PINDER: Carney, a climate-warrior first and always

This is the second in a three-part series from Herb Pinder, offering the biographies of the two major party leaders, and the critical points of division between them. The first, dealing with Pierre Poilievre, appeared April 1st. View it at the link below..PINDER: Poilievre, committed to freedom, and families getting ahead.By any measure, Mark Carney's resume is impressive. Mostly from Wikipedia, he was born in 1965, the son of a high school principal. The family moved from the Northwest Territories to Edmonton where his father was a Liberal candidate in the 1980 Canadian federal election. His mother returned to university to pursue a career in education when Carney was 10. He has an older brother and sister and a younger brother.After high school he studied at Harvard University and was the backup goaltender for the hockey team. Following a bachelor’s degree in economics, he undertook postgraduate studies at Oxford where he received both a Masters and Doctor of Philosophy in Economics in 1993 and 1995 respectively. He focused on competitive advantage and competition.Following this education, Carney spent 13 years at Goldman Sachs, a prestigious investment banking and financial firm, in Boston, London, New York, Tokyo, and Toronto. From there he moved in 2003 to the Bank of Canada as Deputy Governor and soon moved to become Senior Associate Deputy Minister of the Department of Finance Canada..After being an advisor to outgoing Governor David Dodge, Carney became the Governor of the Bank of Canada on February 1, 2008, at the time of his appointment the youngest central bank governor among the G20 nations. A largely commendable performance resulted in him leaving in 2013, before his term expired, to become the Governor of the Bank of England. His impressive international stature grew and particularly, his sensitivity to the threats of global warming-cum-climate change, cum-climate crisis. He saw fit to warn about the ills of Brexit and weighed into the Scottish independence referendum, creating some controversy about the appropriate role of central bankers.He left the Bank in early 2020, coincident with the COVID-19 pandemic, with mixed reviews..Carney’s international stature is frightening for those who do not subscribe to his deeply progressive values. As he was stepping down from the Bank of England in 2019, Carney was appointed as United Nations Special Envoy for Climate Change. The role included finance advisor at the Conference of Parties (COP) 26 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. Along the way he endorsed climate crusader, and former cabinet minister, Catherine McKenna’s candidacy for Mayor of Ottawa in 2022, as well endorsing the Labour Party's shadow chancellor to be the next Chancellor of the Exchequer. (Both failed.)Among his many recent activities Carney was an informal advisor to Justin Trudeau, particularly with respect to the pandemic. He also became Vice Chairman of Brookfield Asset Management in October 2020 leading the firm’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment fund. Now based in New York (exposing Carney’s fib denying his non-involvement in the decision,) it has more than $1 trillion of assets under administration. His global climate change leadership continued, joining the Group of Thirty — an international body of leading financiers and academics which founded the World Economic Forum. He also helped launch the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) and, until recently, acted as Co-Chair. In 2023 he was named the Chair of Bloomberg, a large financial information firm also known for climate crisis leadership by its owner Michael Bloomberg, the high profile and wealthy progressive former Mayor of New York. .Back to Brookfield, it was revealed shortly after his appointment that it had solicited the federal government for $10 billion in funds as part of its $50 billion Canada-only asset fund. He has not disclosed this “standard ethical disclosure” because he was employed by the Liberal Party, not the PMO. Is non-disclosure appropriate for someone who wants a role that sets “tone from the top”?Recently he won the leadership election capturing almost 86% of the vote, becoming the leader of the Liberal Party and thus Prime Minister of Canada. His first step was to reduce ('pause') the consumer carbon tax to zero while emphasized the importance of maintaining carbon taxation at the industrial level. Somehow less visibility is acceptable, or is just more palatable? .A recent column in the National Post by Terry Newman raised the question — for whom does he act?With reference to GFANZ, the UN backed global coalition described above exists to accelerate the energy transition to Net Zero. Surely by now even the most strident environmentalists can see that the continued growth of all fossil fuels — wood, coal, oil, and natural gas — demonstrates the inaccuracy of the word TRANSITION. The so-called clean energy sources are not only a non-solution but require significant utilization of fossil fuels to mine, manufacture, transport, and install. At best, at least to date, a more accurate description is a meagre (thus far) but costly EVOLUTION.The column also points out that the Judiciary Committee of the House in Washington is describing GFANZ as a cartel which “forces companies to disclose their carbon emissions, reduce their carbon emissions, and enforce their disclosure and reduction commitments by handcuffing and restricting company management”. The Committee, controlled by Republicans, is concerned that collusion on decarbonization “necessarily causes reduced output and higher prices, including in the critical fossil fuels, aviation, and agricultural industries, posing a significant threat to the economy.”This has led to a restructuring of GFANZ, evolving to direct “capital towards investments in energy transition.” Its Net Zero Banking Alliance has suffered recent significant departures of important American and Canadian banks and many other significant institutions, including Carney's former employer, Goldman Sachs.While studying at Oxford, Carney met his spouse, Diana Fox; they have four children. She too is involved in environmental and social justice causes. Carney is in the process of renouncing his Irish and British citizenships. Obviously energetic and determined, Carney ran marathons in 2011 in Ottawa and 2015 in London. He is a practicing Catholic and was named the most influential Catholic in Britain in 2015.Part III, to be published April 3rd, will highlight the differences between the leaders, the consequences for Canada, and why this is an easy decision, either way.

PINDER: Carney, a climate-warrior first and always

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