Is it too Late to Rely on Carbon Neutrality to Fight Climate Change?

Montreal promised to reduce carbon emissions by 55% by 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2050. But some say it’s too late to fight climate change by balancing emissions. 

"We're still having the conversation of 'Can we mitigate warming', absolutely not," said Shannon Lloyd, an Associate Professor of Management at Concordia University.

"We cannot [tree] plant our way out of climate change, we're already in it, already made choices. We've already decided warming is ok," said Lloyd.

Lloyd said the consequences of a warming climate include deaths, flooding and droughts, stating that we're approaching ecological collapse.

"We can systematically take actions to mitigate warming. Panting trees are important," said Lloyd, adding that many other methods are important too.

Each Montrealer generates around 5.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, meaning Montreal emits just more than 969 thousand tonnes a year.  

Most of Montreal's carbon emissions are through transport, while a large amount of Canada’s emissions are contributed from both transport, as well as the oil and gas sector.

Lloyd says we have to readjust the way we live and consume instead of putting bandaid solutions on environmental catastrophe. 

"Electrification – we can electrify everything, but if we don't reduce energy consumption in Quebec, we're going to use more electricity and we're at a point where there's not a lot of hydro power," she said. 

Lloyd said many people clearly don't agree on what is sufficient in combatting climate change, adding that how we change the economic system depends on the answer to the question, what is sufficient enough to fight climate change?

"It's a wicked problem, that's what it is in the developed world, what are we willing to give up?" said Lloyd. "Much of the world doesn't live like we do. Coincidentally they're the ones who are going to suffer most."

Lloyd said mitigating warming will require technological innovation, changes in our economic system and how we live our lives.