For most of the last decade, Canada was widely seen as opposing progress on an international climate agreement, culminating in former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s decision in 2011 to become the only country to pull out of the Kyoto Protocol.

Then, our new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau led a large Canadian delegation to Paris for COP21 in November 2015 and reversed Canada’s position, boldly declaring that “Canada is back” and leading the charge to support limiting warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, with 1.5 degrees Celsius as a level of global ambition.

But recently, many are questioning whether Canada has truly changed course when it comes to the fight against climate change.

In September, Trudeau conditionally approved Petronas' Pacific NorthWest LNG project which, if built, would become the largest point source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country.

Then, last week, Trudeau made major announcements on several pipeline projects — the government approved both Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Expansion Project and Enbridge’s Line 3, while rejecting the Northern Gateway project and imposing a moratorium on crude oil shipping on B.C.’s North Coast.

“We’ve always been clear in our position that strong resource development goes hand in hand with strong environmental protection,” Trudeau said.

The pipelines were given the green light just two weeks after a Canadian delegation led by Environment Minister Catherine McKenna went to Morocco for the final days of COP22, where the government once again expressed Canada’s “strong support to developing countries as they work to reduce emissions that cause climate change,” this time with a $2.5 million investment in clean tech.

But is it inconsistent of Trudeau to both approve pipelines at home and attempt to meet our international climate policy commitments, as laid out in the Paris agreement, which came into effect November 4?

Critically, the answer depends on what you understand those commitments to be.

For example: In Paris, did Canada commit to the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) pledge that the Harper government had previously filed (to reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030)?

Yes, we did.

Trudeau, who knows that the world’s collective NDC pledges fail to meet the 1.5-2 degree goal of the Paris Agreement, has wisely saidthat Canada’s pledge was a ‘floor, not a ceiling’ for Canada’s ambition.

Another example: In Paris, did Canada commit to “[holding] the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels,” as defined in Article 2 of the agreement?

Yes, we did.

Numerous studies (here, here, here and here) have argued that building additional pipeline capacity and oilsands expansion is inconsistent with either a 1.5- or 2-degree Celsius target. The Paris Agreement historically included these targets at the insistence of 43 of the most vulnerable nations to climate change.

However, some continue to only recognize the Paris Agreement by our NDC commitment. Even under this Harper-established target, significant questions emerge: Can we meet our NDC pledge if emissions from the oilsands grow to 100 metric tonnes, which is the cap on emissions that the Alberta government set in its latest climate plan? If we can, is a new pipeline needed for this level of production from Alberta?

All of these questions are under debate and many are waiting to see how Trudeau squares the circle of development versus emissions reductions in the much anticipated new national climate plan, which is set to be discussed in Ottawa this week.

Trudeau definitely made his job much harder when he approved Petronas in late September. The announcements last week make the task even more difficult.