It is often repeated: air travel weighs heavily on an individual’s carbon footprint. However, the main instrument for reducing GHGs in Quebec — the carbon market — does not apply to flights within the province. However, interregional trains and buses are subject to it.
This is nothing new: air transport has been excluded from Quebec’s cap-and-trade system for emissions allowances (SPEDE) since its launch a decade ago. However, this free pass, which is only mentioned in depth in ministerial documentation, is largely unknown to the public.
“It’s very problematic,” says Pierre-Olivier Pineau, holder of the HEC Montréal Chair in Energy Sector Management. “We find ourselves collectively subsidizing the pollution generated by this very energy-intensive mode of transport. This is obviously the wrong direction,” he says.
In the world of carbon accounting, aviation stands apart. Emissions from international aviation, because they are released across borders, are not counted in national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories. A parallel protocol to the Paris Agreement aims to reduce them.
In Canada, the same accounting problem affects flights between provinces. To whom should we attribute their emissions? For this reason, interprovincial flights that land in Quebec are not subject to SPEDE. However, the exclusion also extends to kerosene burned by aircraft connecting two Quebec destinations.
The Ministry of the Environment explains to the Duty that this decision was taken because it is difficult to separate the emissions attributable to internal flights and those due to external flights. How do you take into account the GHGs of a plane that departs from Toronto, stops in Montreal, then continues on its way to Sept-Îles, for example?
“Would it be desirable for aviation to be covered? The answer is yes,” observes Jean Nolet, CEO of Coop Carbone, an organization that is used to negotiating on the Quebec carbon market. “Once we’ve said that, is it technically feasible? This I do not know. »
According to Mr. Pineau, if the government cannot integrate domestic aviation into the SPEDE for technical reasons, it should at least “act strongly” to reduce the use of air transport. “That’s not what’s happening,” he laments. We subsidize airports and plane tickets at $500. Rather, we should already be developing a railway strategy. »
Other sectors excluded
The SPEDE imposes an overall CO limit2 to large emitters in Quebec and to fuel distributors. Good players, who manage to reduce their emissions, can sell excess “emission units” to less good players, who must cover their GHGs.
Not all sectors are covered by the SPEDE. In its communications, the ministry often mentions that agriculture and waste are excluded from the system. At the request of Dutyhe provided an exhaustive list of sectors that are not subject to the SPEDE (see box).
Would it be desirable for aviation to be covered? The answer is yes. Having said that, is it technically feasible? This I do not know.
In addition to air transport, it can be seen that maritime transport also benefits from an exclusion. This mode of transporting goods emits less carbon than other options, such as trucking. Its exclusion therefore tends to encourage desirable practices from a climatic point of view.
Pay your rights
The burnt kerosene during a Show flightal–Sept-Îles generates about 80 kg of CO2 per passenger. At the current price of carbon ($37/tonne), if air carriers were required to comply with the SPEDE, they would have to pay emissions rights equivalent to $3 per passenger.
For their part, motorists pay emission rights through the fuel they buy. For a Montreal–Sept-Îles trip in a subcompact car, a contribution of approximately $6 must be counted. Bus passengers must also pay this charge implicitly: 40¢ per passenger, always for the same trip.
In 2019, the last pre-pandemic year for which data is available, air transport (excluding international flights) generated the emission of 0.9 million tonnes of CO2 in Quebec. This is 1% of total emissions in the province that year.