(Quebec) The CAQ government’s new greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction plan ignores the proposals of the committee of experts advising the Minister of the Environment.
Posted at 7:01 p.m.
According to the Parti Québécois (PQ), there is therefore a lack of important accountability tools to monitor reduction objectives. And what’s more, the CAQ plan does not refer to a “just transition”, specific measures to support workers threatened by the decarbonization of the economy.
Last week, the Minister of the Environment, Benoit Charette, presented his 2022-2027 Implementation Plan, which targets a reduction of 15.9 megatonnes of GHGs.
The PQ environment spokesperson, Sylvain Gaudreault, deplores the fact that this plan does not include an “intermediate target” set for each of the five years of the plan, in order to be able to adjust from year to year, depending on the results. published in the annual GHG emissions inventory.
However, this is what the Advisory Committee on Climate Change, made up of experts and who advises the minister, recommends, underlined Mr. Gaudreault, in an interview Thursday with The Canadian Press.
As there is no intermediate target, “we are really constantly catching up”, because of the gap between the long-term objective set and the annual result.
Mr. Charette’s plan also does not retain the concept of a “carbon budget”, a follow-up measure suggested by the Advisory Committee on Climate Change: an accounting of data to precisely monitor the quantity of GHGs emitted from year to year. for each of the sectors, to monitor progress or delays in relation to the reduction target.
The government maintains that the annual update will suffice, but this lacks precision, according to the PQ MP for Jonquière.
“We don’t yet know exactly how the update will be done, by sector, such as transport, industry, or by measures? Well, that’s not clear. It does not at all correspond to the scope of a carbon budget as we see in the United Kingdom or in France. »
Just Transition
Moreover, according to the PQ, the plan moves away from the spirit of two motions adopted by the National Assembly and even from a commitment made by Quebec at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow last year. .
The government had indeed agreed to set up a joint interdepartmental working group for the just transition: taking care of thousands of jobs that could be threatened in the long term by the abandonment of fossil fuels and climate change.
Mr. Gaudreault points out that the plan does not mention it.
Mr. Charette believes that the Labor Market Partners Commission can fulfill the mission and that its plan sets aside $16.8 million to adapt the labor market to the realities of climate change.
“We are in a different position from the oil states,” he pointed out. We don’t have sectors that are going to completely collapse like in the West. »
The PQ member believes that the government is underestimating the problem. For example, in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, aluminum smelter workers will be affected by new processes that require less labour.
“The government does not understand what the just transition represents, because we are a society whose workers are not dependent on hydrocarbons, but that does not mean that there are not just transition issues in several regions” , he pleaded in parliamentary committee.