Canada ‘dropped the ball’ at G7 meeting of energy & environment ministers
As Canada pulsed with Game-six World Series tension that consumed downtown Toronto, Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin capped off the G7 Energy and Environment Ministers’ meeting, donning a Blue Jays hat beside Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson.
Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson and Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin at the G7 energy and environment ministers’ meeting in downtown Toronto on October 31.
(Anushka Yadav/The Pointer)
The Jays’ struggles over the last two games of the series at home was an apt analogy for the climate crisis, with G7 ministers gathered nearby.
They also fell short.
The failure of government environment and energy leaders from around the world, and the particular shortcomings of the hosts, left stakeholders frustrated. As has become the theme in many corners of governance globally, political leaders are clearly more preoccupied with economic hardships that are driving decision making around the world right now.
The G7 conference ignored decisive action required to confront the forces driving the climate change crisis, and like their boss, Prime Minister Mark Carney, his two ministers seem resigned to the new political reality: the environment, for now, is taking a back seat to questionable decisions in the name of bolstering a fragile global economy.
The tone for the series of meetings was set early, when U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright dismissed global climate efforts at a press conference: “We need to stop praying to the climate change God that justifies destroying our energy systems, driving up energy prices and scaring children.”
On the same day, Hurricane Melissa, which had formed on October 21, reached peak intensity, becoming the third-most powerful Atlantic hurricane on record and the strongest tropical cyclone of 2025.
It rapidly intensified from a tropical storm to a major Category 4 hurricane in just a day, fueled by Caribbean Sea temperatures around 1.5 degrees Celsius above average and unusually deep heat layers that provided a continuous source of warm water.
Making landfall in Jamaica as a Category 5 hurricane, Melissa brought unprecedented destruction.
Wright spoke of “scaring children,” yet it was children who paid the ultimate price of climate inaction: 10 lost their lives in Haiti’s southern town of Petit-Goâve when a river burst its banks, sweeping away homes (damaging 450 houses and killing 43 people), roads, and farmland in the relentless floodwaters.
Fueled by the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea, Melissa rapidly strengthened into a powerful Category 5 hurricane by the time it made landfall in Jamaica.
(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
In the Lesser Antilles, gusts reaching 45 miles per hour battered Barbados, Saint Lucia, and Martinique. Puerto Rico endured torrential rains that displaced hundreds.
The Dominican Republic faced widespread flooding that left 1.1 million people without clean water and destroyed vital infrastructure.
Cuba suffered nearly one million damaged homes and 700,000 people were forced into shelters. The Bahamas, Bermuda and the U.S. East Coast also felt Melissa’s ominous reach through severe flooding, power outages and destructive winds.
Hurricane Melissa has claimed over 50 lives and forced more than a million people across the Caribbean from their homes, with Jamaica bearing the brunt as 2.8 million residents faced devastating winds and floods; by November 3, at least 32 deaths had been confirmed, 94 people treated for injuries and over 7,000 remained in shelters.
(Pan American Health Organization)
But it was Jamaica that bore the worst: towns submerged, communication lines down, and up to 90 percent of homes in some parishes destroyed. At least 32 people were killed, and more than a half million were left without power.
The remnants of Melissa also passed near Newfoundland, and gradually weakened over the next few days until dissipating on November 4, southeast of Iceland, impacting nearly 6 million people in total, according to the United Nations.
The storm was yet another display of natural forces at play, and a stark warning of the risks posed by a warming world.
The atmospheric and ocean conditions that enabled this explosive intensification were made six times more likely by climate change, which also amplified the storm’s extreme rainfall by 16 percent and increased maximum wind speeds by seven percent, a recent study by the World Weather Attribution detailed.
In response, G7 nations have advanced efforts on extreme weather prediction, preparedness and response, building on the Kananaskis Wildfire Charter introduced at the G7 meeting in Alberta in June, a direct result of Canada alone experiencing over 6,000 wildfires in 2025, which burned more than 8.3 million hectares and made it the country’s second-worst wildfire season on record.
In June, the U.S. National Interagency Coordination Center deployed federal firefighting crews to help combat wildfires in Manitoba under a cross-border assistance agreement between the two countries that has been in place since 1982.
(U.S. National Interagency Fire Center/Wiki)
The member nations also discussed plans to strategically deploy public resources and mobilize private finance for climate and environmental solutions, targeting vulnerable nations, including Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Least Developed Countries (LDCs), while fostering sustainable growth at home.
These measures, though welcomed, arrived too late to fully address the cascading system-wide planetary climate crises engulfing communities all around the world.
The Earth’s oceans are experiencing multiple massive shocks, with coral reef destruction devastating marine food chains, chemical imbalance altering the very nature of the water and temperature changes impacting entire climatic weather systems.
Ground and water surface temperatures are changing the way food is grown, how cities can be inhabited and the cost of delivering basic human services.
Air temperature and quality is changing the way we travel, breathe and survive in a rapidly changing atmosphere (India reported 1.7 million deaths from air pollution in 2022 alone). Flooding, wildfires and other extreme weather events in areas that seldom saw such devastation, now occur multiple times a year in the same places.
Communities in Jamaica are still reeling from the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa. On October 29, the World Food Programme launched an urgent appeal for $74 million to deliver life-saving assistance to up to 1.1 million people across the Caribbean.
(United Nations)
If you do a simple Google search for the reason behind climate change or our warming planet, this is the result: “The number one reason for the planet's warming is human activity, specifically the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas, which releases large amounts of greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide. These gases trap heat in the atmosphere, a phenomenon known as the greenhouse effect, leading to rising global temperatures.”
In 2016, the G7 countries, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, made a commitment to phase out fossil fuel subsidies by 2025.
Have they met that goal? No.
Was there a clear plan discussed at the G7 energy and environment ministers’ meeting to meet the deadline? No.
“The conversation that we had in the room were very much focused on a few different issues,” Dabrusin told The Pointer, citing discussions around circular economies, disaster preparedness and protecting water and ecosystems, while not answering the question directly.
The oil and gas program manager for Environmental Defence called the answer “disappointing.”
These are “the ministers of the most advanced economies in the world, and this (is the) commitment that they've made to end fossil fuel subsidies by 2025, and here we are waiting still,” Aly Hyder Ali told The Pointer.
“Instead of ending subsidies, they're writing bigger and bigger checks to polluters. The idea that the environment ministers can't think of one effort to address the climate crisis is just bogus. It's completely unacceptable to not have any sort of plan to follow through on the commitment to end.”
Among the meeting’s key outcomes was the Toronto Action Plan on Circular Economy and Resource Efficiency, a three-year roadmap (2025–2028) targeting waste-heavy industries like plastics, textiles and critical minerals. The plan promotes reuse, recycling and resource efficiency as ideas that could unlock $4.5 trillion (USD) in global economic growth by 2030 while cutting pollution and reducing strain on ecosystems, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The second major framework, the G7 Water Coalition Workplan, launched under Italy’s 2024 G7 presidency and continued under Canada’s (which will soon end), focuses on protecting freshwater systems and addressing the escalating global water crisis.
It emphasizes integrated water resource management, nature-based solutions, and the use of artificial intelligence and remote sensing for monitoring and resilience, with a commitment to collaborate with Indigenous communities, civil society and local governments for more equitable governance.
At a press conference at the G7 meeting, Lee Zeldin, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), also spoke about the importance of protecting the shared freshwater resources between Canada and the United States including the Great Lakes, which supply drinking water to more than 40 million people, including ten percent of the U.S. population and 30 percent of Canadians.
Together, the five Great Lakes contain 21 percent of the world’s surface freshwater by volume, and 84 percent of the surface freshwater in North America.
(Visual Capitalist/Alex Varlamov/X)
But the same resources have been jeopardized by the Trump administration’s funding cuts to Great Lakes research.
When asked whether the administration planned to restore the funding, Zeldin deflected, blaming Senate Democrats for recent government shutdown threats. He claimed that Congressional Republicans had “voted 13 times” for level funding, accusing Democrats of stalling appropriations that would keep EPA employees “working and getting paid.”
Zeldin, who represents New York’s First Congressional District, home to the Long Island Sound and other major estuary programs, insisted the administration did not want to see cuts implemented.
“I do not want to see that cut has to get implemented…we want people to be inside the office…we want them doing these important jobs. We want them to receive their paycheque, and we do not want them disrupted by this shutdown,” he told The Pointer, his comments offering little clarity on whether Great Lakes research funding would actually be reinstated.
Ottawa also made its stance clear on freshwater protection in the latest federal budget by keeping the Canada Water Agency intact after leaked messages, first reported by the National Post, suggested major cuts were on the table, though the commitment rings hollow with the agency set to lose $5 million over four years under a maintenance-level budget.
With 20 percent of the world’s freshwater, Canada has immense responsibility for safeguarding its lakes, rivers, streams and wetlands, but the country’s water systems are in crisis. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) warns that all 167 Canadian sub-watersheds are under threat, with nearly three-quarters showing moderate to high impacts from climate change. In a 2017 report, WWF Canada found that all but 41 sub-watersheds out of 167 have seen moderate or high impacts from climate change. “Even small shifts in temperature and the precipitation that replenishes rivers can have a large impact on ecosystem dynamics, including change in water levels and rate of flow,” the report stated. It noted 53 sub-watersheds were found to have “high or very high levels of disturbance,” with southern watersheds facing greater stress due to higher road densities and the concentration of Canada’s agriculture and industry in the region.
“From a climate perspective, this G7 Ministerial could have been an email,” Climate Action Network Canada (CAN-Rac) executive director Caroline Brouillette said.
“Canada was negotiating in difficult circumstances, given the United States’ climate-destructive presence. But diplomacy requires strategy, and we hope Minister Dabrusin finds one for Canada before COP30—and works with civil society to land it.”
Brouillette’s words carry weight: Wright blamed climate change worries for driving energy prices up, when in actuality, it is wars, fossil fuel subsidies and market distortions that inflate costs and lock in dependence on polluting energy sources.
“In 2023, total G7 fossil fuel subsidies rose by more than US $40 billion above 2022 levels, which in turn were a large increase over preceding years,” an International Institute for Sustainable Development report highlighted.
“These increases were driven by countries’ responses to the energy crisis brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”
Fossil fuel subsidies among G7 nations reached a record US$282 billion in 2023, up 297 percent from US$71 billion in 2016. In 2023, Germany had the highest fossil fuel subsidies among G7 members (USD 83 billion), followed by Japan (USD 70 billion), France (USD 38 billion), Italy (USD 35 billion), the United Kingdom (USD 34 billion), the United States (USD 17.8 billion), and Canada (USD 3.4 billion).
(International Institute for Sustainable Development)
By continuing to prop up fossil fuel consumption instead of investing in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and support for vulnerable households, G7 nations are not only undermining climate action but also perpetuating price volatility, the problem they claim to address.
Approximately one-seventh of the world's primary energy is now sourced from renewable technologies.
(Our World in Data)
If the final remarks by Ministers Dabrusin and Hodgson are any indication, the summit largely wrapped up focusing on energy security, artificial intelligence, and critical minerals investments only.
Among the announcements, 26 new investments, partnerships, and measures were introduced to accelerate $6.4 billion in critical minerals projects, alongside up to $20.2 million in support for international research collaborations and a commitment to advance standards-based markets.
Ministers endorsed the G7 Energy and AI Work Plan to integrate AI responsibly into energy systems, build trust in digital technologies, promote responsible growth, and issued a Call to Action on Enhancing Energy Security, addressing infrastructure modernization, supply chain security, gas market stabilization, and the first comprehensive statement on Nuclear and Fusion Energy with responsible waste management.
What stood out among a flurry of announcements was Hodgson referring to liquefied natural gas (LNG) as “low-carbon” and emphasizing carbon dioxide removal projects, including Ottawa’s $3.4 million investment in four Canadian ventures through NorthX Climate Tech, Arca Climate Technologies’ 10-year offtake agreement with Microsoft for nearly 300,000 tonnes of carbon removal, and $11 million in federal funding to support carbon utilization and storage research.
The latest Early Estimate of National Emissions (EENE) from 440 Megatonnes shows that in 2024, the oil sands added 3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO2e) to Canada’s total emissions, outpacing all other sectors. Overall emissions remained only 8.5 percent below 2005 levels last year, leaving Canada far from its 2030 goal of reducing emissions by 40 to 45 percent from 2005 levels.
(440megatonnes.ca Early Estimate of National Emissions)
Hyder Ali says it is frustrating to see Canada framing carbon capture and removal technologies as a climate solution.
“It's been around for 50 years and has barely made a dent in removing emissions. It's preposterous, really, because the same countries that committed to end fossil fuel subsidies are subsidizing technology that doesn't work and only serves to further extend fossil fuel production, and somehow it's supposed to solve the climate crisis,” he noted.
“The evidence speaks for itself. Carbon capture is not a solution; it's a distraction, and it is only being touted as a solution because of the intense lobbying that the fossil industry has done, not only in Canada but across the world, for governments and jurisdictions to continue to advance carbon capture and storage.”
On October 31, more than 50 environmental, health, and Indigenous organizations sent a letter to Carney, Hodgson, and Dabrusin opposing the use of public funds for the Pathways Alliance Carbon Capture and Storage project, arguing the $16.5-billion proposal has a poor record of cutting emissions, serves mainly to prolong oil sands production, and lacks consent from affected Treaty 6 and Treaty 8 Nations.
Pathways Alliance has acknowledged that this costly project would cut only ten to 12 megatonnes of emissions by 2030, roughly five percent of total oil and gas emissions in 2024. Hyder Ali says, “the math doesn’t add up.”
The Pathways Alliance carbon capture and storage project, proposed under Ottawa’s Major Projects list, would run roughly 400 kilometres from over 13 Alberta oilsands facilities in the Fort McMurray, Christina Lake, and Cold Lake regions to a storage site just outside St. Paul, where carbon dioxide would be buried deep underground. Over the years, rural residents along the pipeline’s path have raised concerns about safety, environmental risks, and a lack of meaningful consultation including potential pipeline ruptures, groundwater contamination, threats to Indigenous Treaty Rights, and the discrepancy between ambitious capture goals and historically lower real-world carbon capture rates.
(Canadian Energy Centre)
“Most egregious from a public accounts perspective is that the companies that are petitioning the government for billions of dollars in taxpayer money to build the Pathways project are among the most profitable in Canada,” the letter points out.
“If the companies behind the Pathways Alliance firmly believe that the project will meet stringent GHG reduction targets while providing a strong return on investment - something that is necessary for any business venture - then they should be invited to prove the value of their proposal, and then invest their own capital in the undertaking.”
The coalition is urging the government to reject taxpayer support for the project and instead invest in proven, low-cost climate solutions such as renewable energy, efficient housing, and clean transportation.
How easy is that, when the fossil fuel industry’s claws are sunk so deep into the machinery of our politics?
By June this year, the fossil fuel sector held 355 lobbying meetings with the federal government, including 25 with Prime Minister Mark Carney and Hodgson each.
The top three federal ministries targetted by fossil fuel lobbyists include: Natural Resources Canada (134 meetings), Finance Canada (49), and Environment and Climate Change Canada (37).
Four days after the G7 meeting in Toronto, the Carney government announced its fall economic statement, nixing the oil and gas emissions cap, and announced loosening of Greenwashing rules.
Dabrusin then claimed: “I always try and look for hope when I'm talking about different issues, and I think that this was a real example of how you can see people stepping up and really ready to work together.”
For Hyder Ali, the G7 meeting was “an opportunity” for seven influential countries to come together in the midst of the climate crisis, “to lay out the agenda, to set a path forward, to collectively address the crisis in advance of COP30.”
But “they completely dropped the ball,” he said.
“It was a credibility test, these G7 environmental and energy ministerial meetings, as well as the G7 Leadership Summit, and unfortunately, the countries failed.”
Hyder Ali says he remains “hopeful” ahead of COP30, which kicks off November 10, because “there is a lot of great work happening around the world when it comes to climate action.”
“COP30 will showcase solutions to the climate crisis, and there’s hope that wealthy countries like Canada, whose fossil fuel development has driven much of this crisis, will finally show up. We can’t continue with empty promises…it’s time to back up our words with actions,” he emphasized.
He says it’s optimistic to know that Dabrusin is hopeful and what keeps him going are the “many inspiring examples of communities, activists, and Indigenous governments contributing meaningfully to climate action.”
“Seeing that progress is encouraging,” Hyder Ali said.
“The work we do advocating for stronger climate action is inherently hopeful. We’re striving to create a better world for future generations. We have the knowledge, technology, and capacity to tackle this crisis; it’s just a matter of coming together, collaborating, and prioritizing people over corporate profits.”
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