Quebec’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions started to rise again in 2022. According to official estimates, 79 million tonnes of GHGs were emitted that year, a little more than the 77.6 million released into the atmosphere in 2021, and more than the forecasts mentioned by the government last December.
This is a worrying signal, because the government has nevertheless committed to reducing GHGs by 37.5% in 2030 compared to the base year 1990.
Since 2020, at the height of the pandemic, when 74 megatons were emitted into the atmosphere, polluting emissions have been increasing.
The objective of 37.5% reduction by 2030 seems to be moving away: we were at 8.9% reduction achieved between 1990 and 2021, and if we now consider the increase in emissions in 2022, we are at 7.1% of the way traveled.
The data on 2022 GHG emissions appears in the budget tabled by the Minister of Finance, Eric Girard, on Tuesday, but it went unnoticed.
It is specified that the estimate is “based on information available as of February 29, 2024” and that it comes from the Ministry of the Environment.
The Canadian Press asked the department to provide the original document from which this data was taken, as well as the distribution of the 79 million tonnes according to the source of emissions.
Usually, the official emissions report for a given year is made public in December two years later. Last December, the 2021 results were therefore made public.
In the 2021 report, officials already forecast a slight rebound of 1.4% in emissions in 2022 compared to 2021, attributable to the resumption of certain economic activities which were slowing down during the pandemic.
At a press conference last December, they also forecast, for the first time, a reduction in fuel consumption in 2022.
The Minister of the Environment, Benoit Charette, estimated this drop at 9%, and linked it to a reduction in the number of vehicles with internal combustion engines.
Thus, for the first time since 1985, the number of thermal vehicles would have decreased in Quebec in 2022, a reduction estimated at 40,000 vehicles.
He then added that the forecasts for 2022 give “the feeling of having reached a ceiling in our GHG emissions”.
Remember that in its budget, the government announced within three years the gradual end of the subsidy for the purchase of electric or hybrid vehicles, which car dealers denounce.
Mr. Charette argued on Wednesday that this subsidy, which cost $400 million between April and January, is rather expensive compared to the GHG reduction that it allows to obtain.
The road, air, maritime, rail and off-road transport sector is still the main contributor of GHGs. It thus generated 33 megatons of GHGs, or 42.6% of Quebec’s total emissions in 2021.