Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pitches the country as a leader on climate and says it is on track to reduce emissions 45% by 2030. The reality is different. Canada has the second highest per-capita CO2 emissions in the G-20, its oil industry is booming, and its emissions remain persistently high. On this week’s episode of Zero, Trudeau joins Zero host Akshat Rathi to discuss when Canada’s emissions will start to fall for real, and how it can achieve its climate pledges when its economy and politics remain so tied to oil and gas.
This conversation was recorded live at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa at an event hosted by the Canadian Climate Institute and the Net Zero Advisory Body.
Read a full transcript of this episode, here.
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net.
For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green
Welcome to zero. I'm Ashati this week a man her plan Canada. On Tuesday, I was invited to interview the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, at an event organized by the Canadian Climate Institute and the Net Zero Advisory Body. Trudeau was elected in twenty fifteen, just before the Paris Agreement was signed. He's been in office for seven years and has won three election on a climate mandate against a climate skeptic Conservative party. It's still a very real political debate in this country. There are still people who are hellbent on reversing our approach on fighting climate change and repealing a price on pollution, a price on pollution that history is relying on to track their costs. It is not a done debate. Trudeau pitches Canada as a climate leader, one that has installed a series of bold climate targets and policies in recent years, but a quick scan of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions tells a different story, one of little actual progress. Canada has the second highest per capita's CEO TOO emissions in the G twenty and its emissions remain persistently high at COP twenty six in Glasgow last year Trudeau promised Canada would reduce its emissions by forty five percent by twenty thirty. Meanwhile, Canada's oil and gas production has soured and according to the government's plans, will keep rising to the end of this decade. Twenty thirty is only eight years away, and I really wanted to understand from the Prime Minister when the country's emissions will fall for Rio. Our conversation was recorded live in front of an audience at the National Arts Center in downtown Ottawa. Focuses on how Canada can achieve its climate pledges this decade when it's economy and politics remains so tigh to all in gas. No, thank you Prime Minister for making the time. This is my first time in North America at this time, and the colors are beautiful, so thank you for putting on a show as well. Yes, like the environment is federal responsibility, particularly these days in Canada, so we're glad to put on a proper show. Now, you guys got that. That's good. So in preparation for this interview, we asked a lot of people to send in questions and we're gonna try and get through as many of them as possible and So let's start. Under your watch, Canada's economy has grown eight percent and emissions have largely remained flat. That seems like good news. But if you compare yourself to any other G seven nation, they have grown their economy and reduced emissions at the same time, why have you failed. I'm going to start off with the good questions. Then I think there's a few things to understand about Canada. We are a country of natural resources. We are a significant producer of fossil fuels. We've been that way for a long time and that has been one of the reasons why success of governments. And we're also a big country, a cold country that has real challenges around adapting to the transforming energy mix that we're facing. But Canadians also know how important it is to prepare for things that are coming, and we know preparing for winter. We know that as the world is changing, as the climate is shifting, we need to prepare for it and we need to figure out how to lead our way through it. And unfortunately, over many decades, different parties put forward, including my own party, put forward plans on fighting climate change or targets around fighting climate change. It didn't relate necessarily to concrete plans. So in twenty fifteen we decide to turn that around and we put forward not just targets, but a plan to reach those targets that included for the first time, a broad based price on pollution that continues to be one of the strongest in the world and is going to continue to increase all the way to twenty thirty. Now, as people know, having that take place is first of all, a political challenge and a challenge in sending the right signals into the economy, and it's taking a while, but I can say that we are now on a track to reach forty to forty five percent reduction by twenty thirty, and we're going to be hitting that net zero by twenty fifty. And we're going to do it not just because it's the right thing to do for the planet, but because we know, as everyone in this room knows, that's the competitive advantage, that's the ability for us to create good jobs and a strong future for all Canadians. Doing that has required a lot of heavy lifting over the past seven years. Quite frankly, we spend a lot of time talking about the imperative of fighting climate change, the challenge fighting climate change, and it is only more recently that the opportunities we talked about that would come seven years ago, we're starting to see as the world is shifting in a much stronger way, as if positive feedback loops are kicking in, as people are realizing, investors around the world and citizens are realizing, both with the example of extreme weather events but also the examples of good jobs and solid investments in forward facing industries, that that shift is here and it's coming. So there's always more work to do. What we're serious about decarbonizing our energy mix. We're serious about reaching net zero and we have concrete plans to do that. And Cambon pricing is certainly a challenging policy to pull off, especially at a federal level, and there's no doubt that you've been able to pull it off in a way that's starting to work. But if you look at a comment from Jerry the Marco, Canada's Commissioner off the Environment and Sustainable Development, who said last year and I quote, Canada was once a leader and fighting climate change. However, after a series of missed opportunities, it has become the worst performer of G seven nations since the Paris Agreement. Of course, you were elected just before the Paris Agreement. Now you are legally bound to reach forty five percent reduction by twenty thirty. In what year will Canada's emissions start to fall at the pace required for your plan? We have already seen a bending of the curve of missions. We're already seeing the kinds of investments that are going to get us to forty to forty five percent reduced. We have a path to doing that, and that's what we needed to get to, because it's not just about preparing and bringing in the price on pollution and sending the supports to Canadians that let us do because quite frankly, you sort of glossed over a little bit the challenges are bringing in a price on pollution. Bringing in a broad based price on pollution was a massive challenge, and quite frank we're now leading at top twenty seven, sorry, top twenty six. In Glasgow. We were pushing the Global Carbon Pricing Initiative, which is trying to get sixty percent of global emissions under a price on pollution. We're a long way from that. And no matter how many times I go around and saying, look, you can do it. I won two reelections on putting a broad based price on pollution. People still think that it's a real challenge, and unfortunately, people who are small c conservative market based people are the ones who thought up the idea of putting a price on pollution including externalities. Unfortunately, it tends to be conservative politicians that are most resistant to this straightforward mechanism, looking instead of bringing in heavy regulations or doing other way, trying to do other ways around it, when a price on pollution is the cleanest way to do it. What we chose to do though, was ensure that that price on pollution actually returns to the average family more money than they can be expected to spend with the cost of that price on pollution. And that combines both support to families as we're fighting climate change and clear signals to investors and to businesses that things are going in that direction. Just on Wednesday, I was at one of Canada's largest steel manufacturing plants, our Slomitals to Fasco in Hamilton, and they're making it. They made a four hundred million dollar investment in a billion dollar project last year to get off coal fired thermal steel and move onto carbon electric. Makes sense in Canada because our grid is already eighty percent and anomitting, so they're moving that. It's great for competitiveness. But what I also highlighted was that price on pollution was going to be hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties for them by twenty thirty. And knowing that they could make this investment and massively reduce the cost of producing their steels otherwise was a big incentive. And making sure we're laying out those incentives for people to move forward on the right way is what's sending that signal to investors that we're seeing now all over the world saying Okay, Canada is not just getting it, but they're actually giving us the rationale and the supports to do it. The total cost of the plant Trudo is talking about is actually one point eight billion dollars. The government's grant of four hundred million dollars allows steel giant Arcellar Methal to convert a steel plant that uses coal and iron ore to one that uses crap metal, electricity and natural gas instead. This transformation will cut some emissions and readiate for a net zero future where natural gas can be replaced by hydrogen. But while Trudeau says that the price and pollution was the reason to do it, government advises also say that without this subsidy, the plant would have shut down and thousands of jobs would have been lost. So when we talk about the path we have to hitting our targets of twenty thirty and moving on towards net zero and fifty, it's not just politicians talking. It's actual investments, it's actual deliverables. It's actually showing that we have this path that is no longer a political debate in this country. I mean, let's be clear, there are still people who are trying to debate it, and the new leader of the Conservative Party is doubling down on saying that the price on pollution is the wrong way to go. They don't have an alternative. But the fact is, in the last three elections, a majority of Canadians voted for parties that talked about putting a price and keeping a price on pollution. That ship has sailed. Let's try and touch on other policies beyond cambon pricing. Another stat for you, Canada has the second highest per capita emissions in the G twenty, after Saudi Arabia. But ahead of Australia and the two Canadian provinces that matter most when it comes to missions is Ontario and emissions are falling, and Alberta, where emissions are rising really rapidly. Now, Alberta has a new premier and let's just say she doesn't like your climate policies. So what specifically are you doing to work with her government to address the emissions problem. It's interesting because you see a position in which conservative politicians in Canada are actually distancing themselves from the positions of the industries they're supposed to protect. The oil and gas industry in Canada has made very strong declarations about needing to get to net zero by twenty fifty, have made massive investments in decarbonization, and quite frankly, if people are concerned about as we all should be about not just the well being of those companies, those big investors in multi nationals, but of the workers in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Labrador and another energy producing areas, we should be making sure that we're investing in the kinds of jobs that are going to be there for the future. We know that the skills involved in building an oil pipeline or a natural gas refining plant. Are the same kinds of skills, construction skills and operating skills that you use to run a hydrogen plant, to run a CCUS mechanisms. The kinds of jobs that will be there in the greener economy are going to be there for Alberton's But there is a political impediment for conservative politicians in Canada who've spent a lot of time denying the climate change Israel as an imperative, are trying to pretend that we can go back to the way things used to be, that the world is not changing, despite the floods and forest fires and tornadoes and locusts and frogs and all the other plagues that seem to be coming at us in extreme weather events. The fact is the world is changing. Alberton families get that. Unfortunately, their politicians are not on their side right now, and that's where when we're drawing in investments into clean hydrogen, we're putting forward massive tax credits to put research into CCUS, which is going to be an important part of the solutions, as the IEA has highlighted. The IA, or the International Energy Agency, is an inter governmental body that reports on energy production and used globally. And what it has highlighted is the need for Canada to invest in CCUS, which stands for carbon capture, use and storage. It involves capturing carbon dioxide from industrial sectors and steering it so it doesn't go into the atmosphere. As we continue to prepare for the transition towards decarbonizing, so that the low car and barrels can come from Alberta can come from Canada. This is how we're going to ensure jobs for the future, not by hiding our heads in the sand and ignoring the fact that the world is decarbonizing, that investors are looking for people with a plan, looking for countries that are on track to actually create those solutions. It will be useful not just here but everywhere around the world. So listen, Alberta politicians will continue to say what they say, what Alberton's are actually saying, what industry leaders are actually saying, is how do we manage this together? How do we get the pace right so we can decarbonize quickly while still being there to provide the very real short term energy needs that quite frankly, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the global instability is going to require in the short term even as we accelerate the transformation of our energy mix, so build the Russian war and Ukraine delay Nada's energy transition. No, it's accelerating it. It is absolutely accelerating. As people are saying, wow, we built an economic model and a prosperity in some parts of the room floating in Europe that was reliant on energy inputs from Russia. As they have to get off of that, people are realizing, Okay, getting off Russian and oil and gas means getting onto more oil and gas to replace that from elsewhere. But it's also showing okay, but we need to accelerate our moves off of oil and gas, or our moves to decarbonize the gas at least so that we can actually not be reliant on Russia, but more than that, not be reliant as democracies on autocracies. I mean, we spent a lot of time since the beginning of the war in Ukraine pointing out that democracies with freedoms rights, with thoughtful capitalist models are the best solution for people around the world. And yes, you should all become democracies, except we're sort of avoiding the fact that underpinning those democracies is a reliance on cheap energy and cheap raw material inputs from countries that do not share our values or our approach. Forget on democracy, on things like human rights, on environmental responsibility, on sustainability, on labor standards. So we can actually make a case that democracy is better for the world, that our Western civilization in all its forms, is better if it's reliant on authoritarian dictatorships. So that's where Canada comes in, right, Yeah, where we actually have the kinds of resources that you'll find in a Russia or a China. But we have labor standards, we have environmental standards, we have democracy, we have human rights. We recognize our challenges and mistakes and we work to tackle them. We have freedom of expression and political freedoms that actually make us more reliable, more robust, more resilient as trading partners. I mean, people have understood the precariousness of global supply chains in a post COVID era and having a company a country like Canada that's already incredibly clean in its grid, responsible in its environment, being a purveyor of critical minerals that the world needs. So we're not reliant on countries like China or energy, so we're not relying on Russia. And Canada's positioned to be the supplier of energy in a net zero world with all the things we're doing. That's the way we're going. And yes, as you say, it takes a little time to get going, but we're on our way. But let's take that. So, if you're going to be the clean Russia, the democratic Russia, the energy provider that Russia is Canada. But you know that's just me. You're going to have to build LERG plants on the ast coast. You're going to have to dig up more oil from the Aisle Sands to be able to supply that oil to the world. That's going to increase your domestic emissions. Are you willing to do that for Europe's desire? What we are saying, and what we have been saying, is we're going to be accelerating the transition. We've already increased our production by the three hundred three hundred million sorry, yeah, three hundred thousand barrels a day of natural gas to put into the global system to try to try and balance out some of the impacts on Russia and Europe. But we know and this is where I was pleased to welcome Chancellor Schultz to Germany just a few months ago, to Newfoundland where there are a dozen or so new hydrogen projects starting up based on offshore wind, where we have room and space in our grid to be able to create offshore wind that can build hydrogen that'll send it over to Europe to help them decarbonized now, but we know as well that hydrogen is much as we can send over, will also be an essential input into Canadian industrial processes as gray as it is to export hydrogen around the world, being able to use hydrogen at home to create cleaner processes. I was just at Rio Tinto's Serell facility last week as well, where they're talking about using hydrogen to process titanium in a way that is going to be massively reducing their emissions in producing the kinds of minerals that we're going to need for that transition. So we're not focused on increasing emissions at all. We're focused on actually reducing our emissions. Yes, right now in the coming years, coming a couple of years, we're going to need to continue with the mechanisms we have, but the move off of fossil fuels, of undecarbonizing what we do have is going to happen much faster because of Russia. After the break, I asked the Prime Minister how Canada can be the energy supplier to the world without increasing emissions. So the emissions reduction plan that you do have out of twenty thirty does see oil production increasing. Of course under your watch, it's gone up twenty five percent. You're in Canada already. If you take an example of a company, a large company BP, it also hasn't had zero plan and so there's Canada by twenty fifty, same plans. When it figured out that it needs to reach its twenty thirty targets, it found that there was no way around reducing oil production, and that's what they've done. But you are on track to increase oil production. So how is it that you can do better than BP at being able to meet your climate goals while increasing fossil fuel production. Well, I'm not going to speak to BP, but Canada is a country that is a federation, and we have a federal government tools, we have different tools and the provinces have we get to regulate the environment. We actually had to fight all the way to the Supreme Court on our ability to regulate environment and federal government one over the provinces that didn't want to be pricing pollution, and we actually got to a place where we have a plan to cut and cap emissions. Now, if the companies can cut emissions and reduce their emissions, then there is room within that to increase production. But the goal is and any further oil plants or any further energy production is going to have to fit into our emissions reduction plans. That's what we laid out when we approve the latest Project EBID. In all so, carbon capture is crucial to be able to reach these climate goals because that's the lever that the oil gas industry can pull. After the Inflation Reduction Act passed in the US, the incent is that US companies going to get for common capture is much higher than those that are available in Canada. Will you be increasing the Canadian incentives to match the US offer? And when will you do that? We're going to absolutely stay competitive. That's been something that has always been important for Canada to stay competitive. But one of the reasons the US has to do so much more is they don't have a price on pollution. They have to do through regulations and incentives and subsidies. What we are already doing a lot of heavy lifting around with a price on pollution. But absolutely we are looking at we already move forward on strong tax incentives on CCUS. We're always going to look more on how to be competitive with the IRA. It is raising the bar in a great way. They're starting to catch up to where Canada is, which is a good thing. But we still have advantages in the price on pollution. We still have advantages in drawing in investments from around the world. But about ninety percent of the oil and gas emissions do not really get covered under the price of pollution that you have right now, so it's not really kicking in for the oil and gas sector at all. So how are you making the comparison? Oh? I think if you talk to the oil and gas sector, they're very aware of the fact that we have a price own pollution. It's continuing to rise until twenty thirty and and they are changing their behaviors because it, and they're being great partners on that. So I disagree with your statement. Okay, let's take the inflation reduction and stick with it. They're going to funnel hundreds of billions of dollars in clean technologies. So who the US through the Inflation Reduction Act? Now, Canada is a smaller economy, fewer people. But if you take the comparable sums, do you think you'll be able to put in as many billions of dollars? Not hundreds, maybe tens to be competitive with your neighbor and when we'll be here about those plants. Canada, over the course of its existence, has always been very aware of what the US has done. It's our largest trading partner. When they took a jump in turn over the past four years, we had to make sure that we were staying competitive in all sorts of different ways with our taxes, with our incentives for businesses. But we also know that Canada has a lot more to offer than just trying to compete on prices, and we will make sure we're competitive. But for example, when we made an when we saw an investment Monday Monday, I was out at a suburb of Ottawa here in Canada making announcement that Nokia is going to be creating one of its top five research and development hubs in the world. Here in Ottawa of all places, and it was a forty million dollar investment by the federal government. Now that's that's real money. But there's a lot of company countries that would have offered for forty million dollars to be one of the central research and development hubs for Nokia in the world. If Nokia is choosing to come to Canada, it's not just because we were able to offer them forty million dollars on a two hundred and fifty five million dollar investment. It's because the investment climate, the workers, the extraordinary well educated, growing workforce in Canada that we have, the innovative scientists, the support for new technologies, the support for innovation that we're doing in Canada, the quality of life where people come work here. There is a whole package of stability an opportunity that Canada is offering that quite frankly, when you look at the investments by Stilantis, by U mccore, by GM in the auto industry, when you look at Rio Tinto, when you look at Nokia, when you look at all the other investments that we've been drawing in. Because Canada has a better resilience and stability and climate plan and predictability and track of investments. You see that it's not just about who can offer the best cash sweetener incentives. That's not necessarily companies. They'll look for that and I'll take the money, but they're also looking for where are those jobs and those workers going to come from in the coming decades working in what's the quality of life that they're offering to their employees, what are the opportunities for families to be raised in successful global places where, for example, we have a free trade deal with every other the only G seven country with a free trade deal with every other G seven country. There are all these things that line up in favor of Canada, things that we've been talking about for seven years that, to be entirely honest, we're just starting to see really click into place over the past couple of years. But those pitches and those investments mean that we will always be able to stay competitive with the United States. So we're coming close to the end of our conversation, so I've wanted to bring in a couple of questions I've got from the audience. One is from ajitnir Engin and he asked, kinda has the tenth highest historical contribution to the climate problem ahead of France and Australia in total zero two emissions cumulative that's set in the atmosphere today. Now, under the Paris Agreement, Canada has a responsibility to be able to compensate developing countries for the losses caused by climate change. Just look at what happened in Pakistan over the summer. The Environment Ministry told me that Canada is arguing for loss and damage to be on the agenda at COP twenty seven, and that's very welcome by developing countries. Now, how much money will you be providing to the loss and damage fund? We've moved forward with at Paris about two point six billion dollars in climate financing. We've up that at in Glasgow to five point eight billion dollars. But also it was Canada with Germany that is pushing hard to get to the one hundred billion dollars a year in climate finance, and we've actually been living up to that. What Trudo is talking about here is one hundred billion dollars climate finance fund that was announced in two thousand and nine. The idea is for developed countries to provide money to developing countries to invest in projects that cut emissions or help them adapt to a warming planet. The question I asked was about a separate fund called the Loss and Damage Fund, were developed countries with their historical contribution to the climate problem compensate developing countries for the damages caused by climate impacts. Denmark has provided some money toward that fund already, but no other rich country has yet stepped up. We're going to continue to be part of all these conversations and make sure that we are flowing capital to environmental initiatives, to resilient infrastructure initiatives, to energy initiatives that are good for the climate around the world. That's a part of the conversation we're going to continue to have. But I'm not going to preclude the conversations that I know will be happening at COP twenty Well, let's stick with COP twenty seven though, because last year when you came to Glasgow, you said Canada must do more and faster, and it said since then, you've been able to put out some policies that you're going to implement, not all of them have been implemented. With that in mind, what exactly are you going to bring to this call. First of all, Canada continues to step up on leadership on the Global Pricing initiative. More countries need to be able to adopt pricing on pollution, on carbon pollution if we're going to send consistent messages around the world as we talk about carbon border adjustment challenges, recognizing there are places around the world that do not do anything to fight climate change, do not include any of the externalities in their production processes, and companies in Canada, in other responsible countries are unfairly competing against countries that are free riding on everyone else. Carbon border adjustment mechanism is just a fancy way of saying tariffs attached to the emissions of important goods. This is a policy that's currently being pursued in Europe. Let's understand it through an example. China produces cheap steel in a common intensity out competing cleaner European steel factories that have to pay for their pollution. Europe is now proposing that China steel should have an import direct placed on it unless it matches the common in density of European steel. So we need to make sure that we are accounting for the investments that we are making to keep everyone safer by leading in the fight on climate change, and that's a big part of the conversation we're going to continue to have. We're also moving forward this fall on hosting the Nature cop in Montreal, and we know that protecting biodiversity and moving forward on protecting nature is going to be unbelievably important, which is why we world attracted protecting thirty percent of our land and thirty percent of our coasts by twenty thirty and that right, there's a lot of countries that have talked about those sorts of things. We have the longest coastline in the world. We are the second largest country by geography in the world, and there's lots of smaller countries that have committed to that. Having a big country to it is going to move the dial significantly. Yeah, now let's stick to the nature. So there's another question from the audience about forests. This is from OSCAR and the question is there was a recent study from the NRDC that said if you take emissions from the logging industry, they match the emissions from the oil sands industry. Now, we've talked a lot about oil and gas, we've talked about carbon capture. We've talked about technologies that need to be deployed in that same time when the logging emissions matched up with oil sands. In the last twenty years seven of as you've been Prime Minister, the forests in Canada have gone from being a carbon sink to being a carbon source. So now you don't just have emissions from the fossil fuel industry to account for, you also have to reduce emissions from natural sources. With the cop coming up, what is it that you're doing on forests that will help? First of all, like I said, our commitment to protect thirty percent of our land by twenty thirty is going to go a long way towards that. We're also going to be planned two billion more trees. Canada already plants hundreds of millions of trees every year within our forestry industry that has made huge strides in reducing its emissions and being more environmentally responsible. At Canada's forestry industries are among world leaders in forestry sustainable practices. And on top of that, we're going to be moving forward and protecting wetlands. In recognizing the important role that our coastal and marine areas have in protecting climate change. We know that protecting our oceans is one of the most important things we can do in terms of protecting protecting biodiversity in the future years, so we'll continue to do that. Then, just the final question, because it's hard to not hear what you're saying and realize that those are all great things, but the emissions don't lie. The emissions are rising in the oil and gas sector, emissions are rising in the transport sector, emissions are rising in nature, in the land use sector. And you've been Prime Minister on a climate mandate for seven years, four more years, you may have another election that to him, when do you think emissions will actually start falling? Which year? Give me a year. Emissions in a number of sectors are decreasing, and let's just take a perfect example. One of the things we're working on right now is getting a net zero electricity grid by twenty thirty five. That's going to be hugely important because even as we know people are switching over to electric vehicles, we need to make sure that they're charging those vehicles off of a net zero grid. And what Canada is focused on in that is a way of driving down emissions is not just producing the critical minerals, but actually transforming the critical minerals, as we saw at Rio Tinto just last week, in more environmentally friendly ways. Developing the batteries. We have investments in battery productions here, lithium batteries. We're moving forward on produce. Seeing the evs in Canada, you know, the challenges with the United States got fixed and we're now going to be part of that market to build evs in North America. On top of that, we're investing in charging stations. We have incentives on percentages of zero mission vehicles that need to be sold and lots across the country, and finally supports for consumers on buying the evs. So we have the entire arc of that and you cannot look at different solutions in isolation. We have to look at the map of where we're going as a country. And what we've been doing consistently is recognizing that the jobs and the stability of the future is going to come from investing in fighting climate change, in growing our economy and sustainable ways, and quite frankly, not just for our own sakes, but creating those solutions that are going to be needed for the world. And yes, you caught me. We still produce oil and gas in this country, aren't you clever? Actually, the fact is we are doing more to bend that curve in more difficult circumstances than just about any other stable democracy around the world. Of course, I say stable democracy, I execute a whole bunch of countries these days. But the reality is we are on a track to hit our carbon reduction targets, to grow the number of jobs and good careers for Canadians, and to get to net zero by twenty fifty. And quite frankly, Canada, with its natural resources, with its human resources, with its openness to immigration and diversity, with the understanding of the resilience that brings to our workforce and our investment climate, and our political stability, Canada is one of those places where the future is being built right now and Canadians are fully in it to be along for the ride. And that's what Canada gets to offer the world right now. Now. I will get called out by security from the Parliament if I don't let you go, but let me ask you one question with a yes or no answer. So Canada's first climate plan was implemented more than thirty years ago. This is Prime Minister Brian mulroney, who set out a plan to stabilize emissions at nineteen ninety levels by two thousand. There have been eight climate plans since, yet Canada's emissions today are twenty percent higher than they were in nineteen ninety. Can you guarantee this time will be different? Yes? Wonderful? Yes, because every other plan was faced on targets. Any politician for the target, can you actually build a plan to do it? Make the trade offs and fight for a price on carbon pollution and make those shifts like we're seeing. I mean, and I make light of the fact because in this room people understand that this is where the world is going. It's a very real political debate in this country. There are still people who are hell bent on reversing our approach on fighting climate change and repealing a price on pollution, a price on pollution that industry is relying on to track their costs. It is not a done debate, and activists can poke holes and this and that and everything else, sure, but how are we actually going to get there? I mean, what I started with was the point that you ended with that there have been decades of people saying we're going to act to fight climate change. And what we've seen over the past seven years is it's hard to actually do it because you get pushback from the right saying, oh, no, no, you can't, you can't fight climate change, you don't need to fight climate change, and you get pushback from the left saying, oh, you're not doing enough, you're not doing fast enough. Getting it actually done within a stable democracy in a way that builds a path for the future, that can actually give confidence and inspire Canadians that there is room for them in the future, there's room for their community, for their kids. That's the big challenge. That's what we've been focused on, and that's what we're seeing Canadians come to as we demonstrate that the leadership we've shown on fighting climate change not without challenges, but the steadfastness we've had on this is bringing in the investments, the solutions and the innovations that are going to lead not just Canada but the world economy in the coming years. And that's what I'm excited about and that's why this is such a good country to be serving. Thank you so much for taking that the counts that were fun. Thanks for the life. It was a privilege to have this opportunity to sit down with the Prime Minister. I did not get all the answers I wanted, but to be fair, there aren't that many world leaders who can grapple with the complexities of the climate challenge as well as Trudo does. An extra special thanks to the Canadian Climate Institute and the Net zero Advisory Body for inviting me to this interview. Thanks so much for listening to Zero. If you like the show, please rate, review and subscribe, Tell a friend or tell a Canadian. If you've got a suggestion for a guest or topic or something you just want us to look into, get in touch at zero pod at Bloomberg Dot. Net Zero's producer is Oscar Boyd and senior producer is Christine riskoll. Our theme music is composed by Wonderley. I took advice from many people in preparation for the interview. A special thanks to Rick Smith, Katabreio, Jerry the Marco, Gerald Bats, Daniel Boco. Theo argutis Brian Platt, Sarah Herjie, Chris Stark, Fatima Saieth and all those who can't be named. I'm Akshatrati Back next week,