Why is Mark Carney undermining our environment?

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

​ Dr. Trevor Hancock

22 June 2026

700 words

I have noted several times recently in these columns that Mark Carney’s Mandate letter to his Cabinet a year ago does not identify the environment as one of the government’s seven priorities; indeed, the word ‘environment’ is not even mentioned. Now we can begin to see the consequences of this very deliberate omission.

Let’s start with climate change, which the World Health Organization (WHO) has recognised for some years as “the single biggest health threat facing humanity.” More recently, in May of this year, the Pan-European Commission on Climate and Health, convened by the  European Regional Director for the WHO, called climate change “a catastrophic threat to human health, security and social stability” and called on the WHO “to formally declare climate change as a public health emergency of international concern.”

That puts climate change in the same threat category as Covid, Ebola and other infectious disease outbreaks that WHO has declared a public health emergency. In fact, I would argue that it is a greater threat than any of these; as Carney himself said back in 2019, in his role as the UN special envoy for climate action, climate change is “the world’s greatest existential threat.”

So you would think he would act on that belief. But what has Carney actually done? A CBC News item on June 16th listed the following: “Eliminating the consumer carbon tax. Reversing the implementation of the oil and gas emissions cap.  Scrapping the electric vehicle sales mandate. Doubling down on fossil fuel subsidies for LNG and enhanced oil recovery. Charting plans to turn Canada into one of the largest suppliers of LNG in the world. Backing the construction of a potential bitumen pipeline to the West Coast.”

Small wonder that in November 2025 Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific project that tracks government climate action, “downgraded Canada’s overall rating to ‘Highly Insufficient’, primarily due to weakened policy ambition, slow implementation, and a widening gap between current emissions levels and Canada’s 2030 target” – and that was seven months ago!

Then in February the Canadian Climate Institute reported that Canada “is not on track to meet any of its climate goals, including its 2035 target and net zero emissions by 2050”. You can almost hear Steven Guilbeault, the former Environment and Climate Change Minister who quit Carney’s Cabinet, in his recent interview on CBC Radio’s The Current  (June 17th), wondering ‘Who is this man, and what have they done with Mark Carney?’

If it were only climate change, that would be enough to condemn Carney as a hypocrite. But it gets worse. The government just rushed through changes to Canada’s pesticide laws in an omnibus budget Bill that was only reviewed by the Finance Committees of the Commons and the Senate, not by Parliament’s health or environment Committees.

In a June 18th statement, a large number of major environmental and health organisations condemned the move because these “amendments grant cabinet broad authority to overrule the Health Minister and permit the use of any pesticide found to have unacceptable environmental risks.” As the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment noted, these amendments mean “Canada’s pesticide law will be based on financial considerations rather than health and the environment”, adding: “Science doesn’t disappear when it’s inconvenient; evidence of harm must outweigh short-term economic considerations.”

Then there are the Carney government’s moves to weaken key environmental standards under the Species at Risk Act and Impact Assessment Act. A June 3rd article in The Conversation by three leaders of the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution raises concerns that “the reforms proposed in ‘Getting Major Projects Built’” – a recently released federal government discussion paper – “could threaten natural environments, species-at-risk and human health for generations.”

So back to the question in my headline: Why is Mark Carney undermining our environment? I don’t know, but it seems to me he is acting just as you would expect if you elect a mainstream economist and central banker as Prime Minister. When push comes to shove, the economy matters and the environment loses. Yet as I noted in a recent column, when the environment loses, we all lose. That is a lesson Mark Carney seems not to have learned.

© Trevor Hancock, 2026

thancock@uvic.ca

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the

University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy

What part of ‘climate emergency’ do the feds not get?

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

Published in The Hill Times, 12 June 2026

Prime Minister Mark Carney needs to wake up to the climate emergency, and accept Canada’s obligation to reduce fossil fuel use and tackle global warming. 

Dr. Trevor Hancock

1 June 2026

700 words

On June 18th 2019 – almost exactly seven years ago – The House of Commons voted 186 to 63 in support of a motion put forward by Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna to declare a national climate emergency. Since 2019, the climate emergency has only worsened.

Globally, our emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases continue to increase. The International Energy Agency reported in its 2026 energy review that total energy-related CO2 emissions reached a new high in 2025. Unsurprisingly, this was matched by a “record atmospheric CO2 concentrations of about 427 parts-per-million (ppm) . . . around 50% above pre-industrial levels.”

Also unsurprisingly, global temperatures remain troublingly high. The World Meteorological Organization recently reported that “2025 was one of the three warmest years on record” (following the top two years of 2023 and 2024) and that “the past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record”, while “ocean heating continues unabated.”

A  commentary in One Earth in February 2026 by several leading Earth scientists states: “Earth’s climate is now departing from the stable conditions that supported human civilization for millennia” and asks “Are we now at risk of crossing planetary tipping points and triggering a hothouse Earth trajectory?”

In April the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Meteorological Organization reported that higher temperatures are pushing food systems to the brink. This results from a combination of stressed livestock, falling yields of crops, including staples such as maize and wheat, and ocean heatwaves killing fish. Moreover, high temperatures make it hard for farmers to work safely outdoors in many hot regions.

Then in May, the Pan-European Commission on Climate and Health, convened by the  European Regional Director of the World Health Organization (WHO), called climate change “a catastrophic threat to human health, security and social stability” and called on the WHO “to formally declare climate change as a public health emergency of international concern.”

Let’s be clear, declaring climate change as a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) puts it on the same threat level as Covid, Ebola and other infectious disease outbreaks that are so far the only basis on which WHO has declared a PHEIC. In fact, I would argue that it is a greater threat than any of these, because of its potential to undermine the security and stability of civilisation as a whole.

And what is Canada’s response to this climate emergency? You can almost hear the Carney government saying ‘climate emergency? What climate emergency?’ Much to the dismay of those fighting for climate action, who expected better of Mark Carney, the government has been undermining Canada’s increasingly dismal record on climate action.

Back in November 2025 the independent Climate Action Tracker’s latest report, “downgraded Canada’s overall rating to ‘Highly Insufficient,’ primarily due to weakened policy ambition, slow implementation, and a widening gap between current emissions levels and Canada’s 2030 target.”

And that was before Mr. Carney cosied up to Alberta, supporting expanded fossil fuel production and exports and lowering the industrial carbon price. Said former Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault in a recent interview with CTV: “By the end of the year analysis will show that Canada has one of the worst track records. I think we’ll go back to the back of the pack.”

Instead of his harmful effort to make Canada a conventional energy superpower, Mr. Carney should follow the recommendations of the Pan-European Commission, which called on heads of government to “to bring climate change to the agenda of national security councils or equivalent bodies, engaging all relevant ministries.”

He should also pay heed to the second recommendation to heads of government from the Commission: “to establish, within their ministries or cabinets, a sustainable mechanism with a specific mandate to support action on climate change and health.”

The government needs to walk its own talk. On May 21st, Canada was the co-sponsor of a UN resolution, adopted in a 141 – 8 vote, affirming the International Court of Justice’s July 2025 advice that states are obligated to reduce fossil fuel use and tackle global warming.

So wake up to the climate emergency, Mr. Carney, and accept Canada’s obligation to reduce fossil fuel use and tackle global warming.

© Trevor Hancock, 2026

thancock@uvic.ca

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the

University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy

Food for thought – and for the planet and our health

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

The modern industrial agri-food system not only fails to ensure food for all, it also delivers a diet that makes us sick and kills us early.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

25 May 2026

700 words

Food is a fundamental need: No food, no life. But in addition to having something to eat, food also must be nutritious and safe – it should not make us sick – and it has to be available to everyone.

Unfortunately, the modern industrial agri-food system not only fails to ensure food for all, it also delivers a diet that makes us sick and kills us early. Moreover, it produces food in ways that are enormously harmful to the planet. All this is documented in the October 2025 report of the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy, sustainable and just food systems.

The Commission was established in 2018 by The Lancet, one of the world’s leading medical journals, and EAT, a Norwegian science-based global platform for food system transformation. The Commission showed that our agri-food system is deeply implicated as a major contributor to the transgression of planetary boundaries for many of the nine Earth systems that are vital for life on Earth.

Their report states: “food is the single largest cause of planetary boundary transgressions, driving the transgression of five of the six breached boundaries.” (Since October 2025 it has been determined we have crossed a seventh boundary, ocean acidification, to which agriculture also contributes).

In terms of toxins, agriculture accounts for 85 – 90 percent of total pesticide use and 73 percent of total antimicrobial use, while it contributes around half to three-quarters of flows of nitrogen and phosphorus to surface waters, which cause algal blooms and dead zones. Agriculture is also responsible for two-thirds of all freshwater use, while “Unsustainable land conversion, particularly deforestation, remains a major driver of biodiversity loss and climate change.” In addition, agriculture contributes 30 percent of all human-generated CO2 emissions that cause global heating, and a quarter of the CO2 emissions that contribute to ocean acidification.

In addition to being a massive contributor to unsustainable ecological changes, our agri-food system is already suffering the consequences of those changes. Climate change alone is a major concern, as a recent joint Food and Agriculture Organization/ World Meteorological Organization report notes. The combination of rising temperatures and heatwaves, drought and water scarcity “represent a systemic risk to global food security and to the livelihoods of more than 1.23 billion people who rely on agriculture.”

Add to that the impacts on food supply and food quality of ocean acidification, algal blooms and dead zones due to nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, as well as widespread use of pesticides and antibiotics and food chain contamination with plastic nano-particles and it is clear that our current agri-food system is ecologically unsustainable.

Not only that, but this unsustainable system does not produce a healthy diet. On the contrary: “More than half of the world’s population struggles to access healthy diets, leading to devastating consequences for public health”, the Commission states.

But the good news is that a shift to a ‘Planetary Health Diet’ (PHD), as proposed by the EAT-Lancet Commission, can not only markedly improve the health of the population but can dramatically benefit the environment.

Derived solely on the basis of the evidence as to what constitutes a healthy diet, the PHD is “rich in plants: whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes comprise a large proportion of foods consumed, with only moderate or small amounts of fish, dairy, and meat recommended.” Such a diet, the Commission estimated, would avoid “an estimated 15 million deaths per year among adults (27% of total deaths) . . . globally” – and that is probably an underestimate.

Not included are the additional deaths and diseases caused by agriculture’s contribution to air pollution (about 650,000 deaths annually), climate change, use of pesticides, nitrogen pollution of water, antimicrobial resistance and pandemic risk.

Importantly, the Commission notes, producing such a diet through sustainable and ecological intensification of the food system reduces “agricultural land area, water

consumption, and nitrogen use, and substantially reduces greenhouse gas emissions”; pesticide and antibiotic use would also be markedly reduced.

It is time the federal and provincial Ministries of Agriculture and Food insist that our national and provincial agri-food systems focus on the Planetary Health Diet, on what is good for people and the planet, not just on profit and corporate power.

© Trevor Hancock, 2026

thancock@uvic.ca

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the

University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy