“We will have to do a lot more and a lot more quickly. » This is the message launched Tuesday by the Group of Experts on Adaptation to Climate Change, which calls on the Quebec government to be more coherent in the fight and adaptation to global warming.
In a 74-page report unveiled Tuesday, the group of 14 experts proposes around twenty recommendations to Quebec Minister of the Environment, the Fight against Climate Change, Wildlife and Parks (MELCCFP), Benoit Charette. “One of the big challenges for the government is to be coherent,” recalls Alain Bourque, general director of the Ouranos consortium and co-chair of the group of experts.
“We will have to do much more and much more quickly,” says Professor Alain Webster, the other co-chair of the committee mandated last September by Minister Charette to make recommendations to the Government of Quebec.
The report entitled “Act today so that Quebec adapts to the reality of accelerating climate change” is structured around five axes:
1. Ensure preventive management of natural ecosystems and ecosystem services;
2. Protect the health, safety and well-being of all;
3. Adapt buildings and infrastructure and ensure the resilience of essential systems;
4. Promote the adaptation of economic activities and the financial system to risks;
5. Urgently support the ability to adapt and take action by all stakeholders.
Some recommendations can be deployed more quickly than others, but the two co-presidents nevertheless invite Quebec to consider them all and quickly implement actions whose impact will not be measured for several years.
According to Alain Webster, if we must identify a priority, it is to integrate the issue of climate change and adaptation measures throughout the government system. “We need collaborative leadership [de Québec] and avoid chicanes,” adds Alain Bourque.
The report specifies in particular that southern Quebec is heading towards warming of 4.3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, in a scenario of moderate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In a high emissions scenario, where the world fails to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050, the average temperature could increase by 5.7 degrees in Greater Montreal by 2100.
More details to come.