Canada’s 2030 plan to reduce Canada’s carbon footprint is generally better received by environmental groups than by opposition parties in Ottawa. Ecologists, however, would have preferred to see more constraints on the fossil fuel industry.
Called a “solid plan” by Équiterre, or an “encouraging step forward for climate action” by the David Suzuki Foundation, the document unveiled Tuesday by the Trudeau government raises some hope among environmental groups.
“For the first time, a Canadian climate plan provides for the oil and gas sector to significantly reduce its emissions”, writes for example Patrick Bonin, of Greenpeace Canada.
Most observers, however, are critical of the oil and gas sector being given a reduction target.lower tion what falls to the rest of the Canadian economy. Nature Québec deplores this “pass” for this industry, which will have the consequence, according to Environmental Defence, “of forcing the other sectors of the economy to work even harder to compensate”. The Sierra Club concludes that the plan is incompatible with the drilling of new sites, such as that proposed by the Bay du Nord project, off Newfoundland and Labrador.
Several environmental groups doubt the true potential of carbon capture and storage technologies, in which the government intends to invest $319 million. These technologies “are far from having reached maturity, for the moment they only allow minimal offsetting of emissions and they are used by the fossil fuel industry as an excuse to increase its production”, denounces Alice-Anne Simard, director General of Nature Quebec.
Opposition disappointed
The opposition parties in Ottawa all denounced the Liberal plan in their own way on Tuesday. “I expected something bigger,” dropped Bloc Québécois MP Kristina Michaud. “We continue to encourage, with the financing of carbon capture and storage, strategies that are not proven. It is a way of subsidizing this polluting sector. »
As with the Green Party, whose MP Elizabeth May expected “better than that”, the New Democratic Party (NDP) also took up the main criticisms made by environmental groups. “The Liberals have just bowed their backs, once again, to the oil sector. Unacceptable, rude and not at all up to the climate emergency,” commented New Democrat MP Alexandre Boulerice on Twitter.
The Conservative Party of Canada, opposed to the current federal carbon pricing model, has pointed out that the Liberals have never achieved a GHG reduction target in six years in office. “What is their proposal today? Even higher targets, but at the expense of jobs and the Canadian economy,” launched MP Luc Berthold in the House.
In a statement sent to the Homeworkthe Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers has stressed that it wants to do its part for decarbonization by exporting more gas to countries wishing to replace coal.
With Alexander Shields