Biology professor Catherine Potvin, an internationally renowned forest and carbon expert at McGill University, withdrew from the Quebec Climate Change Advisory Committee (CCCC) at the end of the summer, after three years of involvement. She felt that participating had become “more frustrating than useful”.
“More and more, I had the impression that the process was very cumbersome, very complex, very not very agile. And then, with each report, we throw a stone into the water, and we don’t know what happens…”, she laments to the Dutyin a first interview since his resignation.
She never had the opportunity to discuss the CCCC’s recommendations with the Minister of the Environment or the officials concerned. Mme Potvin is also sorry that the committee’s work is not keeping pace with the necessary pace to decarbonize our way of life in a timely manner.
“We are on the verge of a climate catastrophe, and it’s as if the committee is moving forward peacefully,” she said, whistling ironically. “It’s not my reality. My reality is urgency,” she says, worried.
The CCCC, made up of independent experts responsible for advising the government on climate matters, has issued seven opinions since 2021: decarbonization of heavy transport, land use planning, carbon market, biodiversity, etc.
Three of its members resigned within a year. In August 2023, Pierre-Olivier Pineau (HEC Montréal) left, describing the committee as “phony”. And very recently, Catherine Morency (Polytechnique Montréal) resigned, criticizing the government’s lack of listening.
Aim for structural changes
On the occasion of his departure, Mme Potvin does not want to discuss the difficulties of the CCCC. She prefers to return to the committee’s penultimate report, devoted to the assessment of the fight against climate change in Quebec, published last July – and passed under the radar, apart from a few press articles.
“What we were trying to say — while remaining polite — is that the reduction in Quebec’s emissions is almost zero. This means that the actions we have taken do not succeed in curbing the problem,” says the committed scientist.
In this report, the committee calls for “structural changes”, which modify “upstream” the determining factors of energy and materials consumption. Rather than making efforts to modify behavior in a particular area (mobility, housing, food, etc.), we change the forces that guide decision-making.
Among industrialists, the Quebec carbon market could have generated such a structural change. It was a “visionary” instrument when it was created, thinks Mme Potvin. But the financial constraints on large emitters did not prove strong enough to trigger a real “transition towards a low-carbon economy”, we read in the report.
In transport, we see no structural change either, analyzes Mme Potvin. “We don’t have guidelines saying that in cities, pedestrians and bicycles are king,” she says. All the reflection keeps the premise that traveling by car is the ideal travel. »
The scientist launches an idea: rather than subsidizing the purchase of electric vehicles – for the benefit of the “richest” – why not subsidize electric bicycles? And to ensure their deployment outside large cities, it proposes creating “safe corridors” for cyclists within a radius of 30 kilometers around each village.
Lead by example
In the CCCC report, much is made of the creation of a carbon budget for Quebec. All greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions would go there. Such an instrument already exists in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, New Zealand, Sweden and Germany.
A carbon budget makes it possible to arbitrate priorities. It also sets targets within an “electoral” horizon, maintains Mme Potvin. “Until now, we have set very distant targets, like 2050. But then, the government does anything, because the elected officials know very well that they will no longer be in office. »
Since 2021, the CCCC has proposed several times to create a carbon budget, “but we have never had any feedback on that”, deplores Mme Potvin.
In the regulatory chapter, Mme Potvin welcomes the progress of the Legault government: the regulation on oil heating, that on renewable natural gas, the ZEV standard (zero-emission vehicle), etc. She now calls for “cleaning up” existing laws and regulations. Why do they make life difficult for cities that want to ban natural gas heating, for example?
Other reforms would make the housing sector more sober. In Quebec, from decade to decade, houses are increasingly larger, more energy-intensive and consuming materials. One idea would be to revise the tax structure. “Currently, municipalities have every benefit from building castles, because taxes are higher,” denounces Mme Potvin.
To overcome the “swelling needs” in real estate and automobiles, the State will have to set an example. Why not reduce the size of your own real estate portfolio? “In our post-pandemic reality, institutions have far too many premises. With these empty offices, we could create more social housing. »
Another idea to enhance the exemplary nature of the State? The Quebec government promises to reduce emissions from its automobile fleet by 60% by 2030, compared to 1990. But rather than simply electrifying, it could share. Like Communauto, it could make its electric vehicles available to the community when officials don’t need them.
Despite this abundance of ideas, the CCCC found little support from the government. And this, even though Quebec was hit by devastating forest fires in the summer of 2023. “It was a good idea to create this committee,” says Mme Potvin, but I don’t see the changes it brings. It doesn’t have enough bite. It will take more than that for people to understand that time is running out. »