Canadian prime minster Mark Carney is not the climate guy you thought | Seth Klein

Much like Trudeau before him, Carney deals in corporate greenwash that sounds like Greenpeace to the right and Exxon to the left.

I don’t think Canadians voted for Mark Carney because of his previous work on climate change, but much more because of his finance credentials at the national level. I did championed climate finance before, but just like the concept of recycling in developing countries, when you have in a crisis, priorities are different. 

Also, a lot of climate talks have been very lofty and idealistic and yet, it didn’t do much in practice. Carney is a pragmatist and he knows that you can’t “impose” climate actions on a population that doesn’t really wants it. Most Canadians have demonstrated that they like the idea of working on climate change, but not really actually doing it (people love their SUVs, people dislike carbon taxes, people waste water to clean their driveway, people complain about the price of electricity when it is quite cheap in Canada compared to Europe).

Carney works on climate at the speed that Canadians what him to, which right now is in first gear only compared to other priorities.

Any climate action not palatable to the population at large is doomed to fail and is potentially political suicide. China developed the largest renewable energy capacity in the world exactly because it is not a democracy and doesn’t to ask the population if it wants it or not. 

Who thought Carney wasnt conservative? The guy was a banker all his life, his entire career before office (which was as PM, day one) was to cater to the rich. You think hes going to be anything but a right winger and do anything good for normal people?!

Carney’s been PM for a bit over a year and we’re seeing that he’s just another neoliberal. Trudeau was in office a little over a year before he broke [his electoral reform promise](https://globalnews.ca/news/3102270/justin-trudeau-liberals-electoral-reform-changing-promises/). For Liberals, progressive politics are just decorative flourishes in campaign speeches.

He’s a pragmatist. Climate platforms lose elections to rising authoritarian populism and divides people. Our sovereignty is under attack and for once Canada is unifying around a common cause. He sees this, and he knows that strengthening this bond lies in building our economic strength. You only have the privilege of aspiring to lofty climate goals if you’re independent, self-reliant and sovereign. So for all the people saying he’s not who he claimed to be, go pound sand.