The world needs to be seized of the emergency at hand. With thousands of hectares of our own country burning, we need to reignite global interest in finding an energy solution.
By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on June 16, 2025.
OTTAWA—While the world fiddles, Canada is burning.
Air quality report IQAir reported that, as of June 10, smoke was descending to lower European altitudes and impacting air quality across the continent.
The impact ranged from “unhealthy to sensitive groups” in some cities to “very unhealthy” in parts of France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy.
Lyon was listed as the third most polluted city in the world while Munich was ninth. It was reported that a plume of smoke crossed the Mediterranean reaching Greece on May 18 and 19, while another plume arrived in northwestern Europe on June 1. All thanks to our country’s summer fires.
Canadians were feeling the effects directly, with air advisory warnings in most eastern communities. It was reported at one point that Montreal was suffering the worst air quality in the world.
In the midst of massive evacuations of Indigenous communities and other northerly settlements, it almost seems as though fire season is the new harbinger for summer.
Everyone is expecting more and earlier fire eruptions. But our political focus has moved from climate change to the financial havoc being wreaked by United States President Donald Trump on the world economy.
The lack of focus on climate action has environmentalists frustrated. They are trying to figure out how to get the issue of global warming back on the global agenda.
Some of them have gone elsewhere.
The other big news last week was that renowned Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was arrested by the Israeli military for entering a no-go zone in an attempt to bring food and medical supplies to Gaza.
Thunberg and 11 others were sailing on the Madleen in an effort to get supplies to Palestinians. The Israeli government reported that the group had few supplies on board, and this was instead a “selfie yacht of celebrities” carrying out “Instagram activism.”
Gazans who have been reporting massive food and medicine shortages would have appreciated the efforts of the sailors who were part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition.
As it stands, Thunberg was deported and, as a result, will be prevented from returning to Israel or Gaza.
But the strange twist to this story is that Thunberg used to be the voice for global warming.
As a teenager back in 2019, Thunberg got the attention of world leaders, calling them out at climate gatherings for the “Blah, blah, blah” approach of talking while doing nothing.
Now she seems to have moved on to other issues, with her ongoing focus on the politics of the Middle East.
COVID forced the world into small personal bubbles, but it also meant a slowdown of global warming because house confinement prompted a world drop in fossil fuel consumption.
The pandemic resulted in an immediate decrease in greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution literally within a few weeks of the shutdown.
It also changed some habits forever, permitting employees to work at home more frequently, thereby reducing their environmental footprint permanently.
But the gains made by the pandemic and the former public interest in environmental changes appear to be lagging badly.
Thunberg doesn’t seem engaged.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first political action was to cancel the cost of carbon pricing to consumers. It had been effectively labelled by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre as a carbon tax, and was seen to be politically toxic on the eve of an election.
Carney definitely took the wind out of Poilievre’s sails, and he is now speaking about Canada’s capacity to be an energy and environmental powerhouse globally.
The prime minister has experience marrying the two. In his previous life at Brookfield, his company focused on sustainable practices with a view to creating current and future value for investors.
He was part of an international group promoting solutions for global warming, which he hopes to apply to Canadian government environmental policies.
The call for a major national energy corridor has certainly impressed Canadians, especially Albertans, who seem to have taken a new shine to the prime minister.
His promise to achieve it with full Indigenous and provincial consensus is more than ambitious.
Meanwhile the environmental interest that we experienced before the pandemic has disappeared. Even the sale of electric cars has stalled, in part as a backlash to Trump adviser Elon Musk. But time is running out.
The world needs to be seized of the emergency at hand. With thousands of hectares of our own country burning, we need to reignite global interest in finding an energy solution.
Otherwise, Canada will keep on burning.
Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.
