Plan for a green economy | Quebec will force cement factories to reduce their GHG emissions

Cement factories will have to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by will or by force, warns the Legault government, which will unveil this Friday the third “implementation plan” of its objectives to fight against climate change.

The Press obtained from a source with access to the plan the details of the measures relating to the industrial sector, which is the second largest GHG generator in the province.

Quebec will financially help large industrial companies to reduce their emissions, including cement factories, but the latter will also be imposed an “obligation of result”, explains this source, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the plan before its official announcement.

“If what is offered voluntarily [par les cimenteries] is not substantial or important enough, this is where we can add constraints through the regulations, ”explains this source.

The government could also include new requirements for cement factories in their “ministerial authorization”, a document which governs the operation of an industrial establishment, which must be renewed by the end of the mandate of the CAQ government.

” THE timing can hardly be better,” this source explains.

Quebec is also preparing to “optimize” the joint carbon market with California, in particular by accelerating more quickly than expected the reduction of the emission ceilings imposed on large GHG emitters, a limit often considered ineffective, because too permissive.

The Minister of the Environment, the Fight Against Climate Change, Wildlife and Parks, Benoit Charette, was in California at the end of April for discussions on the subject.

Millions for “bioenergy”

Quebec will devote an additional $175 million to large industries to “help them use biofuels rather than fossil fuels,” explains this source, referring to biomass or “renewable” natural gas.

Support for electrification, which was included in the previous implementation plan, will continue to be offered.

The government is also enhancing other programs that help industries reduce their emissions, such as the “GHG Challenge”.

This program is a kind of “competition” inviting companies to submit an emissions reduction project and at the end of which the most effective proposals obtain financial aid.

“It helps us a lot in terms of our balance sheet,” says this source.

By themselves, the measures intended for the industrial sector should allow a reduction in GHG emissions of 5.1 million tonnes per year by 2030, calculates Quebec.

Plan still incomplete

This third plan for implementing the Plan for a Green Economy (PEV), which covers the period 2023-2028, has a budget of $9 billion, an increase of $1.4 billion announced in the budget of the Minister of Finance Eric Girard, in March.

No other sector of expenditure has obtained such a significant increase, it is underlined in Quebec.

However, the plan does not yet identify all of the means necessary to achieve Quebec’s GHG emissions reduction target, which is 37.5% below their 1990 level by 2030.

The first implementation plan identified only 42% of the means to achieve this objective, a rate which rose by 9 percentage points in the second plan, last year, to reach 51% of the measures identified.

The third plan will allow a “comparable” jump, according to our source, who did not want to be more precise before the announcement on Friday.

“With similar leaps, we can very credibly say that we will reach our target in 2030,” she said. We may be one of the only states in the world to be able to achieve its targets. »