The pandemic has shaken up our respective lives; with distancing, teleworking, confinement, curfews, our daily life has changed. Science has guided us and we have collectively proven that we can change our ways.
The climate crisis, it will not know of a vaccine. Accepting to change will be more difficult, because it is not a question here of changing for a while hoping that everything will return to the way it was before. The science that has shown us the way in the face of the pandemic is already indicating the efforts to be made. It is now necessary to collectively accept to transform our habits permanently.
According to the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “the planet is heading towards an average warming of 2.7 degrees by the end of the century, a scenario that could have serious repercussions in Canada and in Quebec where the climate is warming twice as fast as the world average ” 1.
The effects are real and the cameras point to them daily: fires, droughts, floods follow one another. Experts speak of catastrophes and cataclysms; a language we wanted to reserve for science fiction.
We must now admit that life will not be the same as before. We have long talked about the efforts to be made to maintain our way of life; now, we must recognize that this mode must change.
Urban sprawl
A recent British study relies on the fact that cars emit three times more carbon than public transport and that emissions from single-family homes are 65% higher than from multi-unit buildings to state: “ Our spatial footprint dictates our carbon footprint: the denser the greener. »(Center for Cities, October 4, 2021)
Our North American cities were built around roads and highways. We have created areas to live there, others to get supplies and still others to work there. We have chosen to occupy our territory by exclusive use zone and to reach each of them by car.
The problem of sprawl is not unique to Quebec, but it is more worrying there. A study by Statistics Canada published in 2015 revealed that among the large metropolitan areas of Canada, it was Montreal that experienced the most significant urban sprawl between 2001 and 2011. Among the small and medium-sized census metropolitan areas (CMAs) in Canada, during the same period, it was in Quebec that this title returned.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, PRESS ARCHIVES
Green alley in downtown Montreal
Happy density
Science prompts us to choose densification rather than urban sprawl. But how do you get there? Density does not get a good press. Occasionally, among those who plead for the protection of natural and agricultural environments and the end of solo driving, there are those who even reject urban densification.
To meet the climate challenge, we will have to find new models of urbanization that will make attractive a life where limited spaces will concentrate the many services to which we aspire.
The proposal of the “city of proximity” or “city of the quarter of an hour” makes it possible to envisage another way of inhabiting. To implement it, the public authorities will not only have to question “the solo car”, but also “the governance in a vacuum”.
The districts, the planning of which falls to the municipal order, will have to revolve around sustainable transport and parks, public education and health services and a diversified commercial offer driven by densification. The aim here is to avoid compartmentalizing uses and instead favor their encounters.
The conditions for success will depend on the ability to finance a vast network of public transport, to support social mix measures and to offer assistance for requalification either to decontaminate or to transform an urban fabric previously devoted to exclusive use of the automobile.
But how do you get there when education, health and transportation infrastructure is the responsibility of Quebec? In addition, limited mainly to property tax, cities have no financial means to adopt significant programs in housing or promoting land reclassification.
The federal and provincial governments which set climate targets and which will soon have to ask citizens to change their lifestyles will themselves have to review their practices and resolutely support the local order of government.
A vast municipal transfer program aimed at sustainable transport, social housing, territorial planning and land redevelopment must be adopted. Obviously, it must be accompanied by a transparent accountability exercise.
We can do as before: adopt targets, then wait. COP26 demands more. When disasters shift from science fiction to documentary, more must be done.
We need a collective mobilization concerning our mode of occupation of the territory and favoring densification in connection with climate challenges. The public authorities, supported by science, must maintain a broad discussion on the challenges and the means of action. It is only by sharing the importance of these issues with the population that they will find the necessary legitimacy to chart the path of transformation.
We know the risks, we know the targets. Now, rulers must change their modes of operation to help citizens change their way of life.
1. Read “The World on a ‘Catastrophic’ Path” What do you think? Express your opinion