Carney Accused of Greenwashing Canada's Oil and Gas Sector

OTTAWA – In the shadow of Alberta’s vast oil sands, home to the world’s fourth-largest proven reserves, Prime Minister Mark Carney keeps backing a net-zero future that critics say restrains Canada’s economic core.

With 171 billion barrels of oil and 1,200 trillion cubic feet of gas on the line, worth more than $9 trillion at today’s prices, his refusal to speed up pipelines or relax emissions caps has sparked fury. Opponents accuse the former Bank of England governor of favouring carbon offsets and global green finance over domestic growth, calling the programme greenwashing for personal benefit.

Carney took over the Liberal leadership and the premiership in March 2025, during a spell of economic strain following U.S. tariffs. He has since doubled down on his pitch to make Canada a “leading energy superpower.”

In June, he promised modern infrastructure and middle-class tax cuts, tied to faster “clean” investment. Yet his net-zero by 2050 promise has not shifted. At the Canada 2020 Net-Zero Leadership Summit in April, he said that 80 percent of current fossil reserves, including half of gas and one third of oil, must remain unexploited to meet Paris Agreement goals.

The line mirrors his 2021 book Value(s) and his pre-political advice to investors that new pipelines are a high-risk bet in a decarbonizing world.

For Western Canada, the signal feels blunt. There is no pressure release for the energy sector. Carney scrapped the consumer carbon tax in April, a nod to household costs, but kept the industrial carbon tax, emissions caps, and tanker limits that helped stall projects like Energy East and parts of Trans Mountain’s expansion

Carney and Net-Zero

In July, Ottawa pledged $200 million to Cedar LNG, a boost for liquefied natural gas exports, yet stopped short of backing a major oil line to the Pacific. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith praised the “highly likely” fast-track of such a pipeline, though skeptics call it window dressing. “

He is still for carbon taxes, because he is still for the net-zero agenda that requires taxing CO2 along with all other means to eliminate fossil fuels,” wrote energy commentator Alex Epstein.

The economic gap is stark. The oil sands hold about 166 billion barrels, more than most free-market peers, yet output sits at under 40 percent of U.S. production even with triple the reserves. Huge sums have headed south, drawn by quicker U.S. permits and lower costs. Many U.S. producers can profit at $44 a barrel, while Canadian projects face higher hurdles and longer timelines.

In September, Conservative MP Stephanie Kusie criticized Carney’s major projects office for omitting oil pipelines, saying it entrenches “Trudeau’s shipping ban, production cap, and industrial carbon tax.”

In Alberta, where oil and gas support between 10 and 20 percent of jobs, talk of independence flickers again. Carney acknowledged these frustrations in the National Post, offering only a loose promise of flexibility.

Carbon offsets sit at the heart of the fight. Carney has pushed offsets for years as a bridge to net zero. As UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance, he helped form the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, or GFANZ, rallying $130 trillion in assets to “science-based” targets.

Voluntary Carbon Market

He wants the voluntary carbon market to grow from roughly $300 million to $50 to $100 billion per year, funding reforestation and renewables in developing countries. At home, his platform backs a new consumer carbon credit market, tied to industrial pricing, to offer price certainty at no extra cost to households.

Offsets attract fierce claims of greenwashing. In 2021, Greenpeace and 350.org led an open letter with more than 90 groups, arguing that Carney’s plans give cover to ongoing fossil finance. Critics point to schemes where credits pay for projects that would occur anyway, or fail to deliver verifiable cuts.

Scandals in forest protection echo this pattern, allowing logging to continue while credits flow. A 2022 paper in Environmental Research Letters warned that developing current reserves alone would blow past the 1.5°C limit, branding offsets a delay tactic that avoids real cuts.

Activists disrupted Carney’s appearances at COP26, calling GFANZ “fundamentally flawed” for lacking firm rules on phasing out fossil fuels. His defence, which offsets drive “real” reductions, has not calmed the backlash.

Carney’s Net Zero Greenwashing

Personal ties sharpen the focus. Before politics, Carney held a senior role at Brookfield Asset Management, where he helped shape ESG strategies. Campaigners attacked Brookfield’s “net zero” claim across a $575 billion portfolio, which still held oil sands and coal.

Greenpeace highlighted billions in fossil assets offset by “avoided emissions” from renewables, a method Carney later discarded as unscientific. Brookfield assets now sit in a blind trust, yet doubts remain.

As Ottawa resists new Canadian pipelines, Brookfield has bought U.S. pipelines, lifting their value and, critics say, indirectly benefiting Carney. “Every time Canada kills a project, HIS asset value climbs,” wrote commentator Marc Nixon on X, calling it a historic conflict of interest.

The Financial Post’s Jamie Sarkonak called the offset push “the next Liberal boondoggle,” a market that could soak up public money and fail to cut emissions. On X, users echo the view. “Carney’s Net Zero greenwashing enriches elites while crushing Canada’s poor,” one post claimed, linking the policy to WEF aims. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has pressed Carney to approve an oil pipeline to calm Alberta’s anger. That approval has not come.

Defenders, including UN allies, hail Carney’s blend of finance and climate policy as a major commercial opening. Yet global clean energy investment has hit $16.7 trillion since 2015, with only a small dent in emissions.

The Fraser Institute warns that his route looks detached from market reality. With winter approaching and energy costs rising, Canadians face a clear choice. Is this a credible transition, or a costly theatre that props up a former banker’s bottom line?