Canada’s Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault said the world needs to collectively continue fighting climate change,┬аno matter what President Donald Trump does in his second term.
“It is deplorable,” Guilbeault told reporters of Trump’s inaugural promise to leave the Paris Agreement for a second time. “It is quite ironic that the president would do that as California goes through one of the worst forest fire seasons in its history.”
The United States is the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas polluter after China. In 2023, its emissions accounted for more than 11 per cent of the world’s total. Historically, the U.S. is the world’s biggest emitter.
The White House said Monday that Trump will withdraw the country from the Paris Agreement тАФ a global treaty where countries commit to protect the planet and people from the worst effects of climate change. Trump also withdrew the U.S. from the Paris deal during his first term, but the process took years and was immediately reversed by the Biden administration in 2021.
The decision would place the United States alongside Iran, Libya and Yemen as the only countries in the world outside the 2015 pact.
The Paris Agreement, which Canada ratified in 2016, commits countries to limit the global average temperature to less than┬а2 C above pre-industrial levels тАФ and pursue┬аefforts to limit increases to 1.5 C.
According to the UN, the world is on track for a temperature increase of 2.6-3.1 C over this century. To reach 1.5 C, emissions cuts of more than 40 per cent by 2030 and nearly 60 per cent by 2035 are needed.
In addition to withdrawing from the global climate treaty, Trump said he would revoke what he has called an electric vehicle mandate and other clean tech investments made by the outgoing Biden administration.
“With my actions today, we will end the Green New Deal and we will revoke the electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto industry and keeping my sacred pledge to our great American auto workers,” Trump said in his inauguration address.
“In other words, you’ll be able to buy the car of your choice.”
EV investments impacted
Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said this would have implications for Canada’s investments to boost electric-vehicle manufacturing and Canada’s mandate to phase out gas-powered cars by 2035.
“There is no question about that. And I think a lot of the auto makers are going to think about how that impacts some of their plans,” Wilkinson said.
“But I would also say that California continues to want to move forward. That is a huge market.тАж It may mean there is actually easier access to EVs for Canada and California than we had before.”
Wilkinson also said the government would need to see what the new administration puts forward.
Although Canada’s EV sales mandates were developed with some American collaboration, Guilbeault suggested Canada can still make progress.
“When we did our regulation, we did not do it to make sure that it would necessarily mirror what the U.S. were doing,” Guilbeault said. “Our regulation can continue even if the federal U.S. regulation doesn’t.”
One of the Liberal leadership front-runners, Mark Carney, spoke about the need for Canada to move ahead with climate policies even though the U.S. under the Trump administration might not.
“What we need to do is make sure that we’re addressing these issues, doing our bit, making our companies more competitive, because you know what’s gonna happen in the United States five years from now? You’re gonna care about it again,” Carney said last week.
“You’re going to have an election; you will care about it again.”
