Prime Minister François Legault was treated to a bulletin full of contrasts this week during the Climate Ambition Summit of the United Nations (UN). While former American President Al Gore called him a “hero” for having decreed a ban on the exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons in Quebec, during an interview in New York, our local environmentalists criticized his lack of ambition.
The episode illustrates the complexity of the fight against climate change. Even those who are moving in the right direction are judged harshly because they should be running towards the green economy rather than walking.
On paper, Quebec appears to be a good student. In 2013, he was the first in Canada to join the Carbon Exchange with California, while so many provinces (and the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada) are still fighting bitterly against the carbon tax today. . It is because of his decision to put a definitive end to the hydrocarbon era that Prime Minister Legault was invited to the Climate Ambition Summit by the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres.
Few nations can boast of being cited as an example by the UN leader, renowned for the harshness and lucidity of his remarks on the lack of courage and conviction in the fight against climate change. In New York, he concluded the Climate Ambition Summit by warning humanity that its dependence on fossil fuels had “opened the gates of hell”. Judging that it is not too late to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, he urged world leaders to write a different future.
The two biggest polluters on the planet, the United States and China, were conspicuous by their absence, as was the United Kingdom, which has just announced a step back in its plan to combat climate change. A manager from the NGO World Resources Institute, David Waskow, found the right expression to describe the small steps of some and the disengagement of others. “It’s a bit like trying to put out a fire with a leaky pipe,” he said.
Seen from Quebec, a small nation on the scale of global climate ambitions, the state of play is demotivating. All our efforts will be like a drop of water in an overheated ocean. And yet, we must persevere and set an example across the North American continent to stimulate support for the fight against climate change. These hit us hard anyway. At the end of another cycle of fires, floods, extreme heat and other calamities in Quebec, we have no other choice but to focus on adapting to climate change and accelerating the transition to a green economy.
The Legault government is not perfect in the fight against climate change, but it is the reflection of a Quebec which advances by bicycle and retreats in pickup on the environmental issue. Reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions do not live up to our claims of rapid decarbonization of the economy, notes the chairman of the government’s climate change advisory committee, Alain Webster. The transport sector is the main factor of vulnerability, while the automobile fleet is increasing (faster than population growth in certain regions), in favor of more energy-intensive vehicles. At the same time, public transportation is recovering too slowly from the effects of the pandemic on travel habits and is suffering from underfunding and underinvestment. This is indeed a priority intervention niche, but we will not be able to improve the modal share of public transport without improving the offer and at the same time containing urban sprawl.
Quebec’s reduction target, set at 37.5% of GHG emissions compared to the 1990 level, is not among the most ambitious in the world. It was set in 2015, and it is aging poorly. Scientists estimate that we must now reduce GHG emissions by at least 43% compared to the 2019 level. Quebecers also emit nine tonnes per year of GHGs per capita, which is double the world average. On the other hand, they have the best record of all provinces in Canada.
The glass is half full or half fast, depending on your personalized dosage of climate anxiety, optimism and gloom. We must do more, without a doubt. While demanding that the government demonstrate leadership, let us not lose sight of the fact that the responsibility for the fight against climate change is both individual and collective. The essential search for energy sobriety, the keystone of a renewed effort to lower the global temperature, invites us to act both in the field of public policies and in that of modifying our behavior and habits of overconsumption.