Sudbury activist and first-time voter Sophia Mathur wants to see the spotlight on climate change

Climate activist Sophia Mathur says it will be a "pinnacle point" in her life when she gets to cast her vote for the first time in Canada's upcoming federal election.

"I find it really interesting because a lot of my career as a youth activist up to this point has been really telling adults like, please use your vote to protect my future," said Mathur, who turns 18 two weeks before the election.

"But now I'm able to do that myself."

Mathur, who is from Sudbury, Ont., was among a group of seven young plaintiffs who have joined with the group Ecojustice and took the province to court saying it violated their Charter rights by weakening its emissions targets.

After the case being bounced around, Ecojustic is requesting a hearing before the Supreme Court of Canada.

Ecojustice said a hearing at Canada's highest court could have far-reaching implications for how governments respond to climate change.

But in the meantime, Mathur argues that climate change has been mostly sidelined during the election campaign as issues such as U.S. tariffs and the cost of living have gone to the forefront.

"A lot of people don't understand that climate change is only going to make things like that worse," she said.

"It's only going to make the cost of living worse. It's only going to make grocery prices higher. So the longer we delay this, the worse these problems are going to get."

Mathur says she is disappointed Canada's major parties – the Liberals, Conservatives and NDP – have all rejected the consumer carbon tax.

Mark Carney's first action as prime minister was to repeal the tax.

"The consumer carbon tax isn't working—it's become too divisive," he said in a news release when he announced the decision.

"That's why I'll cancel it and replace it with incentives to reward people for greener choices."

The Liberal climate change plan includes fast-tracking more green energy projects and introducing new green incentives for people to retrofit their homes to be more energy efficient and purchase greener vehicles.

The NDP is promising to keep the industrial carbon tax in place and to retrofit 3.3 million homes with energy-saving upgrades, including free retrofits for 2.3 million low-income households.

The Conservatives would repeal all carbon pricing, including on industrial emitters, but they would boost incentives, such as expanding tax credits, for businesses that reduce emissions and to promote clean energy technologies.

Tackling climate change

Mathur says that while investments in renewable energy and green retrofits are good, they need to be coupled with a price on pollution.

"There needs to be some form of tax or some way that we need to transition off of fossil fuels and things like that in order to decrease our global temperature," she said.

Mathur says many of her friends are politically active and are excited to vote for the first time.

"I'm also excited for the many other youth that have been speaking up for the environment and have been speaking up for many other issues that are important to them that are finally going to be able to have their voice heard in the polls," she said.