And one, and two
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
There are now two parties presenting a climate plan that would seriously accelerate the energy transition.
Québec solidaire tabled such a plan on Sunday, and the Parti Québécois had done so a few days earlier.
Their documents have flaws — I’ll come back to that later. But before examining the tree with a magnifying glass, let’s contemplate the forest for a few seconds.
For 30 years, Quebec has struggled to reduce its greenhouse gases (GHGs). These have fallen by 2.7% since 1990. This is barely better than the United States (up 3%). And significantly less than the European Union (down 28%).
Quebec is fortunate to be seated on hydroelectric potential and to benefit even today from the vision of René Lévesque and Robert Bourassa. But for the rest, contrary to what François Legault claims, Quebec is not a model. He’s pretty ordinary. Its pride is in not being as bad as Canada (23% increase in GHGs since 1990).
It is in this context that the solid plans of the PQ and QS arrive.
Their targets for 2030 will be extremely difficult to achieve (45% below the 2010 level for the PQ and 55% below the 1990 level for the QS). Their opponents therefore have it easy to predict failure. And by dint of being accused of lacking ambition because of their more modest targets, I understand them a little.
But before getting lost in the details, let’s ask a more fundamental question: are the PQ and solidarity measures relevant? Are they moving Quebec in the right direction?
Overall, the answer is “yes”.
“The PQ and QS plans are by far the most sophisticated and serious we have seen in Quebec. They are still unfortunately afraid to tell certain truths. But it’s still a giant step,” argues Pierre-Olivier Pineau, holder of the Energy Sector Management Chair at HEC Montréal.
The PQ and QS would massively develop public transport, make business subsidies conditional on environmental standards, curb urban sprawl and set themselves intermediate targets with a monitoring mechanism for which the Prime Minister would be responsible.
The other parties should take inspiration from these good ideas instead of justifying their inaction by commenting on the poorly crafted details.
The Conservatives want to do as little as possible. The Liberals are making a dubious bet by betting everything on green hydrogen, despite the energy losses that would result. As for the caquistes, they have only identified half of the effort to reduce GHGs by 37.5% by 2030. They boast of being the only ones to propose a plan that quantifies the cost and the reduction of GHGs for each measurement. However, according to the Office of the Auditor General, “virtually all” of their actions “do not have adequate indicators or targets”.
The Caquists plead for a more gradual approach by focusing on future technological innovations to do the heavy lifting without disturbing the population. But for the moment, this recipe only breeds failures.
The PQ and solidarity finally offer to change gears.
The jar now?
The solidarity plan contains few figures. It sows confusion by proposing to add a surcharge to the carbon exchange mechanism. This would be difficult to apply, with uncertain consequences for heavy industries. If we relocate pollution to less demanding countries, it is not a gain. The left party would create structures whose effectiveness remains to be demonstrated, such as the regional transition councils, Quebec Bus and Quebec Rail.
To stand out from QS, the PQ offers carrots with little or no sticks. It postpones for five years the imposition of a bonus-malus which would have made the purchase of an energy-guzzling vehicle less advantageous. He does not dare to aggressively reduce energy demand and speaks little of adaptation to climate change. Chemical fertilizers in agriculture are also in its blind spot.
QS has the merit of revealing to journalists the details of its modeling and of identifying the experts consulted, which is not the case of the PQ.
But unlike QS, the PQ quantifies reductions by sector, such as transport, waste and industries. However, we do not know the cost of each measure, nor the impact on GHGs.
The two parties have in particular in common not to talk about waste pricing for citizens, and to trivialize the shock to come for transport companies, which will have to pay for new services while suffering from the drop in revenue from the tax. on gasoline caused by the electrification of transport.
To their credit, their resources are modest. They cannot rely on the machinery of government to do this technical work.
The case reminds me of tax havens. Every time a government wants to act, there is an expert who doubts that the state will reap as much revenue as expected. That’s true, but the question should be: is it still useful?
And in the case of QS and PQ plans, with few exceptions, the answer is “yes”.
It’s better than the others. From afar.