Natasha Bulowski writes on the National Observer website about government accountability for climate commitments and whether Canada still has a credible plan to meet its emissions targets after rolling back key climate policies. The issue is not simply whether Canada has ambitious climate targets, but whether it still has a credible, legally defensible plan to achieve them.
Carney government faces first lawsuit over its climate policies
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government is staring down a legal challenge after his government spent more than a year unraveling Canadian climate policy.
On Monday, the environmental law charity, Ecojustice, filed a lawsuit in federal court arguing the government’s current climate plan violates a law called the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act. It demands the federal government create a credible plan to meet its climate targets.
This law requires the federal government to set science-based climate targets, establish a credible plan to achieve them, and regularly report on its progress. The applicants argue that after a year of dismantling key climate policies the federal government no longer has a credible plan to achieve its 2030 target and must create a new one that reflects the reality of its policy decisions. A 2025 progress report by the federal government and analysis by the Canadian Climate Institute think-tank finds the 2030 targets are out of reach unless major policy shifts are made.
“Over the last year, we have watched the Carney government weaken, delay and repeal Canada’s key climate policies without identifying credible alternatives to make up the gap, all while doubling down on a future powered by fossil fuels,” Charlie Hatt, staff lawyer at Ecojustice said at a press conference in West Block on June 16, 2026.
The lawsuit by three Canadian youth, Environmental Defence and Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment asks the court to order the federal government to amend its 2030 climate plan. It says a new plan is needed to include measures that can actually make up the gap and get Canada to its emissions target of 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by the end of the decade.
“Currently the climate competitiveness strategy is objectively incapable of meeting its targets,” youth applicant Shirley Barnea said at the press conference.
“In short, we’re asking for a plan to achieve the target, not a plan to fail,” said Hatt.
Despite watering down the Clean Electricity Regulations, the consumer carbon price, industrial carbon pricing, electric vehicle sales mandate and methane regulations “we have not seen any math around any of those decisions,” Julia Levin, associate director of national climate at Environmental Defence, said at the press conference.
The law requires transparency and accountability — neither of which are being followed, Levin said.
“Nothing that the government has proposed makes up for what it has gutted, eliminated [or] dismantled,” she said.
Sophia Mathur, a 19-year-old youth applicant, is no stranger to taking Canadian politicians to court over climate policy. When Mathur was 12 she joined a charter challenge against Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government’s climate rollbacks. The case is playing out in the Ontario courts.
In past cast cases where governments have faced charter challenges relating to climate impact, they argue that it isn’t the right issue to bring to the courts, that it is too political or too hard to determine causation between governments’ climate policy decisions and negative health impacts, Hatt explained. This case is different, he said.
This will be the first time Canada’s climate accountability law will be interpreted by a federal court.
“There’s never been this law to leverage at previous times,” Hatt said, adding that this is a key opportunity to hold the federal government accountable to its climate commitments.
As with any court case, the timelines are uncertain but Hatt said cases like this usually move relatively quickly and hopes for a hearing later this year or early next year.
“At any point, it’s open to the federal government to just do what we say,”
The judicial challenge does not try to tell the government what measures it should put in place. It simply states the federal government must do something to offset the setbacks that have resulted over the last year, Barnea and Hatt emphasized.
“My generation has grown up surrounded by climate disasters and broken political promises to address them,” Marie Maltais, a youth applicant from Quebec, said.
“We’re told to trust the government’s climate commitments — but commitments mean nothing without a real plan behind them.”
Barnea, the other Quebec-based applicant, brought up memories of past wildfire seasons.
“I would like to take you back to this time, three years ago: Canada was overwhelmed with its worst wildfire season in recorded history sparked by dry weather conditions made twice as likely by climate change,” Barnea said.
“For days my home city of Montreal had the worst air quality in the entire world. The 2023 [Quebec] wildfires cost Canada’s governments $1.1 billion — their smoke cost 5,400 people their lives,” Barnea said.
“Last year, during Canada’s second worst wildfire season, many of us looked to Prime Minister Carney’s government for a sign they would take our security seriously. Instead, we saw what few future-proofing climate policies we still have left scrapped or weakened.”
Environment and Climate Change Minister Julie Dabrusin’s press secretary Keean Nembhard confirmed that the federal government is aware of the recent court challenge.
“The Government of Canada is committed to fighting climate change and reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. We will continue working to build a clean, low-carbon, and resilient country,” Nembhard said in an emailed statement to Canada’s National Observer.
“As this matter is before the courts, we cannot comment further.”
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