Five Quebec municipalities are demanding a provincial regulation to “quickly” abandon the use of fossil fuels in buildings, failing which they themselves promise to ban natural gas heating systems in new constructions on their territory. It is about achieving our collective climate goals, they argue.
“For us, natural gas is not a solution for the future,” says Paul Germain, the mayor of Prévost, a town of 14,000 people in the Laurentians, who is one of the claimants. “We would prefer that the government [du Québec] take the lead, he continues, but if necessary, we can modify our building regulations” to prohibit heating appliances that emit greenhouse gases (GHG).
“Each new building connected to natural gas, each renewal of a heating device powered by fossil fuels, accentuates our carbon lock-in, i.e. it makes us dependent on energy systems that are incompatible with the imperatives of reducing greenhouse gases”, write the mayors of Prévost, Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Otterburn Park, Petit-Saguenay and Saint-Cuthbert in an open letter published Tuesday in the Opinion section of the To have to.
The government of François Legault has the means to orchestrate the decarbonization of residential, commercial and institutional buildings in an “efficient” and “coordinated” manner, they plead. The proof: last year, Quebec adopted a regulation prohibiting the installation of oil heating systems. It could simply extend its regulation to natural gas.
In the absence of provincial direction, municipalities can nevertheless act on their own if they wish. Last May, the City of Montreal announced that new constructions on its territory should be “zero emissions” by 2025. Public hearings on this subject are also taking place this week. In addition, the Center québécois du droit de l’environnement and the organization Vivre en Ville published a report in November detailing the regulatory possibilities available to municipalities to eliminate heating systems that release GHGs.
For new builds [à Prévost], it is certain that we will act, supports Mr. Germain. You have to be responsible. It’s not a question of being green or not, of being ecologist or not: I think it’s a necessity. We must leave to those who follow a better planet, and I think that means restricting the use of natural gas as soon as possible. »
Marc-André Guertin, the mayor of Mont-Saint-Hilaire, hopes that many Quebec municipalities will “follow the lead” in this pro-climate movement, which has already been spreading elsewhere in North America for several years. Because he is worried to see promoters continue to connect new developments to the gas network. “The market isn’t necessarily leading us in the right direction,” he says.
Would “dual energy” systems, which use natural gas only during very cold weather, be eligible? Would renewable natural gas (RNG) be considered carbon neutral energy, as is the case in Montreal? Both in Prévost and in Mont-Saint-Hilaire, the technical details of possible regulations on heating systems have not been fixed. A province-wide regulation would also save municipal administrations a lot of headaches, argue the two mayors.
From the outset, Messrs. Guertin and Germain are nevertheless “skeptical” about the GNR. This methane does not come from fossil sources, but rather from waste or animal waste. Note that this gas, if it escapes through leaks upstream of the furnaces, is a powerful GHG. “There will always be demand from certain industries for renewable natural gas, so I think we can completely get gas out of buildings [résidentiel] “, thinks Mr. Germain.
Until recently (2019 to 2021), nearly 10% of new residences in Quebec were connected to the gas network. Earlier this year, the distributor Énergir however reported a certain decline in the number of connections: the company is gradually reducing its footprint in a sector destined to shrink. On average, each Quebec household heating with natural gas consumes 5,000 cubic meters per year, which releases 9.5 tonnes of CO2 in the air.
According to an analysis by the Trottier Energy Institute (IET) published in June, prohibiting the installation or replacement of fossil fuel heating systems as of 2023 would be a very effective way to reduce GHGs in the building sector in Quebec. This flagship measure, combined with other proposals from the researchers, would reduce emissions from residential buildings by 60% by 2030.
“Building is one of the sectors where it is possible to accelerate decarbonization to compensate for the slow transformation of other sectors. Key technologies are known and mature, although the scale of transformation remains a challenge,” reads the IET report. In 2019, the building sector accounted for 10% of Quebec’s GHG emissions.