Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first budget has brought some qualified relief for climate policy experts, who were growing increasingly nervous that lowering carbon emissions was taking a backseat to shoring up economic competitiveness.

“I was positively surprised perhaps because my expectations were fairly low,” said Yrjö Koskinen, director of research at the Institute for Sustainable Finance at Queen’s University. “The budget emphasizes that climate policies are an economic necessity.”

Canada’s largest trade partner, the U.S., has turned away from climate action under President Donald Trump and moved firmly to expand fossil fuel extraction and trade. The trade pressure put on Canada by Trump has led to the Carney government ramping up support for the oil and gas sector, such as expan

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