Emissions reduction an attainable goal

PROSPERITY compatible with a greener environment

Alittle-noted report, published this week, contains upbeat news for a province that can use some.

The report by Quebec’s environment ministry shows that the province is steadily pushing onward as a North American leader in the reduction of climate-disrupting greenhouse gases. Remarkably, in 2009 and 2010 (the most recent years in the report), Quebecers generated even less of the gases than in 1990, when the population was smaller. (See the graph.) The principal decline started under the Charest Liberals.

Here’s an additional positive development. Premier Pauline Marois last week proposed making electrification of transport the “project of the 21st century” for Quebec. This stands in contrast to former premier Jean Charest’s own “project of the century,” the Plan Nord mining strategy.

Marois’s idea is greener than Charest’s. It calls for replacing gas-and diesel-burning vehicles with those using relatively clean hydroelectricity. That would achieve several things at once: It would make good use Hydro-Québec’s surplus power, create jobs in Quebec companies that make trains, buses, métros and batteries, and reduce Quebecers’ purchases of imported fossil fuel that send billions of dollars outside the province to other countries every year.

By targeting transport, the concept would also strengthen the weakest point in Quebec’s fight against climate change. Road vehicles’ emissions have soared by 35 per cent since 1990 and now account for 33 per cent of all emissions. (In contrast, the industrial sector and home heating have both cut emissions since 1990.) The steady increase in the number of motor vehicles and the intensification of congestion have helped to counteract the increase in fuelefficient engines.

Still, Marois’s initiative is not a real plan. It’s still only a vague proposal. As well, she says her idea hinges on getting a hefty $20 billion from the federal government. That’s asking a lot.

Despite its fuzziness, we can assume that the idea would include replacing gas-burning cars with electric models. Such a switch would have problems. This could change, but electric cars now use batteries that are too big, too prone to catch fire, too costly for many motorists and, finally, too dependent on periodic recharging. An ambitious grid of recharging stations would have to be built for them.

So far as public transit in the Montreal region goes, the Marois proposal would appear to have more of an impact on the Agence métropolitaine de transport than on the Société de transport de Montréal. Locomotives on four of the AMT’s five commuter-rail lines use either diesel or both diesel and electricity, so some or all of these engines might have to be replaced. (The owners of the tracks — CN and CP — have so far been hostile to the notion.)

As for the STM, it already has an electrification strategy. It plans to test mini-buses running on hydropower this summer, to introduce trolley-buses in 2016 or 2017 and to purchase only buses that run on electricity as of 2025. It also hopes to extend métro lines and build a tram system. Marois’s approach might thus accelerate the STM’s plan and pay for métro extensions and the tram; it would, however, not change the agency’s general orientation.

Marois didn’t say anything about it, but a realistic plan would have to stress densifying urban development so that more people could move about without cars. That would require political parties to cease pandering to electorally powerful off-island ridings. It would, for example, mean disallowing such sprawl-spurring, car-dependent real-estate projects as the newly proposed Cité de Mirabel, featuring 2,000 dwellings and a shopping centre in the boonies.

Despite its progress so far, it seems unlikely that Quebec will meet the goal that premier Jean Charest set for it at the Copenhagen conference and cut emissions by 20 per cent below the 1990 level by 2020, much less attain Marois’s goal of slashing them by 25 per cent by the same year. Success would require a massive switch to electric vehicles, and that’s improbable.

Still, Marois needs to be encouraged to try. There’s no sense for Quebec to rest on its laurels. And that’s not only for moral or environmental reasons. It’s also because, as Équiterre’s Steven Guilbeault points out, the more ambitious the effort to cut emissions, the more efficient industry becomes. The economy can flourish.

If you doubt that, look at the graph. It shows that GDP, the best measure of economic growth, has risen since 1990 by 49 per cent while emissions from all sources declined by 1.6 per cent. Emissions from industry, a sub-category, are not on the graph, but they fell by a surprising 11 per cent.

Lesson: You can have your cake and eat it. Prosperity and emissions reduction are, contrary to what some business interests claim, compatible.