This story is part of a selection of our top news from 2025 that we’re republishing during the holiday break. We’ll be back to our regular schedule in the new year.
Previously posted: June 4, 2025
Prime Minister Mark Carney stood accused of peddling embarrassing misinformation after he declared his government’s definition of “nation-building” projects might include “decarbonized” oil.
During their meeting in Saskatoon on Monday, Carney and provincial/territorial premiers began work on a list of natural resource and infrastructure megaprojects that might be subject to a fast-tracked review process that is raising alarm among many First Nations and in the environmental assessment community. Carney said the group would refine what should count as priority projects over the summer months, adding that as “private proponents become aware of the opportunity here, we’re going to see more projects coming forward.”
At a closing news conference after the meeting, Carney listed several projects that might make the first ministers’ priority list, including the deeply troubled Pathways Alliance carbon capture and storage hub and an oil pipeline to the northwest coast. In his statement, he said “decarbonized” barrels of oil would be “within the broader context of national interest.”
“Yes, there’s real potential there,” he told media. “It took up a good deal of our time in discussions with potential to move forward on that. If further developed, the federal government will look to advance it.”
That drew an immediate response from University of British Columbia climate scientist Simon Donner, then-co-chair of the federal Net Zero Advisory Body, who told the Toronto Star it’s misleading to suggest fossil fuels can be burned without emitting the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change.
“There is no such thing as decarbonized oil and gas,” Donner said. “Oil contains carbon. It is high school chemistry. And [it emits] carbon dioxide when they’re used.”
Donner added: “The government is going to embarrass itself by using such industry and marketing speak.”
Adam Scott, executive director of Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planetary Health, said it fell to Donner to “state the obvious in response to misinformation” from the Prime Minister. “Nothing about this fact-check is political. It’s just a basic statement of reality,” Scott wrote on LinkedIn.
“No matter how much anyone wants it, it’s simply not possible to ‘decarbonize’ literal chains of hydrocarbons produced and sold for combustion,” he added. “Bolting carbon capture projects to oil and gas production projects can’t remove the imperative to phase them out of our energy system in order to stabilize our climate. Building new oil and gas pipelines directly undermines climate commitments and blocks our path to addressing the crisis. New export pipelines either lock in higher climate-wrecking emissions, or quickly become stranded assets. No amount of political context changes this.”
Janetta McKenzie, director of oil and gas at the Calgary-based Pembina Institute, noted that climate pollution from oil and gas production increased 70% between 2005 and 2023, while most of the rest of the economy began cutting emissions. In March, the latest federal emissions inventory put the increase for oil sands at 143%.
“With questions about when the Pathways project could come online, McKenzie said policies like carbon pricing and regulations to limit emissions are needed if high levels of production can continue without blowing Canada’s effort to hit its emissions targets over the next decade,” the Star writes.
