005, requires power plants and factories in sectors like steel, chemicals and cement to acquire carbon allowances for every ton of carbon they emit. The total number of allowances is reduced each year, eventually reaching zero.

ETS2 applies the same idea to suppliers of fuel for transport and heating from 2028.

The cap-and-trade scheme will be a powerful tool for reducing emissions from these highly polluting activities. But many policymakers worry it will raise the cost of gasoline, diesel and natural gas and add to voters’ cost-of-living pressures.

Nine national delegations of the EPP — the Polish, Spanish, Italian, French, Romanian, Croatian, Slovenian, Slovak and Estonian — are now calling for ETS2 to be repealed, according to draft amendments obtained by POLITICO. “ETS2 should be deleted,” the amendment, sponsored by Polish EPP lawmaker Adam Jarubas, argues.

Another amendment in the same draft, backed by 10 national delegations, takes a softer approach and asks for ETS2 to be “postponed until 2031.”

EU legislators are already reviewing a proposed reform of the EU’s original Emissions Trading System, which makes amending ETS2 — which is contained in the same legislation as the first ETS — much simpler.

No majority in Parliament or among member countries currently supports delaying or repealing ETS2, but a string of elections next year raises the likelihood that more right-wing governments will be in power before ETS2 comes into force, adding momentum to the push to scrap or delay it.

Methane delay

Last week, the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, proposed a year-long delay to rules that will require oil and gas importers to monitor, report, and eventually reduce emissions of the potent greenhouse gas.

The delay — which affects monitoring requirements and later obligations on methane intensity — followed months of lobbying from industry and member countries, which claimed the Commission provided insufficient clarity on how to comply. The U.S. government also pushed to delay the rules, which are currently due to come into force on Jan. 1, 2027.

But the proposed delay requires support from both governments and lawmakers, some of whom want to go well beyond the Commission’s revised timeline.

On Tuesday, European lawmakers voted to fast-track parliamentary discussions around the Commission’s proposed delay, laying the groundwork for a fresh vote Thursday. At that vote, the EPP is expected to campaign for a three-year delay of the rules, as well as possible further adjustments, according to one lawmaker familiar with the matter.

Dimitris Tsiodras, a European lawmaker, echoed industry concerns that compliance risks could deter cargoes from Europe if left unaddressed. “We cannot afford to put our energy supplies at further risk,” he told lawmakers.

Right-wingers against the rules will still face opposition from left-leaning lawmakers. Jutta Paulus, a German Greens lawmaker who steered the parliament’s position on the legislation in 2024, announced on Tuesday that her party would table an amendment to reject the delay altogether.

However, the EPP could reach an outright majority if it joined with right-wing and far-right groups.

The party is already exploring a deal with those groups if the Socialists and Democrats — the Parliament’s second-largest group — don’t cooperate with its push for a longer postponement, according to two people familiar with the matter. S&D lawmakers opposed extending the delay earlier this month, but a group spokesperson said the party has yet to adopt a formal position in negotiations.

A parliamentary push for a three-year delay could also invigorate member countries’ efforts to delay the rules further.

Member countries are currently divided, though many, including heavyweight France, support the one-year delay proposed by Brussels, according to two diplomats briefed on the matter.

Poland, Slovakia and Czechia, meanwhile, would prefer a three-year delay, but their luck in campaigning for an extension may depend on where Germany lands, the people said. Berlin is currently split between its socialist-controlled environment ministry and its center-right-controlled energy ministry, leaving countries uncertain whether they can formulate a joint position tomorrow, they added.

Italy is also trying to decide whether to opt for one year or more, two diplomats familiar with the matter said.