Climate Barbie’s New Book on Why Her Big Idea was Cancelled – Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

“… She admits that when she became minister for energy and climate change … she had no idea what COP stood for. …”

Canada’s former climate minister on making a change, ‘aloof’ Trudeau and sexism

Maya Goodfellow
Wed 8 Oct 2025 16.00 AEDT

Catherine McKenna’s memoir delves into thorny parts of being in office including death threats and being referred to as ‘climate Barbie’

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McKenna has recently published Run Like a Girl, which documents her time in government, among other things. Peppered with inspirational quotes, personal photos and campaign memorabilia, Run Like a Girl isn’t a straightforward memoir. She wrote it for “women and young people who want to make change”.

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But when it came to the climate, Trudeau shared her belief in taking action, and supported her.

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While under consistent attack by the right, McKenna oversaw what became aflagship policy, a carbon tax on large industrial polluters and on everyday fossil fuel usage …

She admits that when she became minister for energy and climate change in 2015, she was “not an expert in that space”; she had no idea what COP stood for. But a week after taking the post, she attended COP21, where the Paris agreement – the first universal, legally binding treaty on climate – was signed.

But there are big contradictions within the climate record of the Trudeau government. In the summer of 2019, less than 24 hours after the House passed a motion to declare that Canada was in a climate emergency, the government approved plans to triple the capacity of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which transports oil to British Colombia from tar sands in Alberta, a uniquely environmentally ruinous place for extraction. Tripling its capacity would remedy a problem for the industry: too much oil through too few pipelines meant oil sold at a discount to the rest of the world. The year before, Trudeau’s government had bought the pipeline for $4.5bn after the company tasked with the expansion threatened to walk away from the project because of protests and a legal challenge.

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After McKenna stepped down in 2021, Trudeau announced a pause on the carbon tax, while one of Mark Carney’s first moves after becoming prime minister of Canada was to kill off the carbon tax altogether.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/08/canadas-former-climate-minister-on-making-a-change-aloof-trudeau-and-sexism

I guess one point in Catherine’s favour is she admits she didn’t know anything about climate change when she became minister for climate change. Then she announced climate policies so extreme even Trudeau and Carney cancelled them. But I’m sure she feels a great sense of achievement, whatever those achievements were.

The book “Run like a girl” is available here if anyone wants to read it.

If anyone can think of anything Catherine McKenna achieved, please lets us know in the comments.

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