Decarbonization has a broad back. The climate crisis has become a selling point for Bill 69. Tabled last June by the former Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, this bill entitled “An Act to ensure the responsible governance of energy resources,” currently being studied in parliamentary committee, is anything but “responsible.” In our opinion, it is rather a vast greenwashing operation that uses the climate emergency as a reason to abandon as large a share as possible of Quebec’s energy resources to the private sector and put them to the service of new industrial projects that have nothing to do with Quebec’s exit from fossil fuels.
And why, for whom, all these upheavals of the current model?
According to Hydro-Québec’s 2035 plan, 75% of new electrical capacity would be used to decarbonize Quebec and 25% to support economic growth. But so far, the power blocks granted by former Minister Fitzgibbon are 100% geared toward industrialization. In fact, according to the information available, all of the MW granted to companies in November 2023 and last August will make possible new industrial projects that do not reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) from the existing economy in Quebec. Meanwhile, companies like Forges de Sorel, which would need only 16 MW to decarbonize its activities, are being denied the necessary power.
However, according to the Action plan 2035 Hydro-Québec, our Crown corporation would add, within eleven years, 60 terawatt hours (TWh), or between 8,000 and 9,000 megawatts (MW) of additional power, which is equivalent to the capacities of three of its largest hydroelectric facilities: Robert-Bourassa (LG-2), Manic-5 and La Romaine. This is a titanic project that would significantly affect the territory and biodiversity that has not been the subject of any comprehensive analysis. What if these MW were not used to reduce GHGs?
Simply producing more renewable energy does not in any way guarantee an end to fossil fuels.
On a global scale, renewable energies do not always replace fossil fuels. They are added to them to meet ever-increasing energy “needs”. By inflating the demand for energy through a proliferation of new industrial projects and the supply of energy through a bill that paves the way for a wild increase in public and private electricity production capacities, the Legault government is directly following this trend, which in no way leads to the abandonment of fossil fuels and goes against the necessary sobriety that must be prioritized at all costs.
By using the pretext of decarbonization and the fight against climate change to justify this bill without ensuring a replacement for fossil fuels, the Legault government is, in our opinion, engaging in an unworthy practice: greenwashing.
An exit plan
What Quebec needs is a plan for a gradual, predictable, but rapid exit from fossil fuels. Since the challenge is significant and involves societal choices, a real public debate is necessary and should invite the population, the scientific community, civil society, indigenous peoples, the most vulnerable populations and specialists to participate in order to reach the consensus needed to implement an ambitious socio-ecological transition plan.
This plan will not only have to allow us to move away from fossil fuels, but also to respond coherently to the multiple crises we are facing (climate, loss of biodiversity, inequalities, etc.). However, Minister Fitzgibbon’s bill does nothing to address this need. It avoids the broad public debate that Quebec urgently needs and further delays the adoption of plans and measures that are commensurate with the crises that afflict us.
Quebec could be a world leader and become the first state to completely free itself from fossil fuels, but that is unfortunately not what this government is proposing, for whom decarbonization is only a pretext for industrialization at the expense of Hydro-Québec customers.