As the United Nations special envoy on climate action and finance, Mark Carney said in December 2019 “climate change is an existential threat.” He has also called it a “tragedy on the horizon.” So it’s jarring that, years later, as prime minister, Carney’s answer to the White House’s new tariff wall is to elevate liquefied natural gas expansion to “nation-building” status for Canada, and that he did this just weeks after the International Court of Justice clarified that states have legal obligations to prevent climate harm. 

If the United States is turning its back on addressing climate change, Canada should fill that vacuum with credible ambition, not copycat fossil fuel expansion. Doubling down on LNG won’t make Canada a leader, just a follower of the wrong crowd.

The prime minister’s new “major projects” list includes Phase 2 at LNG Canada alongside mines, a port expansion, and a small modular reactor. The vehicle to accelerate them—Bill C-5’s Building Canada Act—concentrates sweeping fast-track powers in cabinet, short-circuiting regulatory processes meant to safeguard the environment, climate, and Indigenous rights. 

LNG’s climate footprint is inherently large in part because liquefaction and re-gasification devour energy before a single molecule is burned. A recent Cornell University study found that across its life LNG is responsible for one-third more greenhouse gas emissions than coal. 

Building more LNG infrastructure in 2025 is knowingly locking in high-emissions infrastructure at a time when the normally cautious International Energy Agency is saying there can be no new fossil fuel infrastructure if we are to have any chance of meeting globally agreed climate goals.

Meanwhile, Canada’s LNG customers are moving toward cleaner systems. Japan and South Korea have enshrined net-zero targets in policy and law, and China has committed to carbon neutrality before 2060. Their own energy plans foresee deep cuts to fossil fuel use over time. Betting tens of billions of dollars on LNG exports that will need decades to be profitable into markets that are legislating themselves out of fossil dependence is not a strategy. It’s an irresponsible risk that could lead to stranded assets, and one that Carney pointed out as far back as 2014 when he was governor of the Bank of England. 

There is also Canada’s credibility. This summer’s climate-fuelled wildfires choked communities across this country and beyond. A new Nature study linked smoke from Canada’s 2023 fires to over 80,000 premature deaths globally. The government can tackle the cause of those unnecessary deaths, or build more fossil fuel export capacity, but it is cynical to pretend we can do both and still claim any form of global leadership.

Proponents will say LNG is how Canada answers U.S. tariff belligerence. In truth, following Washington’s turn to widespread tariffs and a renewed LNG push is the opposite of what Canada needs. U.S. President Donald Trump has decimated American progress on clean energy, rolled back environmental protections, and restarted LNG export permits. Copying a 20th-century energy playbook is not how a middle power differentiates itself or reduces exposure to American policy whiplash. 

There is a better path, and it happens to not only be Canada’s comparative advantage, but will also bolster our global leadership credentials. Europe’s answer to the climate crisis has been to accelerate renewables and efficiency. The European Union’s binding 2030 target is now at least 42.5 per cent renewables, while gas use in Europe’s power sector kept falling in 2024. That is the company Canada should keep. 

Canada also should embrace the jobs story. Ottawa’s own strategy points to more than 600,000 clean-energy jobs and a $107-billion clean-energy GDP within five years, with tens of thousands of electricity-sector openings through 2050. If the government wants durable growth, the fastest and least risky employment gains are in building out a modern electricity grid and energy storage.

If Canada wants to lead, and to stand apart from the U.S., the government should align with Europe by building clean power and transmission lines at pace, electrifying industry and transport, and backstopping workers and regions through a just transition to a renewable economy. Canada can either be the country that continues to develop yesterday’s fuels—or the country that builds tomorrow’s energy system. We cannot be both.