Children’s minds are like blank slates, ready to absorb knowledge—but who holds the pen? In the face of a climate crisis, fossil fuel companies are quietly shaping climate education in Canada.
The oil and gas industry has long known about the dangers of its products. As early as 1954, scientists warned industry leaders that burning fossil fuels increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. By 1959, nuclear scientist Edward Teller cautioned the American Petroleum Institute about the risks of global warming.
In the following decades, companies like Exxon and Shell conducted their own research, confirming the link between fossil fuel emissions and rising temperatures. Internal documents from Exxon show that by 1977, its scientists had accurately predicted future warming at a rate of 0.2°C per decade. By 1979, the company privately admitted that fossil fuel consumption would cause “dramatic environmental effects before the year 2050.”
Rather than releasing their findings, the oil and gas industry launched a coordinated misinformation campaign to deny climate science.
As public concern grew and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UNIPCC) was formed in 1988, Exxon helped create the Global Climate Coalition to question climate change science. The launch of the fossil fuel industry’s misinformation campaign was accompanied by the rise of neoliberalism and government cutbacks, which paved the way for more extensive corporate involvement in education.
Today, Canada is the fourth-largest oil producer and the fifth-largest natural gas producer in the world, responsible for nearly a third of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.
A scathing report by the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) and For Our Kids, with support from the Raffi Foundation for Child Honouring, uncovers how over the past two decades—amid growing climate-related disasters and the rise of youth climate activism—the oil and gas industry has shifted from sowing doubt about climate change to actively delaying action by ‘funding and providing misleading climate education to children across Canada.’
But postponing climate action is a luxury that neither the province nor the country can afford.
In Ontario, the oil and gas sector contributed 8.7 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions in 2022. Of this, 2.0 megatonnes came from production, processing, and transmission, while 6.7 megatonnes resulted from petroleum refining and natural gas distribution.
By 2023, Ontario’s natural gas production averaged 6.2 million cubic feet per day, accounting for roughly three percent of Canada’s total output, primarily from southern Ontario.
As part of Canada’s 2030 Emissions Reduction Plan, the nation aims to cut emissions to 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, to achieve net zero by 2050, with a focus on the largest greenhouse gas-emitting sector.
Achieving these ambitious goals becomes even more challenging when the industry's influence extends into education.
“At least 39 oil and gas companies and 12 industry-tied organizations, including Shell, TC Energy and Pathways Alliance, are involved in climate education, either by supplying education materials directly to schools, through government partnerships, or funding third-party nonprofit providers of such materials. The reach of these programs extends to every province in Canada,” the report found.
The report reveals that industry-sponsored educational materials often downplay the fossil fuel sector’s role in climate change, exaggerate its environmental efforts, promote quick fixes, and shift responsibility to individual actions rather than addressing systemic issues. This is simply what’s called greenwashing.
“Greenwashing is a significant obstacle in defeating the climate crisis. Greenwashing can delay action by misleading consumers about the nature or the scale of environmental issues, it can also unduly influence decision-makers to refrain from implementing necessary laws and policies,” Ecojustice staff lawyer Fraser Thomson told The Pointer.
“It hinders sustainable investment, entrepreneurship and innovation by really skewing the market because it allows companies to compete unfairly against those who are trying to do the right thing. Greenwashing misleads consumers who are attempting to support and invest in environmentally friendly products.”
Thompson says these claims act as a smoke screen, deflecting attention and diverting rightful blame. This has led to a situation in Canada where “political decision-makers are slower to recognize the need for tougher measures to rein in polluters, while everyday people—whose lives are already being impacted by the climate crisis—continue to bear the brunt of this inaction.”
Since the 1920s, companies have looked to schools as a site for “a future market of loyal consumers.”
Commercialization has become a widespread reality in school districts across Canada, a shift that education scholars link to government budget cuts.
As The Pointer recently reported, Ontario’s education spending for 2024-25 was slashed by $3.2 billion, even as the province faces a staggering $31.4 billion school repair backlog over the next decade.
In Peel, the financial strain is evident—Peel District School Board’s latest budget forced the board to draw $10.95 million from its reserves to cover funding shortfalls. The cuts also resulted in the elimination of 155 teaching positions and five vice principal jobs, weakening both classroom instruction and school leadership.
With only 34 percent of educators feeling equipped to teach climate change, shrinking staff and resources mean climate literacy is even more likely to be sidelined—leaving students unprepared for one of the most pressing crises of their time.
With less funding, schools and school boards turn to private entities—corporations, foundations, charities and non-government organizations—to provide educational activities and services, the report highlighted. When schools are under-resourced, underfunded, and under pressure, they are “more and more susceptible to industry offers of sponsored teaching materials.”
In 2024, Alberta’s government introduced a new curriculum framework that bears the fingerprints of the oil and gas industry, encouraging students to view the province’s vast oil reserves as globally significant and the province itself as “the most ethical producer of oil in the world.”
An investigation by the Investigative Journalism Foundation, published in The Tyee, uncovered lobbying efforts by the Safety in Schools Foundation (SiS)—a nonprofit backed by TC Energy and Canadian Natural—to integrate “oil and gas studies” into Alberta’s education system. The influence runs deep, with Alberta Energy Minister Brian Jean featured on SiS’s website, praising the organization for its role in promoting oil and gas education.
Another common strategy is sponsoring educational trips. Organizations like Inside Education—backed by BP, Cenovus, Enbridge, and Suncor—offer curriculum resources like the Oil Sands Field Trip and host all-expenses-paid climate and energy summits for students, subtly shaping how the next generation understands the industry.
SEEDS Connections, initially established as SEEDS in 1976 with support from Calgary Power and other oil and gas companies, has become a major player in Canada’s educational landscape, receiving backing from companies like ConocoPhillips, Cenovus, Imperial Oil, and ATCO as well as other companies with investments in oil and gas extraction, such as Royal Bank of Canada and TD Bank. Over the years, the program has reached millions of students across Canada. In 2014, it rebranded as SEEDS Connections, expanding its focus to include climate change, conservation, and water.
In British Columbia, FortisBC’s Energy Leaders program was pulled in 2022 after public pressure due to its lack of coverage on climate change and environmental risks but by that time, it was already downloaded over 35,000 times by parents and students.
The report warns “by directly sponsoring educational activities and resources, the industry builds community goodwill, promotes and validates continued fossil fuel consumption, and weakens criticism of the industry.”
In Ontario, Imperial Oil partnered with Forests Canada to host tree-planting information sessions for students from Northern Collegiate School living near one of its largest oil refineries in Sarnia. Trees, revered in Indigenous cultures as living beings with their own spirits, are vital to both sheltering wildlife and regulating the earth's climate.
While these sponsorships may seem innocuous, they provide oil and gas companies an opportunity to sanitize their image in the community.
In reality, it is a blend of "greenwashing"—exaggerating environmental efforts—and "redwashing"—using Indigenous culture to mask the harms of fossil fuel operations—this initiative helps normalize the expansion of the industry.
The reality in Sarnia, however, is far from harmless. The city has long been home to three of Ontario’s top ten air polluters and houses 46 facilities, including the Imperial Oil refinery, listed under Canada’s National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI).
In 2005, these facilities released over 131 million kilograms of air pollutants into the environment. While these facilities account for only two percent of Ontario's total NPRI-listed facilities, they contribute 16 percent of the province’s NPRI air pollution—almost as much as the entire province of New Brunswick.
In 2005, Sarnia’s facilities emitted 16.5 million tonnes of greenhouse gases, or more than one-fifth of Ontario’s total industrial emissions—surpassing the entire province of British Columbia.
What’s particularly concerning is the level of toxic pollutants released in the area. The 2005 emissions from Sarnia’s NPRI facilities included 5.7 million kilograms of toxic air pollutants, including chemicals linked to reproductive and developmental disorders, as well as cancer. These toxic emissions were greater than those from all of Manitoba, New Brunswick, or Saskatchewan, and exceeded those of any other community in Ontario.
These troubling numbers have only grown ever since.
As reported by The Pointer previously, Beze Gray, a 29-year-old Anishnaabe land and water protector from Aamjiwnaang First Nation—situated in an area near Sarnia, known as Chemical Valley—has directly experienced the damaging effects of the fossil fuel industry as well as the heavy pollution from the Imperial Oil refinery.
Gray is one of seven youths who have taken the PC government to court, challenging the reduced carbon emissions targets as a violation of their constitutional rights to life, liberty, and security.
Using sections 7 and 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights, the young activists argue that children suffer disproportionately from climate change, facing poor air quality, mental health challenges, and the long-term consequences of environmental degradation.
Ecojustice lawyer Fraser Thompson, who is representing the seven youth, believes that young leaders are “bringing hope to the fight against the climate crisis.”
“Young people around the world are fighting for their future, and they're doing so effectively. They're taking to the streets, polls and increasingly the courtrooms in their fight for climate justice…we're increasingly seeing dangerous and misleading greenwashing targeting youth. This is a well-oiled PR spin seeking to underplay the threats posed by the fossil fuel industry,” Thompson said.
“But the good news is that youth know the truth. They know that unless we rapidly transition away from fossil fuels, their future is at risk, and so youth are pushing back against any attempts by the fossil fuel industry to greenwash the reality of the climate crisis.”
As more young people raise their voices against climate inaction, many are also grappling with climate anxiety about their future.
“In the face of the accelerating climate crisis, young people are understandably anxious about their futures. They need—and are calling for—climate change education that addresses the causes and impacts of climate change and equips them with the knowledge and skills to take collective action to advance the equitable transition off fossil fuels,” For Our Kids Toronto and report co-author Anne Keary said in a statement.
A 2023 study found that 78 percent of Canadian youth report that concern about climate change negatively affects their mental health.
Another survey conducted by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), as part of the Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey (OSDUHS), found that 50 percent of students in Ontario feel depressed about the future due to the impacts of climate change.
“Education will be key to avoiding the most severe impacts of climate change, and evidence-based climate change education that also addresses mental health harms and climate anxiety is what is needed to equip students with the knowledge and skills required to build a more just, sustainable, and low-carbon future,” the report recommends.
Experts suggest all Ministries of Education allocate funding for well-being initiatives to support climate anxiety training for school counsellors which would enable teachers to better assist students in navigating these challenges.
In Peel, funding cuts have added to the strain, with $1.2 million taken from safety and well-being programs, despite rising student needs.
Although public education is primarily a provincial responsibility, the report urges the federal government to provide essential funding and bring together experts from environmental education and provincial ministries—all while curbing the influence of fossil fuel interests.
In June 2024, the government passed Bill C-59 to fight "greenwashing," requiring businesses to back up their environmental claims. The law includes provisions that make companies prove their environmental claims, such as sustainability or "carbon neutrality." It also prohibits false or misleading statements about products, with penalties like fines if businesses don’t back up their claims.
According to a survey by Angus Reid Forum, commissioned by Greenpeace Canada, there is strong public support for the legislation, with 93 percent of Canadians agreeing that "companies should face penalties for making environmental claims that they can’t prove are true.” The poll also revealed that Canadians became less trusting of oil companies after the companies removed environmental claims from their websites and social media once the law came into effect.
“It's important to understand that the fossil fuel industry has been heavily investing in lobbying, outpacing every other sector in terms of influence—except, perhaps, in PEI, where the industry isn't as dominant. But in provinces like Alberta, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia, their presence is substantial, and in Ottawa, they are actively meeting with government officials,” David Suzuki Foundation’s senior climate policy adviser Thomas Green told The Pointer.
“The issue is that our governments are often too friendly with the fossil fuel industry, allowing them significant influence. We need a much clearer stance and must stop letting them hold such power, especially with their misleading advertising and greenwashing tactics.”
At the provincial and territorial levels, Ministries of Education hold the responsibility for setting education policies, developing curricula, and overseeing teacher training. Ontario, for example, is one of the four provinces with sustainability-related documents but lacks a dedicated policy on climate change education. These ministries have the authority to limit the influence of the oil and gas industry while developing stronger climate change education policies.
Local school boards, being closely tied to their communities, can also play a key role by responding to community concerns, creating climate action plans, and instituting regulations that prevent corporate influence in education.
Ultimately, coordinated action is needed from all levels of government, civil society, and professional organizations to implement the necessary changes.
“An industry with such a clear conflict of interest should not be funding education. As a physician and a mother, I am appalled by the fossil fuel industry’s efforts to mislead our children, who are particularly endangered by both disinformation and the health impacts of climate change,” family physician and President of CAPE Dr. Melissa Lem said.
“Kids need education based in reality, not industry propaganda designed to prolong fossil fuels for corporate gain. Let this be our wake-up call.”