Last week, the United Kingdom did something all too rare: it chose leadership by backing science and prioritizing public safety. The Labour government announced it would ban new oil and gas licences in the North Sea, strengthen a windfall tax and accelerate phasing out of fossil-fuel subsidies.

These are not symbolic gestures. They are an acknowledgment that the global energy system is shifting and that mature economies must shift with it.

And they came in the same week that catastrophic floods swept across south-east Asia, killing more than 1,000 people and displacing over a million. The real-world imperative to transition off fossil fuels has never been so urgent.

But, at the exact moment the UK stepped forward, Canada stepped back.

Ottawa signed a new Memorandum of Understanding with Alberta to support a new oil sands pipeline that would facilitate increased production of fossil fuels. The deal would delay methane regulations, cancel an oil and gas emissions cap and exempt the province from clean electricity rules. All this comes as leaders are lifting environmental-assessment requirements for major projects, preparing to weaken greenwashing laws and suspending Canada’s electric vehicle sales mandate. The MP Steven Guilbeault resigned from Mark Carney’s cabinet rather than defend the retreat.

The contrast could not be sharper: while climate effects intensify and economies pivot, Canada is reinforcing the very industries driving the crisis.

Supporters insist the prime minister is being pragmatic – that expanding oil and gas is simply being “realistic”. Instead, it’s a twisted notion that ignores reality – the catastrophic flooding across South-east Asia and Sri Lanka; the mounting toll of drought and heat, fire and storm.

Government and industry point to carbon capture and storage (CCS) as the technological fix that can allow Canada to keep expanding oil. But CCS has underperformed for decades, despite billions in public funding, as documented by the International Energy Agency.

Even if CCS functioned perfectly, it addresses only production emissions, roughly 20% of a barrel’s climate pollution. The remaining 80% comes when the oil is burned, according to IPCC life-cycle assessments. Expanding pipelines while pointing to CCS is like telling someone with lung cancer to smoke more but use filtered cigarettes.

Internationally, the commitment is crystal clear. At COP28, in Dubai in 2023, Canada, the UK, and 190 countries agreed for the first time to transition away from fossil fuels. You do not “phase out” something by building more of it. A pipeline enabling 1m additional barrels a day pushes Canada in the opposite direction of what it has already promised.

At the same time, other nations are working cooperatively to accelerate the phase-out. Eighty countries support the development of a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels at the recent climate change negotiations in Brazil. Eighteen countries are now participating in dialogues to develop a Fossil Fuel Treaty. Colombia and the Netherlands will co-host the first global diplomatic conference on fossil-fuel phase-out next April – the world’s first such meeting dedicated to this purpose.

Leadership is emerging. Alliances are forming. Momentum is growing. Meanwhile, Canada seems to be turning back the clock despite the opposition of First Nations who vow to protect the Great Bear Sea from oil tankers.

Nation states are increasingly choosing a side: ignore the science and the growing floods and fires or choose“life over death”, as Gustavo Petro, the president of Colombia, said when discussing why the fifth-largest coal exporter has committed to ending fossil-fuel expansion and is working to design a Fossil Fuel Treaty. With scientists now telling us that air pollution due primarily to fossil fuels is killing 5 million people a year while the world sees one death every minute due to lethal heat, a fossil fuel phase-out is literally choosing life over death.

The UK deserves recognition for its decision: leadership shapes markets and shifts public expectations. This year, investments in renewable energy were double that of fossil fuel investments. In 2024, China installed more solar than the rest of the world combined. China and the UK are not dreaming. They are responding to reality. The world is turning a corner but the transition is not inevitable, nor will it be fast enough to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis unless new fossil fuel expansion is constrained.

Carney built his reputation by warning that climate inaction threatens economic stability and that finance must align with the reality of a warming world. Instead, he is overseeing decisions that deepen Canada’s dependence on an industry whose expansion directly fuels the disasters already devastating communities.

Canada talks about how critical it is to skate to where the puck will be, not where it currently is. But right now, the country is skating backwards.

• Tzeporah Berman is a Canadian environmental activist, campaigner and writer