Construction methods targeted as Quebec launches GHG reduction plan

Construction is one of the areas being targeted as Quebec prepares plans to reduced greenhouse gases by more 37.5 per cent below 1990 levels, by 2030.

The most recent available provincial government data shows that Quebec achieved its initial goal of reducing GHG emissions to 6 per cent below 1990 levels in 2012. Its next goal was to lower emissions to 20 per cent below 1990 levels, by 2020.

This is where the going gets tough, Premier Philippe Couillard told a Montreal crowd last week. “To go further now is going to be difficult, but we must do it.”

The target of 37.5 per cent is the most ambitious target in Canada. Ontario recently announced its target will be 37 per cent, while the federal government said it aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 14 per cent below 1990 levels by 2030.

Quebec’s Minister of the Environment, David Heurtel, said that construction, along with transportation, were the key sectors where they want to see emissions reduced.

Heurtel said “there is an urgency to act. Ninety per cent of the science clearly tells us that if we allow a two-degree warming we’ll face cataclysmic changes across the planet.”

The Quebec government has established an advisory committee on climate change and is a stakeholder in the government’s process of reflection on preparing the consultation. Its members include authorities in a number of fields such as the environment, the economy, energy, health, public transit, construction and municipal action. 

“This target is consistent with the urgent need to act in the face of climate change and with our will to develop Québec in sustainable and responsible ways. The work accomplished by the committee and its vital contribution to Québec’s thinking on our post-2020 targets are simply remarkable,” added Heurtel.

The advisory committee is co-chaired by Équiterre’s Steven Guilbeault and Hélène Lauzon from the Quebec Business Council on the Environment, the Advisory committee on climate change includes the following members: Karel Mayrand(Director General for Quebec, the David Suzuki Foundation); Philippe Bourke (Executive Director, Regroupement national des conseils régionaux de l’environnement); Suzanne Blanchet (CEO, Cascade Groupe Tissu); Bernard Sinclair-Desgagné (Tenured Professor, Chair of International Economy and Governance, HEC Montreal); Daniel Beauchamp (Executive Director, Association du transport urbain du Québec); Philippe Dunsky (President, Dunsky Energy Consulting); Marie-France Patoine, Environmental Policy Advisor, Union des municipalités du Québec); Denis Leclerc (CEO, Écotech); Christian Savard (Executive Director, Vivre en ville); Alain Webster (Vice-Rector, Sherbrooke University); François Reeves (Physician, Hôtel-Dieu hospital, Montréal); Robert Ladouceur (Executive Director, Canada Green Building Council) and Stéphanie Trudeau (Vice-President–Strategy, Communications and Sustainable Development, Gaz Métro).