Quebec releases $6.7B green economy plan
November 17, 2020 | By HPAC Magazine
The province will inject more than $550 million to reduce GHG emissions linked to heating residential, commercial and institutional buildings by 50%.
On Monday, Nov. 16th Québec Premier François Legault and the province’s Minister of the Environment, Benoit Charette, unveiled Québec’s 2030 Plan for a Green Economy along with its first implementation plan covering 2021-2026, backed by a budget of $6.7 billion over those five years.
The government is launching a major electrification push in the transportation industry, but also in the building heating and other industrial sectors.
The province will inject more than $550 million to reduce greenhouse gas emissions linked to heating residential, commercial and institutional buildings by 50%.
This target is to be achieved by what it calls ‘optimal complementarity’ between the electricity and gas networks and by the use of bioenergy, energy efficiency, and converting from fuel oil to electricity, as well as through the use of renewable natural gas and other renewable energy sources.
Energy efficiency is also a priority, as more than $307 million will be invested over the next five years through the EcoPerformance program which will see $113 million invested to support energy conversion and efficiency in commercial and institutional buildings. An additional $75 million are set aside to encourage heat recovery and re-use.
Internally, the government will be reducing its own carbon footprint, particularly through the sustainable management of its real estate holdings and vehicle fleet, including the objective of reducing emissions from its real estate holdings by 60% by 2030, compared to their 1990 levels—a target higher than the one set for Québec as a whole.
The majority of the funding, $3.6 billion, will be invested in transportation, including rebates to encourage the purchase of electric cars and charging stations and prohibiting the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles as of 2035.
