From BBC
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As the threat posed by US President Donald Trump tops Canada’s federal election agenda, the issue of the country’s contribution to global warming has been largely overshadowed.
The two main contenders are pushing plans for new energy infrastructure as the country seeks to pivot away from its reliance on the US.
Mark Carney’s Liberals are promising to make Canada a global superpower in both conventional and green energy. The Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre want to invigorate the oil and gas sector and scrap the industrial carbon tax.
It’s a big shift from the 2021 election, when the environment topped the list of voter concerns.
In that vote, there was a consensus between the two major parties that Canada should rapidly transition to a green economy, with a net-zero emissions law passed in June of that year.
That sense of unity is now long gone.
Carney, who became leader of the Liberals and prime minister in early March, has a long track record as an international champion of climate change.
As well as being a governor of the Bank of England, he was a UN Special Envoy on climate action and finance and was co-chair of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, one of the big outcomes of COP26.
However, his first action as prime minister was to repeal the consumer carbon levy.
The tax – a signature climate policy of the governing Liberals – was introduced in 2019, and placed an added charge on consumers using coal,