2 April 2024

13:30 – 14:15

Amphi 1

Annie Levasseur

Annie Levasseur is a professor in the Department of Construction Engineering at École de technologie supérieure and holds the Canada Research Chair on Measuring the Impact of Human Activities on Climate Change. She is also Scientific Director of CERIEC, the Centre d’études et de recherches intersectorielles en économie circulaire, and of the AdapT Institute for the Circular and Climate-Resilient Built Environment. She is a member of the Advisory Committee on Climate Change of the Ministère de l’Environnement, de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques, de la Faune et des Parcs du Québec. A process engineer by training, she worked for eight years in the petrochemical industry before reorienting her career towards academia. In addition to her research on environmental impact modeling, she teaches life cycle analysis and the integration of environmental and sustainable development aspects into engineering projects.

Can the energy transition be based solely on conversion to renewable energies?

Fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas are responsible for almost 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The production and combustion of these energies also make a major contribution to other problematic issues for human health and ecosystems, such as air pollution and loss of biodiversity. This is why the energy transition in response to the current climate and environmental crisis necessarily involves conversion to renewable energies, but is this enough? Historical data shows that the increase in renewable energy consumption seen in recent years is unfortunately not leading to a reduction in fossil fuel consumption, as overall energy demand is constantly rising. What’s more, renewable energies also come with their share of environmental and socio-economic challenges. The energy transition must therefore be based primarily on strategies aimed at reducing demand in addition to conversion to renewable energies. Against this backdrop, it is imperative to consider the energy system as a whole when developing decarbonization trajectories.