Belém, Brazil, 13 November 2025:
As Prime Minister Mark Carney unveils a new batch of “projects of national interest,” in the middle of the COP30 climate negotiations, Canadian civil society is sounding the alarm.
The major projects list includes the Ksi Lisims LNG terminal, which faces legal challenges from the Lax Kw’alaams Band and the Metlakatla First Nation. Ksi Lisims would be supplied by the Prince Rupert Gas Transmission (PRGT) pipeline, which also faces opposition from Indigenous land defenders.
The announcement comes as momentum builds at COP30 around a Just Transition, which requires that people and communities have real choices in the decisions that affect them—a principle starkly in contrast to today’s announcement.
Quotes:
Caroline Brouillette, Executive Director, Climate Action Network Canada:
“Civil society has been clear: we’re on board to help with nation-building projects that bring benefits to communities and make Canada more resilient—both economically, and to the impacts of climate change. But this government is going in the opposite direction.
“Prime Minister Carney continues to assume that forgoing meaningful engagement with civil society, workers, and local communities, and the full respect and upholding of Indigenous rights and sovereignty, will get things done faster. Whatever C-Suite Executives and some Premiers may think, that’s just not true.
“This week, world leaders in Belém are talking about how the world can shift away from fossil fuel dependence, towards cleaner, more affordable renewable energy and a safer future. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Carney is going full steam ahead with climate-killing LNG. Is this really the signal that Canada wants to send to the world? Canada is showing up to world climate negotiations with empty hands and domestic backsliding, and it’s really sad to watch.”
Ilan Zugman, Latin America Director, 350.org
“Canada and other rich nations of the Global North keep making the same dirty mistakes – pouring money into new oil, gas, and LNG projects. Calling gas a “transition fuel” doesn’t make it clean – it just locks us into more decades of pollution and delay.
These countries owe a historic debt to the world’s most affected communities. Real leadership means paying that debt – and ending fossil fuel expansion everywhere. No new oil, no new gas – not in the Amazon, not in so-called Canada, not anywhere on this planet.”
Emilia Belliveau, Energy Transition Program Manager, Environmental Defence Canada:
“We cannot ‘build Canada strong’ through so-called nation-building projects that merely accelerate the destruction of our ecosystems and contribute to the collapse of our climate system. Canada’s decision to green light new LNG looks absurd against the backdrop of what’s taking place at COP30. The IEA’s latest outlook report confirms that there is a viable path to achieving our climate commitments under the Paris agreement if countries stop expanding fossil fuels and accelerate renewable energy. That path is also the lowest cost scenario and the only way to prevent extreme and deadly global warming. The International Court of Justice has affirmed that countries are legally obligated to meet their climate commitments, and decisions that contravene those commitments could lead to court challenges. Momentum at COP30 is building towards a just transition, and to strengthen the global effort to fight climate change. Prime Minister Carney is undermining his international reputation with his domestic choices.”
Gretchen Fitzgerald, Executive Director with Sierra Club Canada:
“Supporting Canadians via connected regional electricity grids would make energy more affordable and provide the infrastructure needed to unlock investments in renewables such as offshore wind. It is disappointing to see months go by without a significant announcement on the Canadian grid. A connected grid will benefit all Canadians through making energy more affordable, leverage renewable and energy storage projects, and create greater climate resilience – unlike a pipeline which will deepen climate impacts and devise us.”
Jim Emberger, NB Anti-Shale Gas Alliance:
“Carney could have announced something transformational like the Confederation Bridge or the CN Rail that could have truly changed the lives of people in New Brunswick. People and politicians in New Brunswick and the Atlantic region have been calling for rapid investments in renewable energy, and the grid to support it. Instead, he resurrected a mine that’s been languishing without investment for 15 years, and only because the US Department of War has recently invested in it. So much for elbows up.”
Richard Brooks, Climate Finance Director with Stand.earth:
“As the world gathers for COP30 , it’s embarrassing that Canada is still backing polluting megaprojects like Ksi Lisims LNG that guarantee climate chaos while trampling on Indigenous rights. The International Energy Agency — unlike Shell, which is where it appears the Prime Minister got his LNG optimism from — has made it clear: the fossil fuel era is ending, and projects of national interest must build climate resilience, not a billionaire-backed fossil dystopia. Ksi Lisims is a project of ‘National Liability’ and makes no financial or legal sense. Carney’s government should expect challenges from all sides.”
Rébecca Pétrin, executive director, Eau Secours:
“While Nouveau Monde Graphite presented itself as a solution to the climate crisis, we now know that a quarter of the graphite will go to the military! Furthermore, this project was only at the exploratory drilling stage, and we were already observing a worrying deterioration of the waterways around its site. What will the impacts on the water be when the company accelerates the digging of a 2-kilometer-deep pit?”
Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada:
“Fast-tracking fossil fuels will Build Canada Wrong rather than Build Canada Strong. While courageous people from around the world fight to avoid the increasingly catastrophic impacts of climate change at COP 30 in Brazil, Prime Minister Carney has announced a massive new fossil fuel project in British Columbia.
“We should not be gaslit into believing exporting fracked gas is a climate solution. The International Energy Agency (IEA) just told us that cheaper renewables can end the fossil fuel era. Backing the American-owned Ksi Lisims LNG project will only deepen Canada’s dependence on fossil fuels and harmful extractive activities that threaten our natural heritage and well-being.
Critical minerals should be used to fight climate change, not wars. Canada should develop these resources responsibly and reserve their use for accelerating the transition to renewable energy, not to build weapons.”
Brendan Haley, Senior Director of Policy Strategy, Efficiency Canada:
“The government should start thinking beyond resource megaprojects and energy supply infrastructure. Nation-building can mean investing in knowledge, innovation, and community strengths to get more from the energy we already produce and use. Energy efficiency is Canada’s fastest, most affordable nation-building project — delivering on the government’s priorities of improving productivity, business competitiveness, and household affordability.”
Melissa Lem, President, Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE):
“While investments in clean electricity are welcome, massive funding for LNG is a dangerous step backward. Expanding infrastructure for liquefied methane gas—a proven climate change super-heater—drives more fracking, linked to serious health impacts, especially for Indigenous and rural communities. Greenlighting the Ksi Lisims LNG project without Indigenous consent and a full health impact assessment is unconscionable.”
Jamie Kneen, National Program Co-Lead, MiningWatch Canada:
“With this announcement, the government has solidified its commitment to resource extraction megaprojects as its vision of development, its capitulation to provincial premiers’ self-serving political priorities, and its contempt for the environment and Indigenous peoples’ rights. It has clearly identified its “critical minerals” strategy as prioritizing corporate profit and weapons production ahead of the renewable energy transition and the climate crisis, exposing energy transition rhetoric as smoke and mirrors.”
David Miller, Co-chair, Elbows Up for Climate, former mayor of Toronto:
“We welcome the federal government advancing climate-safe projects such as high-speed rail and clean energy security for northern communities, which we and many local advocates have been championing. However, the Prime Minister can’t talk of nation-building while also fast tracking nation-burning, foreign-owned fossil fuel projects such as Ksi Lisim’s LNG terminal — with massive public subsidies, no less. The government must prioritize genuine nation-building projects that create good jobs and keep our communities safe and affordable, including an E-W-N electricity grid, at least two million affordable green homes, mass public transit and a robust resilience plan for communities facing floods, fires and storms.”
Ben Goloff, senior climate campaigner, Center for Biological Diversity:
“Just like Trump, Carney is entrenching dirty energy in the face of the climate emergency. It’s deeply disappointing to see Carney pushing new fossil fuel extraction during the COP30 climate talks. The prime minister is on a collision course with science, justice and public health when we desperately need Canada and other rich countries to boost renewables and get us off fossil fuels for good.”
For more information or to arrange an interview, contact:
Vicky Coo, Communications Manager
comms@climateactionnetwork.ca
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Canada’s farthest-reaching network of organizations working on climate and energy issues, Climate Action Network – Réseau action climat (CAN-Rac) Canada is a coalition of close to 200 organizations operating from coast to coast to coast. Our membership brings environmental groups together with trade unions, First Nations, social justice, development, health and youth organizations, faith groups and local, grassroots initiatives.