The Legault government admits that Quebec is on the way to completely missing its objective of reducing dependence on petroleum products, after years of continuous increase in consumption, essentially in the transport sector, where light trucks, including vehicles sport utility vehicles are becoming increasingly popular.
The Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources (MERN) published Friday, after the end of parliamentary work, its “2026 Upgrade of the Master Plan in Energy Transition, Innovation and Efficiency”. This 124-page document details no less than 230 measures planned by 2026, with a budget totaling $12.7 billion.
This plan “aims to rethink energy consumption and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, whereas nearly 70% of these, in Quebec, come from the production and consumption of fossil fuels, ”recalled the Legault government, in a press release.
However, as far as our dependence on fossil fuels is concerned, Quebec is on the way to failure, according to what can be read in the document. The Government of Quebec, under the Liberals of Philippe Couillard, had set itself the objective in 2016 of reducing our consumption of petroleum products by 40% by 2030, compared to the level of consumption in 2013.
“The results show that the target for reducing the consumption of petroleum products by 2030 will not be achieved,” reads the document produced by the MERN and published on Friday. The current “scenario” rather indicates “a reduction in the consumption of petroleum products of 27.5% compared to its 2013 level, i.e. below the target”.
In this context, the MERN promises to propose “additional measures to fill this gap”, and this, “in the years to come”.
Holder of the Chair of Energy Sector Management at HEC Montréal, Pierre-Olivier Pineau is not surprised by the government’s failure to reduce our dependence on oil. He also believes that the government “is not doing everything necessary” to achieve the 2030 target.
According to him, we should directly attack the main sources of the consumption of petroleum products: road vehicles. “Everything should be done to encourage less use, a transfer to less energy-intensive modes of transport and, then, an improvement in vehicles,” he argues. “Concretely, we should encourage active transportation, public transit, carpooling. Financial constraints should also be placed on the purchase of new vehicles, particularly heavy ones, and the use of vehicles, such as with a kilometric tax,” Mr. Pineau points out.
He also believes that a “railway strategy is inevitable to occupy the territory with a low carbon footprint”.
more oil
The document published Friday by the MERN also shows that the consumption of “petroleum products” has experienced continuous growth from 2014 to 2019. These figures confirm the data already published in the “State of energy in Quebec in 2022” , a report produced by the Chair of Energy Sector Management at HEC Montréal.
Moreover, “the economic recovery of 2021 has brought the energy sector back to normal: the consumption of petroleum products has returned to levels equivalent to those before the pandemic”, notes the most recent edition of the State of energy in Quebec. Overall, “no major changes, in terms of energy, will persist following the upheavals linked to COVID-19”.
Quebec today consumes about 360,000 barrels of oil every day, or more than 130 million barrels a year. This demand for oil is mainly intended for the transport sector, which consumes 82% of petroleum products.
Data compiled by the Chair in Energy Sector Management at HEC Montréal indicate a 41% growth in energy demand from the transportation sector since 1990. However, the latter still draws 97% of its energy today petroleum products.
According to’State of energy in Quebec, alone “the fleet of personal vehicles in Quebec has increased by 66% since 1990, an increase three times greater than the population growth of the province (+22%)”. The category of personal vehicles that experienced the strongest growth during this period is that of light trucks, which includes sport utility vehicles (SUVs). Their number jumped by 319% on the roads of Quebec.
During the same period, the decline in energy consumption by cars was “more than offset” by a 197% increase in the consumption of light trucks, due to the increase in sales. For example, these represented 71% of the market in Quebec in 2020.
According to the most recent report on Quebec’s GHG emissions, that of 2019, these have fallen by barely 2.7% since 1990, while the target (abandoned in 2018) provided for a reduction of 20% to the 2020 horizon. The Legault government now hopes to achieve a 37.5% reduction by 2030. The transportation sector accounts for 43% of the current balance of GHG emissions in Quebec.