Citizens officially win fight to ban oil and gas development in Quebec [View all]

[Celerity]

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/04/14/news/citizens-officially-win-fight-ban-oil-and-gas-development-quebec



Quebec became the first jurisdiction in the world Tuesday to explicitly ban oil and gas development in its territory after decades of campaigning by environmental organizations and citizen groups. “Citizens rallied, citizens regrouped and actually won this fight because it was in their backyards … it would have had major impacts on their way of living on the territory,” Émile Boisseau-Bouvier, Équiterre’s climate policy analyst, told Canada’s National Observer.

The newly adopted law will end petroleum exploration and production as well as the public financing of those activities in Quebec. It passed only one week after the federal government approved a new oil project off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador despite a recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that found there is no place for new fossil fuel infrastructure in a climate-safe future.

For a jurisdiction within Canada — which is among the top five oil producers worldwide — to forgo the industry as part of its current and future economy immediately after the federal government indicated it will continue to pursue fossil fuel expansion “sends a really powerful signal,” said Caroline Brouillette, national policy manager for Climate Action Network Canada.

Last year, Quebec joined the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, a group of countries, provinces and states committed to ending new fossil fuel exploration. Membership also means jurisdictions must take action to phase out oil and gas by taking steps like ending fossil fuel subsidies. It is the first member of the alliance to pass legislation ending oil and gas exploration and production.


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