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Canadians Rip Carney for 'Pouring Fuel on the Flames of the Climate Emergency' With Pipeline Push
"This country needs an alternative to the Liberal-Conservative consensus that is doubling down on a future of climate-wrecking corporate welfare," said New Democratic Party Leader Avi Lewis.
Jul 03, 2026
On the heels of young Canadians suing over Prime Minister Mark Carney’s climate "failure" and people across the country mobilizing to urge the government to "stop fast-tracking destruction," the Liberal leader on Thursday made a pair of fossil fuel-related announcements that sparked fresh anger.
Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith of the United Conservative Party announced that the province is partnering with the federally owned Trans Mountain Corporation and Calgary-based Pembina Pipeline Corporation for a proposed tar sands pipeline that would bring more oil to British Columbia's west coast.
"The proposed pipeline would generally follow the existing footprint of the federally owned Trans Mountain pipeline, running from Bruderheim, northeast of Edmonton, to the Roberts Bank export terminal in Delta, BC, south of Vancouver," the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported. "Smith said the project would send more than 1 million barrels to Asian markets every day, reducing Canada's reliance on the US."
"The Alberta government's submission to the federal government's Major Projects Office said the project would cost between $35.2 billion and $43.7 billion, including contingencies. Construction would start as early as 2027 and finish by 2034," CBC noted. "As for who foots the bill, Smith said detailed funding and the cost for taxpayers 'remains to be negotiated.'"
Sounding the alarm about the plans with a Friday blog post, 350 Canada country manager Atiya Jaffar wrote, "In other words, we can get ready to expect $35-100 billion of our taxpayer dollars wasted on building this dangerous pipe dream."
"Canada is headed in a dangerous direction. Expanding tar sands and the fracked gas industry is like pouring fuel on the flames of the climate emergency," she argued, urging Canadians to pressure their members of Parliament to sign what the advocacy group is calling a "People's MOU," a jab at the memorandum of understanding the federal and Alberta governments signed last year.
This week, heatwaves gripped communities across the country as we marked the 5 year anniversary of the 2021 Heat Dome. And yet, this is the week that Carney, Eby, and Danielle Smith teamed up to announce their plans to burn away our future! 350.org/west-coast-p...
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— 350 Canada (@350canada.bsky.social) July 3, 2026 at 2:44 PM
Smith and Carney's pipeline press conference came after shortly after the PM and BC Premier David Eby announced a "cooperative prosperity agreement" that the Wilderness Committee condemned as "an abandonment of both governments' efforts to fight climate change and protect the environment," given its provisions on the province's liquefied natural gas (LNG) and mining endeavors.
Although Eby, a member of the New Democratic Party (NDP), "has been a prominent critic of the Carney government's work with Alberta on pipeline plans," Politico reported Thursday, the provincial leader cut short a trip to Beijing, where he traveled to meet with PetroChina executives about LNG production, "to be at the prime minister's side" for the announcement.
Eby tried to stress that "this agreement doesn't require us to support any pipeline proposal from Alberta. However, as I've said before, we recognize our constitutional position, and we do not have the authority to stop a new pipeline. We will not be going to court to fight a pipeline project. Instead, we will ensure we fulfill our constitutional obligations in good faith."
"Pipelines are federal jurisdiction," he continued. "That's why this agreement matters. It ensures that the northern tanker ban stays in place, and it ensures that if a pipeline goes ahead, that British Columbians are fairly compensated for the environmental risks we would take on any new pipeline project."
Mark Carney, Danielle Smith and David Eby chose this record shattering #heatwave (which extends into Ontario & Quebec) as the backdrop for their plans to spend billions of dollars of our public $ to extract & export more fossil fuels. How do you feel about that? #cdnpoli #bcpoli #onpoli
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— Climate Justice Victoria (@climatejusticeyyj.bsky.social) July 3, 2026 at 12:01 PM
The Wilderness Committee's conservation and policy campaigner Lucero González responded, "Eby said he will ensure British Columbians are compensated for the environmental damage of another pipeline, but there is no compensation for the extinction of the southern resident orcas."
"How do you compensate for the unimaginable pain of an endangered orca like Tahlequah who has shown us her dead calves throughout the Salish Sea while each new megaproject continues to destroy their habitat?" González inquired.
Pointing to not only the potential increase in tanker traffic and oil spill risk but also the federal government's "proposed evisceration" of the Species at Risk Act, González declared that "Carney is showing us his enthusiastic willingness to accept and fund the extinction of endangered species and a future where oil and private profit are more valuable than the entire Salish Sea ecosystem.
As Politico highlighted, the prime minister's motivations for pushing the new pipeline include combating a separatist movement in one of the involved provinces:
The project is also aimed at easing separatist tensions in Alberta, where voters will decide in October if they want to hold a referendum to separate from Canada. Smith has blamed "10 years of bad Liberal policy" under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for fueling western alienation, pointing to climate rules and energy regulations she says hurt Alberta’s economy.
In a 17-minute video posted to his YouTube channel earlier this week, Carney acknowledged that his government’s energy policies will increase emissions. He argued that the climate policies championed by Trudeau had become a political wedge—and fodder for Alberta separatists.
Even before the video, advocacy organizations had partnered with a trio of young citizens in June to take legal action over the prime minister failing to bring Canada's 2030 emissions reduction plan into compliance with a key federal law.
Julia Levin of Environmental Defence, one of the groups behind the case, said last month that "PM Carney is betraying Canadians by taking a wrecking ball to our hard-fought climate progress. It is Canadians who are paying the price through wildfires, heat domes, rising food insecurity and high costs of living."
The pipeline announcement begins with Carney acknowledging, without a hint of irony, the “biblical weather” in Ottawa yesterday.Extreme weather huh? Like the kind exacerbated by climate change? You don’t say! Hm!!!!
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— Rachel Gilmore (@rachelgilmore.bsky.social) July 2, 2026 at 8:43 PM
The Wilderness Committee's associate director, Torrance Coste, similarly said Friday that "at a time when people across the country are suffering in extreme heat, wildfire evacuations, and devastating floods, pursuing the expansion of Canada's most polluting industry is utterly despicable."
"In the fight against climate change, Prime Minister Carney and Premier Eby are issuing their surrender, and resigning us to a future of ecological and economic decline," Coste added.
Stephen Harper's dream can finally be realized! And all it took was to screw over the next generations by destroying our climate and the livability of the planet.
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— Charles Latimer (@ch4rlie.bsky.social) July 3, 2026 at 2:52 PM
While Eby flew home to be by the prime minister's side for Thursday's first announcement, the NDP's recently elected national leader, Avi Lewis, delivered a scathing rebuke of a federal government that he said "will protect above all else: the profits of Big Oil."
"As we mark the five-year anniversary of a heat dome that killed 619 people in British Columbia—and as many communities across the country are facing extreme weather right now—Canadians deserve leadership that protects us," Lewis argued on social media. "Instead, this government is doubling down on yesterday's failed solutions and dragging us into further danger, risk, and insecurity."
The pipeline's "opaque and confusing public-private partnership ownership structure means it's very likely that we, the public, will not only bear the risks and the damages, but also the lion's share of the costs," he warned. "Canada's New Democrats unequivocally oppose this pipeline proposal. If anything, this is a pipeline to the courts. It ignores the federal government's legal responsibility to meaningfully consult Indigenous nations, including Treaty 8 nations in Alberta, threatens endangered species, and accelerates climate change. It will sow the very divisions the prime minister claims he wants to avoid."
"We do not achieve unity or prosperity from projects that pit communities against one another, all while a handful of oil and gas CEOs walk away with enormous profits," he continued. "While we're stuck fighting yesterday's battles over pipelines, and the prime minister openly admits that our emissions will rise, the rest of the world is racing ahead on renewables. We cannot afford to fall behind while other countries build the industries of the future. "
According to the NDP leader: "Canadians deserve better than being told our only choice is another fight over another pipeline. This country needs an alternative to the Liberal-Conservative consensus that is doubling down on a future of climate-wrecking corporate welfare."
"New Democrats are ready to build something bigger, safer, and better—a Canada that is a renewable energy superpower, with an east-west clean electricity grid and good green jobs in every region," he concluded. "Lower costs for families with home retrofits and heat pumps for all. Investing in the care economy as a nation-building project. That's what it looks like to build big things that actually unite this country."
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$1.1 Trillion Big Oil Subsidies Spark Fresh Calls for Windfall Tax on Profits From Trump's Iran War
"The $1.1 trillion that governments are pouring into fossil fuel subsidies this year is not a safety net, it is a ransom payment."
Jul 01, 2026
With the US and Iranian governments engaged in 60 days of peace talks, the United Nations' latest projections about the illegal war's impact on fossil fuel subsidies this week triggered new demands for taxing the windfall profits of climate-wrecking Big Oil.
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) on Monday released "Military Escalation in the Middle East: Cushioning the Global Shock," a report detailing how governments have navigated the "most severe oil supply shock in history," caused by Iran limiting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz in response to the Trump administration and Israel's unlawful assault.
As fossil fuel prices have soared worldwide, the report states, "governments have moved quickly to cushion households and firms from higher energy prices through fuel subsidies, tax cuts, price caps, strategic stock releases, emergency procurement, export restrictions, demand-management measures, and fuel switching."
"While energy subsidies had fallen by roughly half in 2024 as energy markets stabilized, the downward trajectory has sharply reversed," the document notes. "We estimate that global fossil fuel subsidies are currently on track to reach $1.1 trillion in 2026 and could reach as high as $1.43 trillion in a severe scenario where the average oil price reaches $110/barrel... This represents an estimated $410-$740 billion increase from 2025."
UNDP Administrator Alexander De Croo said in a statement that "the global spillover of the Middle East conflict is profound and potentially long-lasting. Developing countries, many already struggling with debt, have temporarily managed to protect people from the worst of the energy shock."
"These countries are doing everything they can, but there is a hidden cost," he stressed. "To deal with today's crisis, governments are postponing tomorrow's investments. Money that should be building schools, hospitals, and clean energy systems is being used simply to keep economies afloat. Without international support, these countries won’t escape the shock. They are absorbing it at the expense of future growth."
"No country should have to sacrifice its future development to manage a crisis it did not create," De Croo argued. "First, we must unlock multilateral liquidity in ways that are easy to access for low- and middle-income countries. Second, we must accelerate investment in renewable energy. Every clean energy investment reduces exposure to future shocks. The crisis has made one thing clear: Energy security and the energy transition are no longer separate agendas. They are one and the same."
In addition to reiterating calls for a just transition to clean energy, the advocacy group 350.org has repeatedly advocated for a windfall profits tax targeting oil and gas giants cashing in on the conflict in the Middle East. Executive director Anne Jellema pushed for such policies again on Wednesday, noting the new UNDP numbers.
"The $1.1 trillion that governments are pouring into fossil fuel subsidies this year is not a safety net, it is a ransom payment," Jellema declared. "Every dollar spent shielding the fossil fuel industry from the consequences of its own price volatility is a dollar not spent on the clean energy systems that can bring costs down for good."
"We need a phaseout to end public subsidies for fossil fuel companies, and a permanent windfall tax on fossil fuel profits," she continued. "Not a one-off levy, but a permanent, legislated mechanism that redirects the extraordinary profits of an industry driving this crisis into the just transition every country needs. That means affordable clean energy, retrofitted homes, and funding to protect people from the extreme weather unleashed by fossil pollution."
In the United States, where President Donald Trump's war has cost Americans tens of billions of dollars at the pump, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) reintroduced the Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act in March, just weeks into the war.
Backing the bill, Food & Water Watch managing director of policy and litigation Mitch Jones said at the time that "historical evidence could not be any clearer: Big Oil will undoubtedly leverage the current crisis in the Middle East to maximize profit margins, pinching American families and enriching their executives and Wall Street speculators."
"This demands a policy response—namely, a windfall profits tax... which would recover much of these egregious, opportunistic gains and return them to everyday Americans," Jones added. "Fossil fuel companies must be held accountable for the profiteering they are orchestrating as we speak."
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Defense Contractors and Big Oil Were the Iran War's Biggest Winners
The war’s biggest losers in the United States were motorists, frequent flyers, farmers, and grocery shoppers. In other words, just about everybody besides oil and defense companies and their shareholders.
Jun 27, 2026
Now that the United States and Iran have signed a nonbinding memorandum of understanding ending their war—at least for now—the general public and pundits have been weighing in on who won.
A CBS-YouGov survey released Sunday found that 37% of Americans think the memorandum of understanding (MOU) favors Iran, while 22% believe the United States got the better deal. Nearly half—47%—say both sides broke even.
Newsweek, meanwhile, queried 10 military experts ranging from a former US Navy admiral and a former Pentagon official to five think tank scholars and two professors of international relations. Seven said Iran won the war. Two said “no one.” Only one thought the United States came out on top, but added, “Neither side will gain a complete victory.”
It remains to be seen how things ultimately shake out with the US-Iranian negotiations, but at this point it is clear that two industries won hands down: defense contractors and oil companies. Both profited enormously from the war.
About 20% of the world’s oil and gas is shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, and after Iran shut it down, oil companies roughly doubled the price per barrel.
It’s also clear that the war’s biggest losers in the United States were motorists, frequent flyers, farmers, and grocery shoppers. In other words, just about everybody besides oil and defense companies and their shareholders.
The Big Winners
Defense contractors: There are various estimates of how much the conflict has cost the Defense Department thus far. On May 12, the Pentagon comptroller told Congress that the Pentagon had spent $29 billion in operational costs, but he conceded that the estimate did not include the cost to repair US bases in the Middle East that Iran damaged. According to a more recent analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, DC-based think tank, the war has cost closer to $40 billion, including the cost of munitions, destroyed equipment, and base damage. Recently the White House asked Congress for $87.6 billion in supplemental spending, mainly to pay for the Iran war.
Munitions have been the Pentagon’s largest expenditure, and defense contractors, notably Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, are cashing in.
In late March, The Washington Post reported that the US Navy launched more than 850 Tomahawk missiles in the first four weeks of the conflict. The Pentagon paid Raytheon (a division of RTX) about $2.2 million for each, or a total of roughly $1.87 billion. In April, the Navy’s fiscal year 2027 budget request asked Congress for $3 billion for 785 additional Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, a more than 1,200% increase from the 55 TLAMs Congress funded for $258 million in FY 2026.
The Post also reported that US military fired more than 1,000 air-defense interceptors, including Lockheed Martin’s Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missiles, in response to Iranian counterattacks across the region. Each THAAD interceptor missile costs about $12.7 million, while each Patriot interceptor costs about $3.7 million.
This week, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency awarded Lockheed Martin a $35.3 billion contract to produce THAAD interceptors through June 2032 and asked the company to triple its production of Patriot interceptors. It also inked a $398.7 million contract with Raytheon for Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles.
Oil companies: The war has been a bonanza for oil companies. About 20% of the world’s oil and gas is shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, and after Iran shut it down, oil companies roughly doubled the price per barrel.
ConocoPhillips posted $2.2 billion in profits in the first quarter of 2026, up 84% from the $1.4 billion the previous quarter. BP, meanwhile, reported a $3.8 billion profit for the first quarter compared with a $3.4 billion loss in the fourth quarter of 2025.
ExxonMobil and Chevron had lower profits during the first three months of the year than in the previous quarter, but analysts expect a quick turnaround if higher prices persist. The bets are on ExxonMobil’s second-quarter earnings to more than double last year’s level and for full-year earnings to jump 46%, while Chevron’s full-year profits are predicted to rise by 56%.
The Big Losers
Inflation jumped in May for a third consecutive month as the Iran war continued to drive up prices, surpassing 4% for the first time in three years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported earlier this month. Higher prices hit everyone, but especially low- and middle-income Americans. The biggest domestic losers include:
Motorists: Moody’s Analytics, a global financial research firm, estimates that the war has thus far cost Americans $132 billion, and a big chunk of that was due to inflated prices at the pump. Gasoline prices, which averaged just under $3 a gallon when the war began in late February, jumped as high as $4.56 a gallon after Iran cut off the Strait of Hormuz, according to AAA. A gallon of regular gasoline averaged $3.999 last Thursday, the first time since late March that prices were that low. This week, the average price per gallon dipped to $3.928, but gas is 25% more expensive than it was last year at this time and motorists are paying about $1 more per gallon for regular than before the war.
In 2025, US motorists consumed about 374.05 million gallons of gasoline daily, according to the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration. So, at the peak during the war, they paid more than half a billion dollars a day in higher prices. Although prices have dropped since then, that $1 more per gallon for regular motorists are now paying translates into $374 million a day in higher costs.
Likewise, diesel fuel prices increased from $3.76 a gallon just before the war to a peak of $5.69 in early April, according to AAA, raising costs for all goods shipped by train or truck.
Frequent flyers: News of the US-Iran peace deal drove jet fuel spot prices down sharply, from $4.88 a gallon to $2.85. That drop could cut the US airline industry’s annual fuel bill by more than $40 billion, according to the trade publication Oil Price, but “unlike previous oil price downcycles, airlines are unlikely to pass on these cost savings to passengers in the form of lower air fares.” Jet fuel prices jumped three times faster than ticket prices between January and May, Oil Price explained, which cost airlines $100 billion when oil prices spiked during the war, so they likely will apply the windfall to shore up their balance sheets. Lack of competition and tight airport capacity will also be factors.
In other words, airfares are not going to come down to Earth anytime soon. According to Kayak, the average cost of a domestic ticket was $290 in January. That same fare has since climbed to $370.
Farmers: American farmers, still reeling from Donald Trump’s tariffs, have been particularly hurt by the war. Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz drove up the price of farm diesel 46% by mid-April, raising expenses at nearly every stage of farm production. And because a significant percentage of nitrogen-based fertilizers urea and ammonia is produced in the Persian Gulf region, the blockade also disrupted the global fertilizer market, boosting fertilizer prices in the United States by as much as 47%. A nationwide survey conducted in early April by the American Farm Bureau found that roughly 70% of farmers reported that they could not afford to buy all the fertilizer they needed for spring planting. Although fertilizer prices are now lower than they were in April, they are still higher than they were a year ago. Urea, for example, is 16% higher, while anhydrous ammonia is 41% higher.
Grocery shoppers: Higher costs for farmers, as well as higher fuel costs for truckers, mean higher prices at the grocery store. The Independent Grocers Alliance, a coalition of 7,500 supermarkets around the world, calculates that for some food products “fuel-related costs can account for roughly 15-30% of the total cost,” which, on a sustained basis, “can result in a 2-4% increase in retail food prices.” Meanwhile, the US Department of Agriculture expects grocery prices to rise 3.2% this year, more than the historical average of 2.6%.
High Prices Aren’t Going Away Anytime Soon
Experts warn that high prices will continue long after the war is finally over.
“Product prices across the United States are projected to keep climbing for the rest of 2026,” Pat Penfield, a professor of supply chain practice at Syracuse University, told The Associated Press.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, is equally pessimistic. “I think under the most likely scenarios for how things unfold,” he told ABC News, “I’d buckle up.” Inflation worsened by the Iran war will likely linger for the next six to 12 months.
Wasn’t Donald Trump supposed to be the panacea? When he ran for president for a second term, he promised voters he would curb inflation, bring down prices, and end wars, not start them. He has failed on all counts.
Even if the Strait of Hormuz reopens to traffic soon, Zandi said prices will not come down immediately. “It takes time for the higher costs [manufacturers and suppliers] are facing to be incorporated into the prices they charge and actually pass along to their customers, to you and I as consumers,” he said, adding that high energy prices due to the war have cost the typical US household nearly $600 in additional expenditures since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on February 28.
“The cost, particularly for lower-middle-income households, is real money; it matters,” Zandi said. “For many of these households, there’s no easy solution here. There’s no panacea.”
But wasn’t Donald Trump supposed to be the panacea? When he ran for president for a second term, he promised voters he would curb inflation, bring down prices, and end wars, not start them. He has failed on all counts.
Trump likes to think of himself as historically consequential as Napoleon. He even wants to construct an arch modeled after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. But his “little excursion” in Iran just may prove to be his Waterloo, and Napoleon didn’t build an arch celebrating that.
This article first appeared at the Money Trail blog and is reposted here at Common Dreams with permission.
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