Quebec’s Pyrrhic Climate Victory

For years, conservative politicians in Alberta have used Quebec as a punching bag for their populist pimping. Last week, just one day after Jason Kenney’s long-standing campaign against Quebec’s place in the federation culminated in an equalizing referendum, the punching bag finally responded.

In a speech delivered to the Quebec National Assembly, Prime Minister Francois Legault announced that “the government has decided to definitively renounce the extraction of hydrocarbons on its territory.” It’s hard not to see the timing of this announcement as a rebuke to Alberta’s equalization campaign and the anti-Quebec rhetoric with which it was so visibly marred.

Environmental activists quickly announced Legault’s decision to ban fossil fuel development in Quebec as a breakthrough in the fight against climate change.

Caroline Brouillette, National Climate Policy Director for the Climate Action Network of Canada, said it was “the result of YEARS of organization and a signal to other provinces, Canada and the rest of the world.” Catherine Abreu, founder and director of Destination Zero, also decided that the decision deserved an answer in capital letters. “This is HUGE,” he said. tweeted.

But is it really? Quebec, after all, has never produced significant volumes of oil or gas, and it has been clear for some time that it never will. Yes, they have reserves underground and could theoretically develop them, but Quebec has shown no inclination to do so so far. You have already indicated that you are prepared to go to court to defend against the claims of the owners of the oil and gas licenses you have granted, in a potential cost between $ 500 million and $ 3 billion. His promise to continue without producing oil and gas, then, is a bit like a lifelong vegetarian who publicly forgoes bacon.

My colleague Chris Hatch maintains that this is not the hamburger I’m making. “Quebec is making a stand here and leave money on the table, ”he writes. “Unlike British Columbia, the government has already rejected proposals for a liquefied natural gas industry.”

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But unlike in British Columbia, Quebec’s proposed LNG terminals would not ship gas produced in the same province. Instead, they would be exporting gas from western Canada, a substantial difference when we talk about leaving money on the table, given that the Quebec government would not benefit from royalty revenue the way BC’s does.

Hatch writes that “Quebec joins a growing list of governments avoiding the development of fossil fuels” and includes the names of Denmark, Spain, France, Greenland, Ireland, Belize and Costa Rica. But that list posted for less than 280,000 barrels per day of production in 2020, which is a rounding error in a rounding error in a global market of nearly 100 million barrels per day.

California, which Hatch also mentions, has proposed a ban on new oil drilling within 3,200 feet of schools, homes and hospitals, a decision that is sure to accelerate the decades-long decline in its oil production. But California will continue to produce oil for many years, despite the promises of Governor Gavin Newsom.

This does not suggest that these types of political commitments are of no value in the global fight against climate change. But it’s important to remember where that fight is taking place and how these performative ads could play out on that battlefield.

Andrew Leach, a University of Alberta professor who chaired his province’s Climate Change Advisory Panel in 2015-16, warned of the possible implications of Quebec’s announcement on his own province.

“With respect to climate change, we have spent three decades with commitments to almost go as usual framed as progress and used to shaming jurisdictions trying to make difficult decisions and / or framing their efforts as pointless or insufficient,” he said. tweeted. “It’s very frustrating”.

It is also dangerous.

The victory that climate activists are declaring in Quebec could easily turn out to be pyrrhic, given the obvious risk of pushback in Alberta, and potentially in Ottawa.

The biggest increase in weather has to happen in the West, and it takes a certain level of public support to make it happen. Handing an increasingly desperate populist prime minister a live political grenade is likely to result in a lot of unnecessary collateral damage, and no significant progress when it comes to the war on climate change.

This is where the prime minister has to step in. Legault clearly has no interest in protecting Canada’s national unity or promoting their shared climate goals, and Kenney is not far behind. Justin Trudeau, on the other hand, should have those two points at the top of his political agenda. And while both Legault and Kenney would happily set the country on fire if it helped them get re-elected in their own provinces, Trudeau has a responsibility to put out these kinds of fires.

So when it comes to the results of Alberta’s equalization referendum, which had 58 percent of the vote in favor of the government’s anti-equalization issue, the prime minister must act carefully. No, they don’t force him to capitulate to Alberta, and they certainly won’t give Kenney anything in the form of a lever. After all, less More than 25 percent of eligible Alberta citizens actually supported the government’s position, which is where the PCU is voting right now.

But if Trudeau wants to deliver on his climate plans and promises, he cannot allow Alberta to push with all his might in the other direction. That’s even more likely now that it has appointed Steven Guilbeault, a longtime Quebec ecologist, as its new minister for the environment and climate change.

That means you need to call the Kenney hoax here and hand over additional federal dollars to Alberta in areas where you probably don’t want to spend them. Maybe it’s more financial support to clean up abandoned wells, and maybe it’s funding dedicated to developing new low-carbon energy sources. Either way, by giving Alberta a cursory edge on tax reform and equalization, you can help avoid a much bigger loss to the climate.