The Government of Quebec is spending the money from the new “Green Fund” blindly, according to the Sustainable Development Commissioner. Sums of more than $5 billion must be used to fund measures to fight climate change, without even the Department of the Environment having assessed their effectiveness.
This is the main finding of the environmental audit body, which released its most recent report on Wednesday. Inside, the new commissioner, Janique Lambert, who plays the role of watchdog in the fight against climate change in Quebec, criticizes the allocation of certain sums from the Electrification and Climate Change Fund (FECC), which replaced the Green Fund in 2020.
According to the Commissioner’s findings, the government of the Coalition avenir Québec has committed to paying 5.4 billion from the FECC in climate actions… whose impact has not even been assessed. Among these, the EcoPerformance program, which aims to encourage industrial companies to initiate an energy shift. In its 2021-2026 green plan, Quebec planned to inject $267 million into it. But last year, he had not even fulfilled 60% of his objectives.
However, in a recent update of his green plan, the Minister of the Environment, Benoit Charette, increased EcoPerformance funding by more than $60 million.
“The longer the ministry delays reviewing these actions, the more significant sums it commits without improvements being made,” laments Commissioner Lambert in her 167-page report.
In all, the Commissioner and her teams counted 78 problematic programs and measures. In these cases, the ministry “did not provide documentation presenting, for each action, the analyzes carried out, the criteria used and the conclusions”. “These analyzes should have presented the past performance of the action and made it possible to determine the changes to be made to it”, can we read.
Quebec relies heavily on the measures funded by the FECC to achieve its greenhouse gas reduction and carbon neutrality objectives in 2050.
An ineffective energy policy
The Commissioner for Sustainable Development is also critical of the implementation of the 2030 Energy Policy, launched in 2016 and designed in particular to significantly reduce (40%) Quebec’s dependence on petroleum products, but also to improve energy efficiency by 15%. energy and increase the production of renewable energies by 25%.
Even if this constitutes “one of the foundations” on which the government relies to achieve its greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction target, the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources (MERN) “ does not effectively and efficiently manage the implementation of the 2030 Energy Policy, despite being responsible for it”. This “puts the achievement of its targets for 2030 at risk”.
“The implementation of several measures is not proceeding as it should, and this is delaying the achievement of the expected results,” underlines the Commissioner. She cites as examples the lack of evaluation of the “progress made” and the lack of “integrated governance allowing the energy transition to be carried out successfully”. Result: the achievement of the expected results “is lagging behind”.
While consumption of petroleum products was expected to decline by nearly 697 million liters as of March 31, 2021, it actually fell by only 282.5 million liters. Regarding the reduction of GHG emissions resulting from the implementation of the Energy Policy, the Commissioner calculated a reduction of 1.4 million tonnes as of March 31, 2021, while the target was 3.5 million tons.
Further details will follow.