Australia and Canada can learn from each other on climate if we separate action from declaration | Rosa Galvez

Canada and Australia are both democracies built on abundant resources, extraordinary biodiversity and world-class science, with prosperity built substantially on mining, oil and gas. We are major fossil fuel exporters running an economic model incompatible with a stable climate, and living the consequences through worsening bushfires, floods and drought.

As I prepare for the Climate Integrity Summit in Sydney, I am struck less by the distance between our countries than by how much we have in common. We face the same defining question: how do we move beyond fossil fuels without sacrificing prosperity or nature?

Our political systems differ, but Australians are asking the same questions Canadians are: young people wanting action to match promises, Indigenous communities wanting real recognition of their rights, scientists warning about tipping points, businesses recognising that tomorrow’s economy will reward innovation over dependence on yesterday’s technology.

The challenge facing our countries is not technological. It is governance.

Canada and Australia have focused on reducing emissions from fossil fuels while avoiding the harder conversation about reducing our dependence on them. That distinction matters. It determines whether we are managing decline or genuinely transforming our economies. The world is already moving to renewable energy. Australia has started that shift, Canada is late to it. Expanding renewables while continuing to expand fossil fuels is not a transition, it is addition. Every extra tonne of greenhouse gas warms the planet, no matter how sophisticated our accounting becomes.

This debate is especially live in Australia now. Parliament is reviewing reforms to the Safeguard Mechanism, the country’s main industrial emissions framework. The central question: should major emitters meet their obligations by buying carbon offsets instead of cutting emissions on-site?

Canada has wrestled with near-identical debates over carbon capture and offset markets. My own view, shaped by science rather than ideology, is that offsets and carbon capture have a limited role, for genuinely hard-to-abate emissions only. They should never excuse delaying the transformation science tells us is unavoidable.

Climate integrity means being honest about the gap between emissions reduced on paper and emissions reduced in the atmosphere. Research increasingly questions whether offset credits are truly additional, or whether buyers decarbonise any faster than those who don’t. If offsets stay cheaper than innovation, we reward the status quo. Canada’s own wildfires have shown, starkly, that forests are not permanent carbon stores.

Finance is another area of convergence. Australia has introduced a science-based Sustainable Finance Taxonomy directing investment toward net zero activities. Canada has pursued mandatory climate disclosures, and through my proposed Climate-Aligned Finance Act, I am seeking to align financial markets with our climate commitments. The question is no longer whether finance should support the transition, but whether policy keeps favouring yesterday’s industries. Canada’s own taxonomy debate shows how hard these choices remain: sustainable finance only works when it reflects science, not political compromise.

Climate cannot be separated from biodiversity loss, inequality or reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. Tackled together, these challenges produce more resilient, equitable solutions. Australia’s integration of Indigenous safeguards into its finance framework offers Canada real lessons. Canada’s parliamentary oversight and accountability legislation may offer something back.

Neither country has the perfect model, and legislation on both sides remains fragmented. That is why dialogue between democracies matters, and why Parliamentarians for a Fossil-Free Future exists: legislators cannot solve global problems in national silos. As the talks in Colombia showed, sharing our successes is valuable, and sharing our mistakes may be more valuable still.

Canada and Australia should see this transition as an opportunity, not a sacrifice. The countries that lead will be those that channel investment into innovation, protect nature and build economies generating long-term wellbeing within planetary limits.

We have the capacity to lead. What remains to be seen is whether we have the political courage to make our climate commitments more than declarations. Climate integrity is ultimately a question of trust: whether citizens believe governments and industries will align decisions with the science they publicly accept. Trust may be our most valuable national resource.

Together, as two middle powers with complementary experience, we can help show that prosperity, biodiversity, Indigenous reconciliation and climate leadership are not competing ambitions. They are the foundations of the same future.