It is the sad lottery created by the morbid forces that dominate our times: for the next five years, there is a one in two chance that the global temperature increase will be more than 1.5 degrees above the average. pre-industrial era. This is the grim observation made by the UN on Tuesday, in a climate bulletin published by the World Meteorological Organization.
If it were specified that exceeding this threshold will not necessarily be permanent, the fact remains that the probability of such a temporary overrun has only increased since 2015. This does not bode well for the achievement of the objective set. by the Paris Agreement on the climate, crucial to avoid a surge of climatic disasters, or to limit global warming to less than two degrees.
At the start of this week of early summer heat in Quebec, the Advisory Committee on Climate Change published a report on land use planning, a fundamental pillar in the fight against climate change. The findings made are unequivocal: land use planning has a direct influence on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, on the potential for carbon sequestration by natural environments and, incidentally, on resilience to climate change. climatic.
Urban sprawl, it is explained, is a structural phenomenon that marks the development of all regions of Quebec, and it is 9 times greater than 50 years ago. The impact of sprawl on transportation-related GHG emissions is particularly striking: these emissions have increased by 60% since 1990, and this growth is mainly caused by the increase in the number of light vehicles on the road. Light trucks (SUVs) in particular, whose energy efficiency is a pipe dream and whose number has grown by 288% in 30 years. This increase in the number of vehicles would be directly linked to urban sprawl, and the effect on emissions is undeniable: the further one moves away from dense centres, the more the quantity of GHGs emitted per driving license increases. And the more routes you add, the stronger the trend becomes.
As the government prepares to unveil its new national architecture and land-use planning policy, the Committee’s report shows that, without a strong political gesture, citizens and municipalities will remain stuck in a vicious circle which stops communities facing the future.
Coincidentally or a sign of the times, on the day of publication of this report, mayors belonging to a “new generation” of municipal leaders determined to bring climate issues to the forefront reacted to the words of the Minister of Transport, François Bonnardel, on urban densification. Earlier, in April, by presenting the absurd new version of its “third link”, Mr. Bonnardel described urban densification as a futile and passing fad. “Who am I to say to a young family: since the fashion is for densification, are you going to live in a 12-storey tower? he declared, with the deceptively down-to-earth sarcasm of those who try to make voices concerned about climate issues sound like ideologues disconnected from the proverbial real life of the real world.
In matters of climate as on the social front, we will never cease to be impressed by the determination of the CAQ to reverse the meaning of things to position itself as an ally with the citizens who nevertheless suffer the repercussions of its policies based on cynicism. and destruction.
Finally, it is not invented: after presenting the revised version of his third link – 6.5 billion dollars, no lane reserved for public transport, no study to support the relevance of the project -, Minister Bonnardel did not hesitate, this week, to drive the point home with the municipal representatives. According to him, urban densification is indeed only a fashion and many families “preferred” in fact to move away from densified environments.
It takes very little love and hope for the future to refuse so relentlessly to speak the language of obligation when it comes to the sustainable development of the territory and to wallow in the abstraction of preferences. individual. Obviously, concerns related to urban densification must be accompanied by a discourse on responsibility; the responsibility of supporting citizens who have neither the means nor the opportunity to settle in dense environments, designed on a human scale.
It is here that the climate impact of urban sprawl meets the full force of the housing affordability crisis, which is raging everywhere in Quebec. Of course, when we talk about densification, it is not a question of penning the middle and modest classes driven out of urban centers into 12-storey towers, sacrificing their quality of life on the altar of the fight against climate change. This is precisely the scenario that must be prevented, by acting immediately to design living environments that respect the territory and the people who live there.
But for a government accustomed to crafting its policies around the ideal of a high-energy upstart lifestyle, this rhetoric is inaudible. Fortunately, he risks having the municipalities in the paws – to avoid that we spread out until the end of the world.