Quebec Budget: The province must do more to reduce its GHGs.

Quebec government is asking its businesses and citizens to reduce their GHG emissions, but are they doing enough, on their side, to reduce their own?

In fact, Québec claims to be first in class about greenhouse gas emissions, but their emissions have barely decreased since 2014 and even tend to go slightly upward if we exclude years 2020 and 2021, due to the pandemic. It is still early to judge the impact of the 2030 Green Economy Plan, adopted by the government, but the objective of reducing GHGs by 37.5%, compared to the 1990 level by 2030, and bringing them to zero by 2050 will be difficult to achieve and, to get there, it will become inevitable to make a drastic change on their approach.

 At a time when more efforts are being asked from the Quebec population (citizens and businesses included), the largest investor, employer, contractor and building manager of the province must also do more, as any socially responsible company would do. The province of Quebec signs approximately $14.5 billion in public contracts per year and the GHG emissions reductions target are still not a priority in their contracts awarding. The Quebec government is also the province main investor, and the infrastructure plan will represent investments of 150 billion dollars over the next ten years, of which, 80 billion will be reserved for the infrastructure maintenance. These investments in our roads, schools, hospitals, public buildings, and transportation are crucial to curb GHG emissions and improve our resilience and adaptation to an accelerating climate crisis, and while we know all well that prioritizing the climate in these decisions could be a game changer, climate objectives continue to be treated as peripheral issues, without real modifications.

The province must do more to achieve its objectives. The solution resides in placing the fight against climate change at the heart of its priority missions and elevating this priority to the highest government level, rather than letting each ministry determine its pace and targets. The solution, inevitably, involves the government’s budget, where all budgetary and investment decisions must be considered by their impacts on GHGs. Quebec must devote the required financial resources for the decarbonization of its own operations and act as an example. To achieve this, the province must adopt targets and place them at the heart of its process to maintain its credibility in the eyes of its businesses and citizens.

Source : L’actualité by Karel Mayrand

Photo : Le Devoir