NAVARRO-GENIE: Carney's net-zero dream is dead

Marco Navarro-Genie is the vice president of research at the Frontier Centre for Public PolicyAs Mark Carney’s political star rises among Canada’s Liberals, the technocratic climate project he championed is collapsing under its own weight. Many Liberals and legacy media figures portray Carney as the saviour of their battered brand yet deliberately ignore the wreckage of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, or GFANZ, the global financial coalition he spearheaded.The Liberals see the fractures in Carney’s climate ideology, their own ideology and GFANZ itself. But acknowledging this unravelling would threaten their narrative and Carney’s political viability. For them, it’s not about effective governance or even planetary stewardship — it’s about clinging to power a little longer.When Carney founded GFANZ in 2021, the goal was ambitiousTransform financial institutions into climate enforcers, ensuring capital flowed only to net-zero-aligned projects. Use regulations and incentives to divert investment from fossil fuels. Enshrine climate risk as financial risk, embedding a green ideological worldview into global finance..At the centre stood net zero — eliminating or offsetting carbon emissions by 2050. On paper, it seemed like a pragmatic climate strategy. In practice, it became a vehicle for bureaucratic overreach, de-industrialization and wealth redistribution disguised as environmental responsibility.Financial institutions under net-zero commitments faced pressure to divest from fossil fuels, even in energy-dependent economies like Canada. GFANZ sought to use financial capital as a compliance tool, cutting off funding to industries deemed “dirty” while steering investment toward government-backed green projects, many of which were financially unviable without heavy subsidies.This approach wasn’t about environmental stewardship but about centralized economic control. It fit Carney’s worldview, blending technocracy, state intervention and climate moralism into a governance model with little room for free markets or democratic debate. It certainly left no room for Alberta’s hydrocarbon industry..Carney’s ideology is monistic: climate change is the overriding issue of our time, trumping economic growth, national security, sovereignty and individual freedoms.His book Value(s) advocates reshaping economies around climate priorities, urging policymakers to use finance as a tool for top-down enforcement.Liberals have embraced Carney as the perfect spokesperson for state intervention under the guise of climate urgency. But while they cling to this ideology, reality moves swiftly on.The wheels of GFANZ are coming off. In 2021, it claimed a monumental achievement — more than $130 trillion in private capital committed to net zero. By 2025, the alliance is collapsing. JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs have exited, citing legal risks, financial instability and political pushback..Initially, financial institutions engaged in climate virtue-signalling, assuming net-zero alignment would yield public relations benefits and government incentives. But as compliance costs soared and political resistance hardened — particularly in the United States — these firms found themselves trapped in a restrictive framework that undermined operational freedom.What began as corporate virtue-signalling became financial and political liabilities. Rather than reshaping global finance, Carney now watches his creation collapse as institutions prioritize fiduciary duty over climate dogma.Canada’s Liberals know GFANZ is unravelling but refuse to acknowledge it. Their political survival depends on maintaining the illusion that Carney’s climate-control agenda remains viable.This denial exposes a pattern in Liberal strategy: they are not unaware of failure; they simply ignore it to buy time. They hope voters won’t notice..Yet voters are paying attention. They see the economic struggles, the affordability crisis and the role government overreach plays. They know green mandates aren’t improving life — often, they’re making it worse and more expensive.This sets the stage for a major political clash. Carney, the Liberals and progressives from the Bloc Québécois, Greens and NDP remain committed to the climate-first, state-controlled economic model now being abandoned worldwide. In contrast, Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives offer an alternative grounded in economic realism, market-driven solutions, energy security and prosperity.Voters face a critical choice: continue down a path from which the world is retreating or shift toward a more pragmatic future.GFANZ’s collapse is a lesson in hubris. Centralized climate-control schemes—like other centralized schemes before them—are inherently flawed. The question is whether progressives will recognize this truth or double down on Carney’s fading vision, locking Canada into an economically restrictive and globally uncompetitive future. With an election on the horizon, this is the crucial question.Marco Navarro-Genie is the vice president of research at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. With Barry Cooper, he is co-author of Canada’s COVID: The Story of a Pandemic Moral Panic (2023.)

NAVARRO-GENIE: Carney's net-zero dream is dead

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