Environment Minister Benoit Charette on Wednesday downplayed the resignations of renowned scientists who recently left the Advisory Committee on Climate Change (CCCC), responsible for advising the Legault government. According to the CAQ minister, their departure would be linked to their inability to “press their agenda”.
Three of its members resigned within a year. In August 2023, the holder of the Chair of Energy Sector Management at HEC Montréal, Pierre-Olivier Pineau, left the committee of experts, calling it “dysfunctional and non-productive”.
Very recently, the holder of the Mobility Chair at Polytechnique Montréal, Catherine Morency, but also Catherine Potvin, an internationally renowned expert on forests and carbon from McGill University, resigned from the CCCC.
In interview at Duty,Mme Potvin, who has studied climate change issues for more than 40 years, bluntly criticized the lack of ambition to tackle the most serious environmental crisis in human history. “We are on the verge of a climate catastrophe, and it’s as if the committee is moving forward quietly,” she said, whistling ironically. “It’s not my reality. My reality is urgency,” she argued.
Solidarity MP Alejandra Zaga Mendez challenged Minister Benoit Charette on Wednesday, affirming that the resignations are linked to “the inaction of the CAQ” and its “mediocre record” in terms of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. ). “We are missing our reduction targets, it is written in black and white,” she said. “What’s the point of having set up a committee if the CAQ remains inactive? »
“Not everyone resigns. We are talking about two members who agreed not to renew their mandate. There are 11 out of 13 who are in office who are doing excellent work,” replied the minister, adding that “recommendations” from the CCCC have become “concrete measures”, but without citing any.
“If the members who leave with certain grievances have not succeeded in imposing their own themes on their colleagues, this is not the responsibility of the government of Quebec. They are the ones who have failed to put forward their agenda,” he added. The positions will be filled, added Minister Charette.
Climate failure?
The CCCC’s most recent opinion, made public in the middle of summer, concludes that despite the reassuring speech of the Legault government, Quebec is not on the path to a sufficient reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to meet its climate commitments. .
The experts mandated to advise the minister recall that “Quebec’s climate policies have not resulted in decarbonization commensurate with climate challenges”.
They specify that between 1990 and 2021, GHG emissions from the road transport sector increased by 16%, while total emissions on the territory of Quebec only decreased by 9%. What’s more, they increased in 2022 compared to 2021. In short, at present, “efforts remain insufficient” and “the window to achieve our decarbonization objectives is shrinking every day”.
The scientists who wrote this sixth opinion of the Committee since its creation, in 2021, also warn that the reduction in GHG emissions will have to be “steep” by 2050 to achieve “carbon neutrality”. For example, between 2022 and 2030, the reduction of GHGs must reach at least 3.2 million tonnes per year, the equivalent of removing 1.3 million gasoline cars from the road.
To achieve this, experts are calling for the implementation of “structural changes” in our society in order to initiate the process of “decarbonization”, which involves a shift towards “energy sobriety”. They cite as an example, once again, the need to review land use planning and “densify cities”, but also to develop collective and active transport in order to reduce the need for “individual motorized travel”, and therefore the number of cars.
The Committee also notes that the cap and trade system for GHG emission rights (the carbon market) and the various eco-fiscal measures “did not provide a price signal sufficient to induce, on the territory Quebecers, the necessary reduction of GHG emissions”.
Another committee, the Group of Experts on Adaptation to Climate Change (GEA), for its part underlined the urgency of adapting to the impacts of global warming. According to its most recent opinion, Quebec must not only review the way it designs infrastructure and take future warming into account in all of its decisions, but it must also stop the destruction of natural environments and work to restore those that have been degraded by human activity, including forests.