Federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault says his emissions reduction plan is consistent with findings from international climate experts, while repeating he has no power to limit Canadian oil production .
“Canada is rising to the challenge, working with other governments and positioning itself as a leader in the fight against climate change [qui est] existential,” boasted Minister Guilbeault, on the sidelines of the tabling of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), on Monday.
The former environmental activist turned Trudeau government minister argues that his plan to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, tabled last week, shares with IPCC experts the conclusion of the necessary drastic reduction in emissions, in all sectors of the economy.
Steven Guilbeault is particularly pleased to have set emission reduction targets by sector for the first time, including a target for Canada’s important oil and gas sector. “No government had the courage to do this. […] I think we are showing a lot of courage. »
Alberta Lawsuit Threat
The IPCC report calls in particular for a “major transition” of the fossil fuel industry. He stresses that the maintenance in activity of all the extraction sites and the realization of new oil projects risk causing the planet to miss the target of global warming limited to 1.5°C. However, we note the potential of new carbon capture and storage technologies.
However, the minister has still not indicated whether he would approve the Bay du Nord oil megaproject, which involves drilling in the marine environment off the coast of Newfoundland. He specified, on the set of the show Everybody talks about it, Sunday, that a decision in this file would be taken in the next two weeks.
Even though it is indeed his responsibility to approve the Bay du Nord project, Minister Guilbeault reiterated on Monday that the federal government only has the jurisdiction to cap pollution, and not to also cap the production of oil.
“The IPCC does not make policies based on the different constitutional realities of all the countries on the planet, but in Canada, the production of natural resources is clearly under provincial jurisdiction,” he said.
Mr. Guilbeault also reported that Alberta’s environment minister would have threatened him with legal action if Ottawa decided to limit the amount of oil produced by his province, during a recent tense meeting of half a year. hour with him.
Governments can do more, say environmentalists
Environmental groups stressed on Monday that the Bay du Nord project, awaiting the green light from the federal government, would contradict the conclusions of the latest IPCC report, which calls for urgent action to tackle climate change. They took the opportunity to reiterate certain criticisms of the federal GHG reduction plan for 2030.
“To continue to promote projects like Bay du Nord or Trans Mountain of this world is dishonest,” criticizes Émile Boisseau-Bouvier, climate policy analyst at Équiterre.
“Any money invested in the development of large-scale projects, like Bay du Nord, is money that we will not see again when these projects are abandoned,” warned Heather Elliott of the Sierra Club Canada Foundation.
Greenpeace Canada is also calling for an end to financial flows to the fossil fuel industry, “because there is no room for new fossil fuel infrastructure”, writes Climate-Energy campaigner Patrick Bonin.
The David Suzuki Foundation, for its part, called on Canada to follow up on the IPCC report “by setting an ambitious cap for oil and gas emissions”. Such an emissions cap must be announced shortly, promises Minister Guilbeault. He also highlighted the creation of a Sustainable Finance Action Council to guide the financial sector towards emission reduction targets. A recent bill by independent senator Rosa Galvez aims to go further and force the financial sector to go green.
The Quebec government can also do more, concludes Équiterre, since many solutions proposed by IPCC experts can be implemented in its areas of jurisdiction. The report suggests, for example, improving land use planning and tackling emissions from the transportation sector, the province’s largest emitter.
In an email, the office of the Minister of the Environment and the Fight Against Climate Change, Benoit Charette, lists several environmental achievements or commitments, such as “the decarbonization of our electricity decades ago”, the ban on the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles after 2035 and ban on hydrocarbon exploration in Quebec.
“Our government’s actions prove that we are on track to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050,” it read.
According to the calculations of Homework, the GHG reduction targets for Canada and Quebec are both below those listed in the IPCC report for 2030, by a total of several tens of megatons of CO2or the equivalent of millions of cars.
With Alexander Shields