Quebec’s economic future is not at stake in the postponement of climate targets.
It is built in action – now, together, and with ambition.
By: Anne-Josée Laquerre, Executive Director and co-initiator of QNP (Québec Net Positif)
The postponement of greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets by the Quebec government is not an act of economic prudence. Rather, it represents a transfer of risk to businesses, regions, communities and future generations.
This decision also moves away from the clear orientations of the Advisory Committee on Climate Change, which recommends maintaining – or even increasing – Québec’s climate ambition in order to remain on a trajectory compatible with the objectives of the Paris Agreement.
A crisis management economy is not an economy of prosperity
According to QNP’s most recent Business Transition Barometer, one in two companies in Quebec has been directly affected by climate change over the past year. The impacts are already tangible: health and safety issues for staff and customers, repairs after disasters, business interruptions, supply disruptions, and increased insurance premiums. Substantial costs, often unforeseen. Real impacts that are the result of decades of past emissions and are now a business reality that companies must deal with.
Decarbonization decisions made today will not eliminate these hazards in the short term, but they are essential to avoid even more severe and costly impacts in the future. Relying on GDP growth to justify postponing climate targets is an incomplete reading of economic performance. In fact, the spending generated by the impacts of climate change contributes to GDP growth. However, a crisis-management economy diverts capital away from productive investment, erodes productivity, squeezes margins, and weakens the competitiveness of firms. Ultimately, an increasing share of wealth is mobilized to repair damage rather than to create sustainable value.
Maintaining — and raising — decarbonization targets is a clear signal that directs investment towards innovation and capital towards structuring assets and resilience, with direct spillovers to sustainable value creation and quality employment.
The real risk for companies: unpredictability
For companies, climate ambition is not the problem. Unpredictability is.
Regulatory uncertainty dampens investment, delays policy decisions, and hurts competitiveness. Postponing targets and moving away from a science-based trajectory fuels precisely this unpredictability – at the very moment when companies need clear alignment to plan, invest and position themselves in new markets of the future.
Given the magnitude of the challenge and the accumulated delay, accepting a five-year delay in the targets, without a concrete action plan or credible incentives to achieve it, is tantamount to a renunciation, not a strategic choice.
Business Leadership and Competitiveness
Adapting to climate change is now a key factor for all companies, whether they operate in local or international markets, as a lever for competitiveness and sustainability.
Access to international markets will increasingly depend on the ability of Quebec companies to comply with rapidly evolving climate frameworks. Temporary political fluctuations do not call into question the underlying trajectory of the world’s major economies. The European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea – and increasingly China and Brazil – are maintaining or strengthening their decarbonisation requirements.
In this context, the argument that Quebec is “the best in North America” in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per capita is insufficient, even misleading. The relevant benchmark is not the North American average, but the level of requirement of the markets where value creation will be played out over the coming decades.
The carbon footprint of a product becomes a real commercial calling card. It can open up access to promising markets, or conversely, exclude a company from them. Competitiveness is no longer only about costs and quality, but also about the climate resilience of value chains.
I would like to recognize the business leaders, executives and organizations who are speaking out to remind us of the economic obvious: Postponing climate action increases costs and weakens competitiveness. This does not protect the economy or employment.
These positions are not activism. They are part of economic leadership.
As a business leader, the equation is increasingly clear: it pays to invest in innovation, productivity and carbon footprint reduction at the same time. Among committed and visionary companies, technological choices are now guided by this dual imperative of economic and climate performance. A reduction in Quebec’s targets does not change this business reasoning – rather, it creates a gap between the companies that are projecting themselves into the markets of tomorrow and the collective framework that is supposed to support them.
Turning political backsliding into a strong economic signal
The postponement of government targets must not become a stopping point. It can – and must – become a clear signal to the business ecosystem, that of a Quebec that chooses to:
- Collaborate, not fragment
- Investing in productivity and resilience, not crisis management
- Innovate and stand out, rather than suffer and improvise
At QNP, we believe that climate transformation is first and foremost a collective economic project, rooted in value creation, quality employment, the resilience of territories and the creation of collective wealth in the long term.
Successful economies are those that send clear, credible, and predictable signals. Maintaining – and raising – climate targets is not a cost to be absorbed: it is a strategic lever to guide investment, strengthen competitiveness and build sustainable prosperity.
Quebec’s economic future is not at stake in the postponement of climate targets. It is built in action – now, together, and with ambition.