(Ottawa) The new credit trading system to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is in fact just another new right to pollute, according to two specialists. The first part of this system announced Wednesday targets landfills that emit large amounts of methane.
Updated yesterday at 7:08 p.m.
“It encourages reductions in emissions from landfill sites, but these reductions, as they are offset credits, will be given to others to allow them to emit”, explains the director of the Institute of Trottier energy from Polytechnique Montréal, Normand Mousseau.
“Companies that are currently subject to carbon pricing at the federal level will be able, instead of paying the carbon tax or the carbon credit to the federal government, will be able to buy offset credits from these dumps”, specifies Pierre- Olivier Pineau, holder of the Energy Sector Management Chair at HEC Montréal.
The federal government hopes it will encourage the installation of equipment to capture and destroy the methane produced by the waste. Private companies, municipalities and Aboriginal communities will be able to submit projects.
Participation is voluntary and the cost of each carbon credit will depend on the market. One credit will equal one tonne of GHGs.
“I don’t know of companies that are regulated for whom offset credits are 100% of their fight against climate change. You’re paying other entities to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions, that’s not very sustainable in the long run from an economic point of view and from a business model point of view,” he said. is defended the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Steven Guilbeault, from California where he is taking part in meetings on climate as part of the Summit of the Americas.
According to a document provided to reporters by the department, this protocol is intended to temporarily “help advance reductions before federal regulations take effect” on methane emitted from landfills.
“What is the net effect in this context if the regulations come to prohibit”, asks Normand Mousseau.
The credit trading system creates an incentive to reduce pollution “that otherwise would not be covered by carbon pricing,” Guilbeault said.
“It inspires businesses, farmers and foresters to find new ways to reduce emissions or remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere,” he added. Indigenous communities and municipalities can also participate, allowing them to generate new revenues.
Four other protocols are under development at the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change and will be implemented later. One will aim to reduce emissions from refrigeration systems, the others to improve forest management on private lands, to reduce emissions from livestock through better management of their feed, and to better manage agricultural land to improve carbon sequestration in soils.
The credit trading system is intended to be complementary to the Quebec carbon exchange, but the type of projects that could be part of it remains unclear. The ministry’s document specifies that projects in a sector of activity already covered by the Quebec stock exchange will not be able to participate in the federal system. This would be the case for projects for refrigerant gases, according to Normand Mousseau.
Photo Alain Roberge, LA PRESSE archives
Norman Mousseau
Greenpeace considers this to be a “big step backwards” since fossil fuels should be phased out instead. “Offsets don’t stop carbon from entering the atmosphere and warming the planet, but on paper they make the big polluters look good,” said Salomé Sané, Nature and Food campaigner at Greenpeace Canada. .
“It’s too little, too late,” said NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice. It’s going to have a marginal effect when the bulk of the action the government could take would be to take the billions it gives in subsidies to the oil and gas companies and invest it in renewable energy and also mitigation and adaptation for communities in Quebec and Canada. »
For the Bloc Québécois, this is “a missed opportunity all along the line”. “The Liberals had the choice to enter the Quebec system or to create one: they preferred to do neither of the two options,” argued MP Monique Pauzé.
“We know that when the Liberals don’t achieve their goals, they invent new ones and create more ambitious programs that they have no intention of achieving,” said Conservative MP Kyle Seeback. .
The federal government has set a goal of reducing GHGs by 40% to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030.