The Better Ideas Show brought together more than three dozen guests during Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Canada Investment Summit to talk about nation-building projects that are practical, affordable, and ready to build the new climate economy that will diversify our trade and protect Canada’s sovereignty.

Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Canada’s Changing Climate Report for 2026, released two weeks ago, is a “chilling read” that should be on every policymaker’s reading list, Rick Smith, president of the Canadian Climate Institute (CCI), told The Energy Mix. It shows almost 3°C of future warming baked in across Canada, with the longer-term trend pointing toward 5°C across the country almost 10 °C of warming in Nunavut.

That degree of Arctic warming would be catastrophic and unimaginable, Smith said.

The Climate Institute tracks the real-world impact of this warming, also reporting late last week that Canada is more than 20 years behind its 2030 emissions target, with net-zero nowhere in sight. But Smith said the country can alter that trajectory with changes in policy—including some that are already under development.

The Institute will be watching for details on three recent promises from the Carney government that were not factored into its calculation of future warming: the National Electricity Strategy, the commitment to boost electric cars to 75% of new vehicle sales by 2035 and 90% by 2040, and the pledge to strengthen the country’s now-failing industrial carbon pricing regime.

Smith added that Canada is at serious risk of missing out on an accelerating shift to clean energy that has been sweeping the world, except for Canada and the United States. “Some days in North America, you’d think global interest in decarbonization is fading,” he said. “Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a weird North American bubble we live in.”