It is increasingly clear that Quebec will miss its greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction target for 2030. A target set at 37.5% compared to the 1990 emission level, which already , is an insufficient objective if we take into account Québec’s contribution to global emissions. If the province really wanted to do its fair share and thus respect the spirit of the Paris Agreement, its objective would be much more ambitious. However, in the last days, there have been two reminders of the failure to come.
First, a report by the Commissioner for Sustainable Development, Janique Lambert, revealed last week serious deficiencies in the governance of the Electrification and Climate Change Fund (FECC), which has replaced the Green Fund since 2020. wrote in these pages: the commissioner believes that the government is blindly spending the sums allocated to the Fund; some funded projects have not been evaluated by the Ministry of the Environment and the Fight against Climate Change (MELCC), which itself is struggling to coordinate the actions intended to ensure the implementation of the Plan for a Green Economy 2030 .
The report details an alarming lack of seriousness, which compromises the achievement of the GHG reduction targets adopted by Quebec. The Minister of the Environment, Benoit Charette, nevertheless swept aside the criticism, saying that, in any case, this portrait dated from the spring of 2021 and was not up to date. Let’s say that, given the general indolence of this government on climate issues, it is hard to imagine that a radical turnaround in the situation has occurred since last year.
Then, on Wednesday, a new report, this time from the Trottier Energy Institute (IET) and Polytechnique Montréal, gave a layer of it, stipulating that the measures included in the Plan for a green economy are “largely insufficient” to hope to achieve the emission reduction target set for 2030. The authors of the document also point out that no sector of the economy examined shows a “structural downward trend in its emissions since 2015”, so that a 37.5% reduction in total emissions by 2030 is now “virtually unattainable”. With a little good will, we could still aim for 2050 – but let’s say that would be too little, much too late.
On the sidelines of the publication of the IET report, its scientific director, Normand Mousseau, spoke of the trivialization of constant failures in achieving climate targets. It is true that there is something disturbing in seeing the indifference with which we announce and welcome the sequence of defeats and renunciations, in terms of ecological transition. As if we were used to preparing for disaster.
This habituation to failure, this particularly sinister form of resignation, is not specific to Quebec. At the international level too, it is becoming more and more accepted as an institution.
In the wake of the most recent reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which spoke to us about this famous window that is closing for climate action, the creation of the World Commission on Climate Change was announced in May. the Climate Overshoot Commission, an independent group made up of international leaders responsible for developing a strategy for reducing climate risks in the event of a temporary overshoot of the objective of limiting global warming to 1.5°C.
This temporary overrun, the IPCC has made it clear to us, is now of the order of virtual certainty. Now, this Commission is a curious and disturbing thing; draped in virtue, presented in a pragmatic tone, but nevertheless crossed by a tension. As if, in its very creation, through its ambition to concretely envisage the deployment of “climate intervention” technologies in a “temporarily” too hot world, it announced the gradual abandonment of the intention to achieve a real transition just and democratic ecological.
On the Commission’s website, care is taken to specify that we must continue to prioritize the reduction of GHG emissions, but, it is argued, it is now necessary to explore “additional approaches” to contain the risks of warming, beyond what the reduction in emissions can allow. Additional approaches include exploration of carbon capture and atmospheric cooling technologies. Obviously, we are advancing on this controversial terrain as we are walking on very thin ice, insisting a lot on the fact that this research is exploratory, that it is only to evaluate the use potential of these technologies.
I will come back to this, because there is a lot to learn and say about these frankly dystopian technologies. For then, let us only underline that in the negligence of the government of Quebec as in the emergence of transnational entities responsible for thinking about climate “overshoot”, there is a clear connivance. We can clearly see the delirium taking shape: we will deviate the sun’s rays and change the composition of the atmosphere before talking seriously about transition, about decay. We are being prepared to move directly from inaction to forced resilience.