NEW – QC: Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in 2018 now published

On Dec. 21, 2020, the Ministry of Environment and the Fight against Climate Change (MELCC)  published the Québec Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in 2018 and their evolution since 1990 (in French only). For the year 2018, emissions decreased by 0.1% compared to 2017. Although the province of Québec did not succeed in reducing its GHG emissions significantly, the slight drop observed in 2018 marks a turnaround from the 2.6% increase registered between 2016 and 2017.

GHG emissions in the province went down by 6% between 1990 and 2018, a period during which Québec’s GDP went up by 71.3% and its population by 20.1%. 

Between 2017 and 2018, GHG emissions decreased in the industrial (-0.5%), residential, commercial, and institutional heating (-2.6%) and waste (-2.9%) sectors. In return, emissions rose in the transportation (0.8%), agriculture (0.8%) and electricity (9%) sectors.

Québec has the lowest per capita GHG emission rate in Canada, at 9.6 tons, while the Canadian average is 19.7 tons. Additionally, it is one of the five provinces and territories in Canada that saw a drop in its emissions from 1990 to 2018.

This decrease from 1990 is mainly due to the industrial and residential, commercial, and institutional heating sectors, as well as the waste sector. On the other hand, the transportation sector saw a 33.3% increase in emissions during this period.

Unsurprisingly, the inventory indicates that the majority of Québec’s emissions are generated by transportation. This sector, across all categories, accounts for 44.8% of total GHG emissions. Road transportation alone (e.g., cars and light-duty trucks) produced 79.6% of the sector's emissions or 35.6% of Québec's total GHG emissions.

Highlights:

• The inventory of GHG emissions is published annually by the MELCC. It is established from data collected from businesses and institutions, in addition to being based on data obtained mainly from Statistics Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) and various Québec ministries and agencies. Data availability, processing and preparation mean that there is a two-year period between the publication of an inventory and the year it covers.
• The ministry reviews the data each year to include, among other things, statistical data that was not available at the time of compilation of the previous edition. Thus, emissions are recalculated for the entire period for each new edition, which allows the results to be as close as possible to reality.
• Updating some of the data used in the calculation of Québec’s GHG emissions, particularly those from Statistics Canada, has revealed that the drop in emissions between 1990 and 2017 is lower than what had been stated in last year's results. In fact, a 2.6% increase in GHG emissions in 2017 compared to 2016 is now being observed, one of the largest increases observed over time. However, according to the best available estimate, the 1990-2018 inventory indicates that this situation stabilized the following year (-0.1%), despite the economic and demographic growth, which exerts pressure and contributes to increasing GHG emissions. In general, these updates do not affect major trends observed in GHG emission variations over time.