City lays down roadmap for a greener future
Achieving collective goals will require individual sacrifice and public buy-in
When Mayor Valérie Plante took centre stage at a United Nations climate summit in 2019, she pledged to reduce Montreal's greenhouse gas emissions by 55 per cent by 2030 and make the city carbon neutral by 2050.
Days later, a demonstration led by Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg brought half a million Montrealers to the streets for a historic march calling for climate action.
That moment of triumph and hope is a distant memory, these days. COVID-19 has taken a brutal toll on this city, harming the health of Montrealers and battering the economy.
But while we have been in turmoil, an even greater human catastrophe looms. A new UN report tracking countries' emissions and monitoring their climate commitments found this week that the dip in greenhouse gases during the pandemic's pause in economic activity was a temporary blip; the world is on track for a dangerous 3-degree rise in average temperatures. The only silver lining is that a green economic recovery could help slash emissions by 25 per cent with strategic and wise decisions by governments.
Montreal is not out of the woods when it comes to COVID-19. But with light at the end of the tunnel now that a vaccine has been approved, Plante on Thursday turned the city's attention to that other emergency: the climate crisis.
She presented Montreal's ecological transition plan for 20202030 — which she referred to as a roadmap to those ambitious promises she made at the UN. It was actually ready last spring, but it's been gathering dust on a shelf since the pandemic hit and her priorities shifted to containing COVID-19.
But it's not just Plante's baby anymore. It contains input from public consultations and a committee of experts from academia, civil society and business. The co-chairs of the advisory group speak to its broad base: they are Kim Thomassin, a vice-president at the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and Karel Mayrand, head of the Fondation du Grand-montréal, previously of the David Suzuki Foundation.
Montreal is taking its place alongside cities globally leading the charge against climate change. It's putting an environmental reflex into every decision made by every municipal department. It will have a carbon budget. It will keep and update an inventory of its emissions.
But reaching the targets will not depend upon the city's actions alone, like planting 500,000 trees or making its public buildings carbon neutral by 2040. Its success will require the buy-in of the general public to a large extent — which poses a major challenge.
Reducing the use of single-passenger cars by 25 per cent over the next decade will demand a shift in personal habits. The trend is going in the opposite direction.
Retrofitting non-public buildings big and small to reduce their energy use will necessitate investments from private individuals.
But that's what it will take. Transportation (including air and maritime travel) accounts for 40 per cent of Montreal's emissions, while residential, commercial and institutional structures are responsible for a combined 28 per cent.
Much will be made of a planned zero-emissions zone in downtown Montreal by 2030. Although the details have not been finalized, the implementation is 10 years away, Quebec
intends to outlaw the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035 anyhow and cities from Oslo to Oxford already have noor low-emissions areas, this is certain to be a litmus test of the public's acceptance.
It's worth noting that zero emissions does not mean zero vehicles. It would probably mean only electric-powered delivery trucks, cars and buses would be permitted within a certain perimeter. This will still be spun by Plante's opponents as a radical, anti-car move that is insensitive to merchants in the beleaguered, pandemic-ravaged downtown.
In fact, it seems like a cautious step given the long time horizon. And it's aligned with the green shift recently taken by the right-of-centre Coalition Avenir Québec government, which is focused on electrifying Quebec's economy.
This is a plan for the long term, for the future. The fact it has the backing of forward-thinking companies and presumably the critical mass who took to the streets with Thunberg, should give it some of the momentum it needs.
With the fifth anniversary of the Paris Accord approaching, COVID-19 and the climate march loom large over Montreal's blueprint for ecological transition. Both events mobilized Montrealers, though in very different ways.
If the protest provided motivation, there are lessons to be drawn from the pandemic for the long battle ahead. Mainly, it's the message that individual sacrifice will be required to reach a collective goal. And like with COVID-19, what other choice to we have?